Mars Curiosity Rover... to land 10:31 pm 8/5/2012

[Trekker4747]

Curiosity sends back its first color image:

Resized image;




It's blurry because a lenscap is still on the camera that has yet to be removed.

[Mr Silver]

As I said in the misc thread, that looks like Ceti Alpha V.

[J. Allen]

Admiral M wrote:

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As I said in the misc thread, that looks like Ceti Alpha V.

THIS IS CETI ALPHA V!

[Mr Silver]

^

In a few days the Rover will either send back images of two suspicious looking men in spacesuits approaching a cargo container or a man who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, gasping for breath with his eyeballs bulging from their sockets.

[JanewayRulz!]

^ ^ Botany Bay? BOTANY BAY!

I love the hyperbole... "science is cool again".

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/07/opinio...html?hpt=hp_c1

[sojourner]

That's one thing that got me with the cheering in mission control on this one. Usually the NASA image is the cool and calm "steely-eyed missile man" reaction to a success. I can't help but think that after seeing how much good press the SpaceX control room got from it's cheering video back in June that someone in NASA put a memo out saying "OK guys, dress casual and CHEER if it goes well".

[Psion]

Hmmm ... that's funny, Sojourner, I seem to recall quite a bit of cheering in Mission Control for the Apollo missions and Viking landings. But that might be a botched recollection on my part. I definitely don't remember any conga lines like these guys were practically doing before the 2:30 am press conference, though!

But, to be fair, it was 2:30 a.m. and I bet half of them had been thinking two hours earlier, "This'll never work!"

[Trekker4747]

I remember quite the cheering when Sojourner landed as well. With it it was a unique craft they were landing on Mars with a even more unique method (drop it and hope these airbags prevent things from breaking.) With Spirit and Opportunity there was some measure of assurance things would work as there wasn't anything too unique or risky about what they were trying after success of Sojourner.

Here with Curiosity... Well, given how complicated the "landing" process was with everything needing to work and needing to pretty much work perfectly, yeah, it was quite the accomplishment when everything worked perfectly.

[YellowSubmarine]

sojourner wrote:

---

That's one thing that got me with the cheering in mission control on this one. Usually the NASA image is the cool and calm "steely-eyed missile man" reaction to a success. I can't help but think that after seeing how much good press the SpaceX control room got from it's cheering video back in June that someone in NASA put a memo out saying "OK guys, dress casual and CHEER if it goes well".

Yeah, it's very uncharacteristic of them. I think they were trying to imitate these guys, though.

[Dream]

Am I the only one hoping a giant humanish shadow picks up Curiosity and crushes it, while it records the whole thing on camera? Is that too Michael Bayish?

[YellowSubmarine]

It could be cool, but since it probably wouldn't be able to transmit the images back after it has been destroyed, all we'll get is a mysterious lost signal with no explanation.

Which means there will be tons of food for conspiracy theorists should the rover die early. I hope they don't waste such opportunity like they did with the creature that was cleaning the solar panels of the other rovers!

[gturner]

I'm amazed that a rover on Mars has a Twitter feed.

https://twitter.com/sarcasticrover

ETA: SarcasticRover‏@SarcasticRover
I have to say, I've been in worse craters… oh wait… Pasadena's a city? LOL JK JPL FTW! Go Beavers!

[Trekker4747]

LINK

Curiosity's first full-res images from the mast camera.

[RevDMV]

Great image, too bad it's Planet Mojave....

[M'Sharak]

Left navcam, right navcam, and both combined in red/blue anaglyph:

http://www.nivnac.co.uk/mer/index.php/msl0002