The Curiosity On Mars Thread.

Cú Giobach

LOL The Blue Shirts.

shedweller

He's a good speaker alright

Mountainsandh

he's so hollywoodian, elvis-y like isn't he ? brings a bit of glamour into it (for us ladies)

Jawgap

Mountainsandh wrote: »

he's so hollywoodian, elvis-y like isn't he ? brings a bit of glamour into it (for us ladies)

It's the ear-rings!:D

He doesn't look geeky - he looks like he should be in a sitcom

BobPresto

It's weird watching all these 'Mericans speaking and not 1 mention of God....

Jawgap

Go Leo!!

Fair play to RTE for getting him there - they didn't blow the budget on the Olympics

zenno

Mountainsandh wrote: »

he's so hollywoodian, elvis-y like isn't he ? brings a bit of glamour into it (for us ladies)

I find it worrying that michael madson (elvis) couldn't answer any technical questions, he seemed more interested in making the people laugh than taking peoples questions serious. Not one proper answer did he give and also he seemed like a person that was not a part of the team ?. With his unusual speaking he seemed lost with no technical insight into any of this. I just found that strange for a guy that holds some calibre.

Calibos

I stayed up for the Mars Polar Lander a few years ago so I already knew how exciting and nailbiting these events can be.

I set my Alarm last night

My Alarm went off at 6:10am

WTF, Why did my alarm go off, sure I'm not working today!!

I knocked the alarm off and rolled over and went back to sleep









Damn you sleepy stupid stupid brain !!!!

Calibos

Glad to hear it landed safely

Jawgap

In fairness to him, he was in charge of the EDL stage and the questions he couldn't answer related to other areas such as imagery.

They should've asked him how he got interested in space & engineering - according to his bio it's much more interesting than the typical answer relating to the Gemini, Apollo or STS missions......

"I was playing rock and roll in the San Francisco bay area and noticed that the stars changed positions between the start of a gig and the drive home. I had never been much of a student in high school, so I decided to take an astronomy course at the local community college...and fell in love with the idea that I lived in a knowable universe. I decided to go forward and learn all that I could about this universe that I had just discovered.

"A decade later, (I) had a Ph.D. and was working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, exploring and expanding the edges of our human knowledge. Pretty cool!"

Community college -> JPL...........as they say "only in America!":)

muskyj

zenno wrote: »

I find it worrying that michael madson (elvis) couldn't answer any technical questions, he seemed more interested in making the people laugh than taking peoples questions serious. Not one proper answer did he give and also he seemed like a person that was not a part of the team ?. With his unusual speaking he seemed lost with no technical insight into any of this. I just found that strange for a guy that holds some calibre.

to be fair there probably isn't alot of solid data available yet and like all team leaders he wouldn't have the fine details on the different aspects of the project, there are other people paid to know that. having said that some of his answers in general weren't great.

Cú Giobach

Calibos wrote: »

I knocked the alarm off and rolled over and went back to sleep
Damn you sleepy stupid stupid brain !!!!

Unlucky one Calibos, I went back to sleep after my alarm at 5:00, but a fox started barking just outside my house at about 6:10 and drove my dogs crazy, thanks Mr/Ms Fox. (what a fooking unreal sound).

osnola ibax

Just watched the footage there on you tube. "Americas leadership will make the world a better place", bit cringy.

Amazing stuff though, i just watched the computer graphic on how it was landing. For some reason, i thought it was that big cube of balloons thing that bounces along. But this is way cooler, straight from a sci fi movie.

And yet there may be civilisations that would laugh at our technologies. That always freaks me out. Look at those humans, with their parachutes and propulsion systems. For gods sake will someone show them the star child.

Logical_Bear

Trine wrote: »

Great first pic, almost as if the rover took a picture of itself to say "I'm here".

MISSION CONTROL: pics or gtfo
ROVER:here ye go

Mountainsandh

data coming in ?

Cú Giobach

I was just thinking it's great to see these picks so fast, and I'm sure most people here are quite excited about them, but can you imagine the reaction over in AH or in the pub of people enjoying tiny black & white thumbnail picks of wheels and pebbles.

Jawgap

Hopefully they can get those lens caps off!

Jawgap

Mountainsandh wrote: »

data coming in ?

Two photos downloaded - they'll get more on Odyssey's next pass

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/673528main_PIA15971_full.jpg

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/673474main_msl-3_full.jpg

these are from the hazard avoidance cameras - hence the quality and size aren't brilliant - they'll get the good stuff when they deploy the high-def camera in a few days.

Mountainsandh

can't wait, these should be in colour too ?

anyone has a link to whereabouts the landing ellipse is, and where they think the rover actually landed ?

I was looking at map of Mars, so have a general idea, and then was looking at pics of the ellipse, but either too far or too near...

Jawgap

Mountainsandh wrote: »

can't wait, these should be in colour too ?

anyone has a link to whereabouts the landing ellipse is, and where they think the rover actually landed ?

I was looking at map of Mars, so have a general idea, and then was looking at pics of the ellipse, but either too far or too near...

http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=-5.878332&lon=151.787109&zoom=5&q=gale crater

I think the landing area was at the 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock position as you look at the crater.

Mountainsandh

Thanks Jawgap, was just looking at that, and finally got my bearings with this http://www.spxdaily.com/images-lg/color-coding-gale-crater-mars-lg.jpg

Jawgap

If you have Google Earth - switch to Mars and search for Gale crater - it gives a good idea of terrain etc and previous imagery from the site is collated there.

Skyknight

Jawgap wrote: »

http://www.google.com/mars/#lat=-5.878332&lon=151.787109&zoom=5&q=gale crater

I think the landing area was at the 10 o'clock to 11 o'clock position as you look at the crater.

Cheers Jawgap,
I thought I heard the coordinates mentioned over the loop just after confirmation of the landing, and was waiting for some sort of confirmation of the location.

namloc1980

Mountains over to the right?

djhaxman

Totally forgot about this this morning.

Looking forward to seeing good science from Curiosity now.

Doom

namloc1980 wrote: »

Mountains over to the right?

That must be the 3mile high mountain at the centre of the creator or maybe the edge of it.

From Guardian website;
Over the next 98 weeks – or one Martian year – the six-wheeled vehicle will trundle around the ancient Gale crater and scale its central mound, the three mile-high Mount Sharp

namloc1980

Apparently MRO captured an image of Curiosity during EDL and the image will be released later.

Doom

Great to see technology used the right way, imagine what they could do if they stopped spending the money on wars, well done NASA and JPL

smokingman

Nuke it from orbit....only way to be sure!

From the Oatmeal...

vonbarracuda

Jawgap wrote: »

If you have Google Earth - switch to Mars and search for Gale crater - it gives a good idea of terrain etc and previous imagery from the site is collated there.

Can I do this on the iPhone?