NASA launches super-size Mars rover to red planet (Update)

Another succesfull launch by the Atlas V rocket. Cant wait for crewed launches.

Go, Curiosity!

KUDOS to NASA for successful launch !!

See you in next August :)

No actual life detectors are on board; rather, the instruments will hunt for organic compounds.

What??? It's not Star Trek? "Captain... I detect two life forms on the surface"

Curiosity's 7-foot arm has a jackhammer on the end to drill into the Martian red rock, and the 7-foot mast on the rover is topped with high-definition and laser cameras.

Jackhammers that drill and laser cameras? WOW this thing really is advanced!! (SARC... I'm laying it on pretty thick here)

jet pack and tether system similar to the sky cranes used to lower heavy equipment into remote areas on Earth.

Say what? Where has this ever been done on earth to lower heavy equipment? I'm sure the author must be referring to a helicopter or the DHC-6 but I've never seen one with a jet pack....

...

Gale Crater, chosen as the landing site because it's rich in minerals.

Minerals? Geeez come on!

Who writes this? This is pretty sad 'reporting' especially for a science news site...

The NASA has already determined, from past rover missions, that Mars has minerals and frozen water on her surface. But you must remember that NASA is also all about acquiring as much funding as possible each year for future missions. . . .so that they will do as little as possible with each Mars mission in order to keep that money coming. Curiosity is state of the art NOW, but wait until the NEXT rover is built.
I called one of the scientists at NASA and suggested that they put a "motion sensor" on one of the color video cameras to detect any movement of life on Mars. He answered that they will have 2 color video cameras on Curiosity and that is the plan. I argued that what if something is ALIVE on Mars and is moving in the vicinity of the rover. He said that the rover is not equipped to detect life, but only geology and possible microbes. Geology encompasses many things including minerals, water, gases, etc. but I didn't argue further and he didn't volunteer any more info.

Congratulations, Curiosity, for making it off the launch pad. The anti-nukes dills are foaming! You'd just made my day.

Lets hope it doesn't get stuck in orbit incommunicado like the Russian mission.It will be a nail-biter when it comes time to touch down on Mars.

If I recall correctly, Pirouette believes there are transparent ruminant-like animals living on the surface of Mars (and here my speculation of his thought processes begins), NASA is aware of these animals and is purposefully denying their existence as evidenced by the lack of instruments to detect them. I guess we should also have a ghost detector of some sort on the rover as well...

Please take all of his opinions with a grain of salt.

If I recall correctly, Pirouette believes there are transparent ruminant-like animals living on the surface of Mars

Hey,Frank,we still enjoy freedom of religion in this country,lol!

Best news of the year! "The reason the dinosaurs went extinct is because they did not have a space programe"- Larry Niven :D

http://www.nasa.g...eam.html

LOL Newbeak. . .as you may recall, I NEVER said transparent life forms. I DID say 'SEMI-TRANSPARENT" life forms. They are NOT ruminants like bull-$hit artist FrankHerbert says. FrankHerbert has been known to lie about what others say that he disagrees with for the sake of spreading lies. He is of the old school for denouncing progressive thought and hard evidence. . . .only because HE is NOT the one to find it first. He is a jealous freak who cannot stand to see others excel in their chosen field. Thus, he didn't come to this thread to praise NASA and the MSL mission, but to BASH others. FrankHerbert and his many alter egos roam through Physorg seeking the ruin of personalities to make himself feel better about himself.

Anyway. . . .Hi Newbeak. . . .good to see you here. Today is a great day for NASA and us. Congrats to all the scientists, engineers, technicians and everyone who participated in making this dream happen. I am sure that all will go well and that Curiosity will be let down gently onto the Mars surface and will do as she's commanded.

I got to see the launch first-hand, gorgeous day, gorgeous launch.

I called one of the scientists at NASA and suggested that they put a "motion sensor" on one of the color video cameras to detect any movement of life on Mars.

At tens of thousands of dollars per gram of delivered payload, there is a rigorous review process to get instruments on-board. Since the odds that your 'motion detector' would detect anything is about as close to zero as it is possible to get, I am glad that instruments that actually collect valuable data was sent instead.

NASA has the correct approach to Mars exploration. Taking baby steps with rovers, building up experience. These missions are cool. They get more complicated each time. This one is REALLY complicated and I expect we'll see some really cool stuff from it. If this mission is a success, it will add many new tricks to NASA's toolbox when it comes to extraterrestrial exploration. Being able to gently land a "car" onto a planet's surface without using the atmosphere for breaking will go a long way to make landings easier on other planets!

It would seem NASA could find a couple of tools in this thread for their box.

I stil don't understand why they didn't install a microscope.

The touch down... now THAT is something to be concerned about with this mission, quite amazing the method being used!

Just a thought.
Imagine yourself as a (white) mouse on mars. Along comes this rocket ship, which transforms into a giant ugly machine with huge appendages. From near its head, out shoots a death ray. Sounds like theres a story in it.

It's amazing how NASA can't successfully launch a mission to Mars but Russia still can't.

I stil don't understand why they didn't install a microscope.

http://www.nasa.g...dex.html

http://www.nasa.g...257.html

http://www.nasa.g...er1.html
The only instruments I see in this list and illustration that are even remotely similar to a microscope is the MAHLI and SAM. Not even certain of either.
The NASA is only concerned with Mars weather and water-bearing minerals, geology, on this mission, sad to say

It's amazing how NASA can't successfully launch a mission to Mars but Russia still can't.

There is a Russian-made science instrument aboard Curiosity. Could be that Russian scientists have more faith in American technology to deliver the goods, than in their own.
lol. . . .I'm sure they were patting each other's backs and doing high 5's at Balkanur on Saturday. :)

WOW, lol it's early in the morning for me. I meant NASA CAN launch a successful mission to mars. Not CAN'T.

WOW, lol it's early in the morning for me. I meant NASA CAN launch a successful mission to mars. Not CAN'T.

LOL. . . .most of us make allowances for TYPOs, Cap. It's OK.

I called one of the scientists at NASA and... I argued that what if something is ALIVE on Mars and is moving in the vicinity of the rover. He said that the rover is not equipped to detect life, but only geology and possible microbes. Geology encompasses many things including minerals, water, gases, etc. but I didn't argue further and he didn't volunteer any more info.

I'm thinking he was probably preoccupied wondering if he gets paid enough to have to take phonecalls from dweebs and nutcases, and what he could do to get his number unlisted? By the way mars the god of war was a 'he'.
http://www.wordso...ars.html

-By the way your superficial attempts at bonding are cloying:

LOL. . . .most of us make allowances for TYPOs, Cap. It's OK.

-The way to make friends (and enemies) is to refrain from posting nonsense and stories about glassy-headed aliens and butterbeans and commenting on things you know nothing about and cant be bothered to research etc.

Another succesfull launch by the Atlas V rocket. Cant wait for crewed launches.

Go, Curiosity!

Have to agree here. Man-rating the Atlas V would be a much faster, safer, cheaper way of shipping people to the ISS than the current NASA boondoggle.

I got to see the launch first-hand, gorgeous day, gorgeous launch.

Very sweet! Something I've always had on my "to-do" list and haven't gotten around too yet. I'm envious!

We should wait for successful landing for not to be too disappointed later. The landing is much more risky operation than the launch and we did lost many devices during this already.

Dis wud B terrible when we ruin D red planet! Dis probe B sent dere to terraform D beautiful planet into a wasteland like we B livin on. Drillin and lasering it to oblivion with its "cameras" and such. And then polluting it wif radioation N such, dis B a sad day, we B needin to focus on muda earf, not dis planet.

Word-2-Ya-Brudda

Dis wud B terrible when we ruin D red planet! Dis probe B sent dere to terraform D beautiful planet into a wasteland like we B livin on. Drillin and lasering it to oblivion with its "cameras" and such. And then polluting it wif radioation N such, dis B a sad day, we B needin to focus on muda earf, not dis planet.

Word-2-Ya-Brudda

LOL. . . .very funny 350. . . . .some of us here are hoping that GhostofOtto will take up the NASA invitation to join their astronaut program so that he can be the first to land on Mars and see all the semi-transparent life forms that live there for himself. . .up close and personal. Like the saying goes: "Experience is the best teacher"
:))

Dis wud B terrible when we ruin D red planet! Dis probe B sent dere to terraform D beautiful planet into a wasteland like we B livin on. Drillin and lasering it to oblivion with its "cameras" and such. And then polluting it wif radioation N such, dis B a sad day, we B needin to focus on muda earf, not dis planet.

Word-2-Ya-Brudda

LOL. . . .very funny 350. . . . .some of us here are hoping that GhostofOtto will take up the NASA invitation to join their astronaut program so that he can be the first to land on Mars and see all the semi-transparent life forms that live there for himself. . .up close and personal. Like the saying goes: "Experience is the best teacher"
:))

...and also commenting on why 'clean' oil sands are so much more preferable than the icky oily stuff. Which somehow got contaminated by accident I guess.

What else ya got dwee- er, piro?

Pirouette, I guess you don't realize "semi-transparent" is a redundant term. Transparent would be "semi-invisible" so semi-transparent would mean "semi-semi-invisible".

I look forward to your flailing attempts at claiming I've misquoted you!

Ghost. . . .are you FrankHerbfart by a different name? Are you his evil twin? Your personality might be melding with his through electronic neuronal transfer. . .LOL
AND what's wrong with cleaning oil from sand? You seem to take issue with the word "clean" and have become obsessed with it. Did you have issues with BP cleaning up globs of oil from the Gulf states' sandy beaches? Did you take issue with Obama demanding that BP "clean" the oil from the bottom of the Gulf and cap the hole where the oil was pouring out of? Were you demanding that the government put a stop to people picking up oily seagulls and other shore birds and then "cleaning" the oil from their feathers? You are nit-picking again. And I used to think you were intelligent.

@FrankHerbfart. . . .when I said "semi-transparent", I meant "semi-transparent". Jellyfish are "semi-transparent" as are certain other sea creatures because they are "see-through", and yet solid. Got it?
And yes, you ALWAYS misquote me and you always seem to have trouble comprehending my comments. Go back to school and take a course in remedial reading comprehension. It will do you good.

Actually they are not semi-transparent. They are just transparent. You don't seem to understand the term.

Also where have I misquoted you? The only place where it seems I have was in quoting you as saying transparent rather than semi-transparent, which since you don't understand the terms in the first place, I was using the term you MEANT to use but were too ignorant too.

Go back to school and take a course in remedial reading comprehension.

Yep.

They are SEMI-transparent because you can SEE jellyfish, but also SEE the ground underneath them. A piece of Saran wrap is transparent.If you put it on the floor, someone not aware it's there will likely step on it and not see it. Capeesh?

It seems that it is YOU who are ignorant of the differences in the definitions of semi-transparent and transparent. You prefer for people to blindly follow your lead regarding the English language when you can't even comprehend easy sentences. For shame, Herbfart

It seems to me the "misquoting" thing started when I quoted Pirouette as saying he believes there are "transparent ruminants on Mars" rather than "semi-transparent animals on Mars". Since semi-transparent isn't a word and if Pirouette had a better grasp of the English language, he'd know to use transparent, so no, that's not misquoting that's correcting.

I'm guessing the offense is that Pirouette thought I was mocking him by claiming his martians are fully-invisible ("semi-transparent[sic]") rather than transparent. I guess he thinks this makes his position seem less reasonable. Heh. If it makes you feel any better I wasn't trying to claim you said your martians are invisible in the same sense as air, but rather that they are transparent in the same sense as a jelly fish. Anyway, your position is fucking insane regardless of the transparency of your imaginary ETs.

By "ruminant" I was simply trying to invoke the image of a largish animal as per the photo "evidence" pirouette linked.

Actually both jellyfish and saran wrap are *transparent*. Air (under most circumstances), ghosts, and Yahweh are invisible. Learn the language tough guy.

@FrankHerbfart. . . .you're entitled to your own whacko opinions, and I wish you would stop using the "N" word in the other threads and stop sending me your PMs. I will not view them, you loathsome creature.

http://en.wikiped...slucency and i declare a wikipedia war!

Another succesfull launch by the Atlas V rocket. Cant wait for crewed launches.

Go, Curiosity!

Have to agree here. Man-rating the Atlas V would be a much faster, safer, cheaper way of shipping people to the ISS than the current NASA boondoggle.

While true, I think the logistical problem with man-rating the Atlas rocket is that it's actually using the Russian-built RD-180 engines for it's first stage. Without a way of knowing how well these were put together I think it's never going to happen unless they replace the first stage with something domestic.

Just found out the wheels have dots on them so the tracks spell out JPL in morse code.

I didn't know about dots on the tracks. The dots may help to enhance good traction in the sandy soil. . . .not too sure if it would make a big difference on rocky terrain though.

It's amazing how NASA can successfully launch a mission to Mars but Russia still can't.

But with this observation, I would hope you are still rather disappointed about the failure of the Russian probe. We all miss out on the scientific findings, including the opportunity to come on here to read and comment about it!

Well then, let's hope it detects the microbes that Dr. Gil Levin's Labeled Release Experiment did in 1976, when life on Mars was discovered and promptly suppressed.

AND what's wrong with cleaning oil from sand? You seem to take issue with the word "clean" and have become obsessed with it. Did you have issues with BP cleaning up globs of oil from the Gulf states' sandy beaches? Did you take issue with Obama demanding that BP "clean" the oil from the bottom of the Gulf and cap the hole where the oil was pouring out of? Were you demanding that the government put a stop to people picking up oily seagulls and other shore birds and then "cleaning" the oil from their feathers? You are nit-picking again. And I used to think you were intelligent.

Why - yes - the EPA should be digging up all these nasty tar sands wherever they occur and CLEANING them. Because CLEANING up messes is their JOB isn't it??

Bwaaahaahaaaa!! You get the Dweebish award of the year. STFU for god sake.

The los of Phobos-Grunt is huge, as was the other Phobos landers. At this point the failures are almost suspect...

FrankHebert, Pirouette, GhostofOtto, way to ruin a comment thread about a mission to mars

FrankHebert, Pirouette, GhostofOtto, way to ruin a comment thread about a mission to mars

So... we can ignore the dweebish, the religious, the philosophically cross-eyed, the inane CTs (except for me) and the like; step around them and walk on as it were, and run the risk of allowing their nonsense to escape into the world unchallenged and uncorrected? Sorry I don't think this is a responsible option.

Multiple independent discussions can and do take place in threads. Try it - say something cogent.

It's amazing how NASA can successfully launch a mission to Mars but Russia still can't.

But with this observation, I would hope you are still rather disappointed about the failure of the Russian probe. We all miss out on the scientific findings, including the opportunity to come on here to read and comment about it!

Perhaps NASA will have the new unit make a flyby of the failed craft and try to communicate with it, or take pics of it to try to see what went wrong... Wait... aren't there still at least 2 satellites orbiting Mars? I wonder if they've tried to get a visual on the russian probe...

Well then, let's hope it detects the microbes that Dr. Gil Levin's Labeled Release Experiment did in 1976, when life on Mars was discovered and promptly suppressed.

"the LR squirted a drop of carefully designed radioactive food onto a tiny cup of Martian soil and monitored the air above the soil to detect radioactive gas that any microorganisms present might breathe out. Levin and his co-workers, notably Dr. Patricia Ann Straat, then spent the next decade developing the experiment and instrument, and in analyzing the results obtained from its successful operation on Mars. At both landing sites, some 4,000 miles apart, the LR returned evidence of living microorganisms."
http://www.gillev...mars.htm

Yes, radioactive "food" dropped on a little soil sample killed all possible life on Mars... Perhaps they were afraid whatever was there might eventually try to kidnap Santa Claus?

You can't masquerade insults and jabs as intelligent conversation (see: "STFU for god sake.") and then tell me to say something cogent. If you're trying to sway the opinions of people that believe everything they see on the internet then perhaps you should take up a job in politics. I come to this site to read science articles with thoughtful, non-insulting comments and normally stop reading the comment threads when they become totally irrelevant to the original article.

However, I couldn't help but get more irritated than normal when you (and others) hijacked a comment thread about a successful launch of a technological marvel to another planet by talking about the BP oil spill and sand clean up... even the ridiculous talk about semi-transparent aliens on mars was more relevant than that.

Someone will always listen to the "crazies", you don't always need to try and prove how smart you are by proving them wrong to everyone. Most people aren't listening anyway

Arguing on here is a coping mechanism for my somewhat menial job. So no, I will definately not STFU. I will not donate my sanity to someone else's peace of mind.

It's amazing how NASA can successfully launch a mission to Mars but Russia still can't.

Perhaps NASA will have the new unit make a flyby of the failed craft and try to communicate with it, or take pics of it to try to see what went wrong... Wait... aren't there still at least 2 satellites orbiting Mars? I wonder if they've tried to get a visual on the russian probe...

Ricochet, the satellite in question is actually in earth's orbit. It never made it out of our gravitational well, unfortunately

PhysOrg is also where I spend time not thinking about my somewhat menial job. It's either that or drink, so you know where I am when I'm not commenting much

You can't masquerade insults and jabs as intelligent conversation (see: "STFU for god sake.") and then tell me to say something cogent.

I'm sorry. I find thoughtless comments insulting, and I have trouble ignoring them. As you seem to be having trouble ignoring me.

However, I couldn't help but get more irritated than normal when you (and others) hijacked a comment thread about a successful launch of a technological marvel blah

Yah and again, I find comments about why didnt NASA put motion sensors on this rover worthy of insult for the same reason. So what?

And if it makes sense to list past inanities in order to make a point, then so what? This is SOP when debating the merits of dense aether or nootron repulsion or electric universe etc. Glassy headed aliens and christ scientist certainly fall into this category.

you don't always need to try and prove how smart you are

Yes you are right people know this from all the many smart things I have already said.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! Transparent Ruminants. Or, sorry, semi-transparent ruminants. WTF is going on here??? Who are you people?

Back on topic... sort of. Being nuclear powered, i think this mission can last for many years. If i read it correctly, the rover can operate night and day, any season, and the power output won't diminish too much in a few years. It would've be cool if they dropped this rover close enough to get Spirit unstuck from the sand, and back on track. It really would've been a first in space exploration.

It would've be cool if they dropped this rover close enough to get Spirit unstuck from the sand, and back on track. It really would've been a first in space exploration.

Fascinating idea! Sort of an interplanetary tow truck..

I called one of the scientists at NASA and suggested that they put a "motion sensor" on one of the color video cameras to detect any movement of life on Mars.

At tens of thousands of dollars per gram of delivered payload, there is a rigorous review process to get instruments on-board. Since the odds that your 'motion detector' would detect anything is about as close to zero as it is possible to get, I am glad that instruments that actually collect valuable data was sent instead.

LMAO Pirouette, you didn't just get burned. You didn't just get burned by OMATUMR!

Parsec, Member since: September 24, 2007, 11:58 am
omatumr, Member since: September 24, 2007, 11:57 am

You didn't just get burned by omatumr with UNANIMOUS 5's.

You, sir, got ultimate-sick-burned by Oliver "I rape my children" Manuel with unanimous 5's from 13 people. HA!