Curiosity rover touches down on Mars
The first image sent back to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory from the Mars rover Curiosity after it touched down on the Martian surface, Aug. 6, 2012. / NASA
(CBS/AP) PASADENA, Calif. - Dutifully executing its complex flight control software, the Mars Science Laboratory silently raced toward its target Sunday, picking up speed as it closed in for a 13,200-mph plunge into the Red Planet's atmosphere and an action-packed seven-minute descent required a rocket-powered "sky crane" to lower the one-ton nuclear-powered rover to the surface. It went off without a hitch.
"We are wheels-down on Mars," came the news from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) as engineers saw the first grainy image beamed directly back from the rover - showing one of its wheels on the Martian surface.CBS News space consultant William Harwood reports from JPL in California that the rover's target was Gale Crater and the goal was a pinpoint landing near the base of a three-mile-high mound of layered rock that represents hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of years of Martian history, a frozen record of the planet's changing environment and evolution.
Exploring the crater floor and climbing Mount Sharp over the next two years, the Curiosity rover will look for signs of past or present habitability and search for carbon compounds, the building blocks of life as it is known on Earth, explains Harwood.
But first, the rover had to get there and its entry, descent, and landing represented the most challenging robotic descent to the surface of another world ever attempted, a tightly choreographed sequence of autonomously executed events with little margin for error.
Complete coverage of Curiosity from William Harwood at CBS News Space
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"We're about to land a rover that is 10 times heavier than (earlier rovers) with 15 times the payload," Doug McCuistion, director of Mars exploration at NASA Headquarters, told reporters in the hours before touchdown. "Tonight's the Super Bowl of planetary exploration, one yard line, one play left. We score and win, or we don't score and we don't win.
With just 90 seconds to expected entry into the Martian atmosphere, engineers at JPL reported all data showing a flawless descent. The massive parachute deployed correctly, leading to cheers from the control room.
But the room erupted into unbridled joy as confirmation came - first in the form of simple data signals, and then with the first photo showing that the rover had safely settled into the Martian dust.
"We are the only country that has ever done anything like this," boasted John Holdren, the senior advisor to President Obama on science and technology issues, who was in the JPL control room as Curiosity touched down. "Many new technologies had to work in perfect synchronization."
Even Holdren's boss chimed in. In a statement released minutes after the successful landing was confirmed, President Obama said it represented, "an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future."
Mr. Obama said the Curiosity landing, "parallels our major steps forward towards a vision for a new partnership with American companies to send American astronauts into space on American spacecraft. That partnership will save taxpayer dollars while allowing NASA to do what it has always done best - push the very boundaries of human knowledge. And tonight's success reminds us that our preeminence - not just in space, but here on Earth - depends on continuing to invest wisely in the innovation, technology, and basic research that has always made our economy the envy of the world."
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They already know it is too inhospitable to ever have life on Mars.
More on this subject in my upcoming book:
The Sixth Sense Activation Sequence
Steve Meyer / HolisticDNA
Even as a Yank, that hubris rubs me the wrong way.
The pieces of the gadget itself were built by scientists around the world and I'd wager half of the folks in the control center were either born or educated overseas.
As Michio Kaku remarked, American education is such a mess that we're regularly ranked with third world countries.
Nothing wrong with taking national pride in such a grand achievement as this.
The British and Europeans failed in their attempts at landing on Mars.
I'll agree the public education system sucks but foreigners still come to the US for higher education.
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is that why most of these high level scientists come to the us for their post-graduate studies and work?
why aren't they going to graduate school in third world countries ... or taking research positions in third world countries?
And let Jimi take over
Yeah, you know what I'm talking 'bout
Yeah, get on with it, baby
That's what I'm talking 'bout
Now dig this!
Ha!
Now listen, baby"
(c) 1967 Jimi Hendrix
But you lost me completely with your sentence below (presumably to omnibus66):
"It is the leftists that have no vision and can't see the future. So you may want to become more open minded but I doubt from you comment you will."
It is the "leftists" who will insure we even HAVE a future let alone one than can be seen.....
2.This mission cost each American $7.00. How is that going to solve the issues you feel are more important.
3. Finding life on another planet would shed the shackles of man made religion on this planet and truly let the human spirit shine and take over our future.
You may be happy living in a nice safe cave, but others need to get out and explore so we can preserve our species.
There you go jwilson; it's no longer a mystery.