Compelled by curiosity
Wonderful news and a fabulous achievement!
I’m writing this as 5.40 am on the 6th. I let our ‘bedroom’ dogs out for their early-morning pee some 20 minutes ago and then jumped back in bed, turned on my Kindle and went to the BBC News website. There I read,
Nasa’s Curiosity rover successfully lands on Mars
The US space agency has just landed a huge new robot rover on Mars.
The one-tonne vehicle, known as Curiosity, was reported to have landed in a deep crater near the planet’s equator at 06:32 BST (05:32 GMT).
It will now embark on a mission of at least two years to look for evidence that Mars may once have supported life.
A signal confirming the rover was on the ground safely was relayed to Earth via Nasa’s Odyssey satellite, which is in orbit around the Red Planet.
The success was greeted with a roar of approval here at mission control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
As David Shukman, Science Editor of the BBC, wrote,
The day I watched Curiosity being built in a clean room at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena last year, the rover’s six wheels were lying on one work bench while the chassis stood on another and it was hard to believe the white-suited engineers could make sense of the maze of tubes and cabling.
But what they’ve created now stands on the red soil of Mars – and it’s in one piece. In the hallway of a JPL building we were shown a full-size replica. Walking around it made me realise something difficult to grasp from the pictures and video: this is a beast of a machine, a kind of cosmic Humvee with instruments instead of weapons.
Sometimes Nasa public relations can appear bragging. Today it feels justified. Curiosity is all set to discover something remarkable about our strangest neighbour.
Well said and people from all around the world will echo those sentiments.
When I read what Patrice wrote in my Setting the scene post not so many hours ago,
Well, OK, keeping my fingers, and even my arms, crossed here. Seems to me the “sky crane” is over-complex, and I was not reassured when one of the physicist-engineers boasted that they had run the landing millions of time on simulator. Yeap, OK, how many times for real in Earth’s gravity?
I don’t see why they could not have landed normally, LEM style. Especially as they have wheels and could have rolled away to find undistrubed land.
There are no back-ups…
OK, let’s hope I’m wrong to be suspicious…
PA
I instinctively agreed and hoped his worries were misplaced. They were! The Curiosity rover is down! Good luck to the Rover and all those who made it possible. Well done, the team!
Paul Handover
It turns out that the two major experiments on Curiosity are… French. Thus an essay of mine, just published, where I propose further, rather drastic Franco-American collaboration… On: http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Patrice Ayme
August 6, 2012 at 06:07
What a fascinating essay that is!
Paul Handover
August 6, 2012 at 07:44
You are too generous, Paul! But thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Patrice Ayme
August 6, 2012 at 10:59
[...] the large “Curiosity” rover landed on Mars in one piece after a silly “sky crane” trick. Actually, the sky crane is not that silly; it was only [...]
Curiosity, Lightning, Rafale « Some of Patrice Ayme’s Thoughts
August 6, 2012 at 06:10
I can’t wait to see what they find
diannegray
August 6, 2012 at 06:15
Here, here!
Paul Handover
August 6, 2012 at 07:43
Yes, it is a wonderful achievement and it will be fascinating to learn more as they make more discoveries.
starproms
August 6, 2012 at 09:07
Yes, assuming there are no technical glitches with the rover, this is the start of a fascinating couple of years. Hope it distracts us from more depressing news here on Earth!
Paul Handover
August 6, 2012 at 09:21
It’s nuclear powered, what could go wrong?
! They had enough of that solar panel gimmickry, and needed some real juice!
Patrice Ayme
August 6, 2012 at 11:01
Nothing possibly could go rong, wong, wron, grong,…….
Paul Handover
August 6, 2012 at 16:55
I have only seen one programme about the Mission so far; and I forgot to get up early to watch it live on TV. However, I hope the BBC will eventually do a Horizon Special on it – or something similar.
It is really sad to say this but, in the not-too-distant-future, I suspect it will become necessary to terraform Mars… In other words, we will have find a way to pump CO2 into the Martian atmosphere in order to make the planet suitable for human habitation… The Curiosity mission is therefore the first step towards making that a possibility.
Martin Lack
August 6, 2012 at 11:53
You are jesting, aren’t you?
Paul Handover
August 6, 2012 at 16:53
No I am not. In order for humans to go and live on Mars (when they can no longer live here), we need to find ice beneath the surface; put CO2 into the atmosphere; grow plants to generate oxygen; and block UV radiation with ozone. Why else would NASA be spending so much money on this – the Cold War is over!
Martin Lack
August 7, 2012 at 01:42
Nothing wrong with Mars invasion, even if Earth is doing well. That is why the French, those great colinizers, I mean civilizationizers, will soon start to go around Mars, zapping rocks… there is plenty of ice, BTW; the ice caps are a mix of water and CO2 ice…
Patrice Ayme
August 7, 2012 at 19:17
Great Post Paul.. and amazing Science..
Sue Dreamwalker
August 9, 2012 at 12:30
Thanks Sue.
Paul Handover
August 9, 2012 at 16:41