Hopefully it can pan its cameras fast enough to overcome this effect.
Pirates.
Or Ninjas.
But not both.
But if they find printer ink then that trps all.
This was my thought too! The mystery finally solved… martians have cold feet and have been stealing socks from earth and leaving crop circle IOUs for centuries.
They fall in love, commiserate about the ‘stupid humans’ and forsake their duty to hide behind boulders and have wild monkey sex. The GOP finds out about the torrid affair, dedicates whats left of the NASA program to sending a manned flight to Mars carrying a pastor to force the two rovers into a shot-gun wedding. But the rocket hits Planet X on the way, blowing it into fragments that knock the earth off its axis. And, hence the poles shift after all!
See, we should never have gone to Mars! Now, we’re all doomed!
maybe, but the cost of the trip will be in the 100s of millions.
glares
Thief. 
You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
Ok, but if there were materials in place with which to build a base, one would not have to haul them away. Can Mars be enviro-engineered? Can it at least be colonized with bases?
I’ve heard a few engineers reiterate the mission isn’t to look for life, but rather past conditions that may have been conducive to life. I’ve read lots of journalists pretty much ignoring that. I wouldn’t blame a non-Doper for thinking Curiosity was searching for life.
The thing that gets me these days is whether life on Mars is really that important of a question anymore. Why do we care if Mars had nice conditions 3 billion years ago or something? It’s going to take live people digging around for awhile to settle the life question, and to me showing we can get people there safely is what this trip is about.
It doesn’t hurt that neither Russia nor China is even close to accomplishing something like NASA/JPL just did. Woo!
Interesting questions, and I’m sure there would be no shortage of volunteers, but what would be the actual goal of colonising Mars? Antarctica is more hospitable.
Rover: Oh look a wind storm !!!
Transmission to earth: static. bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
You must not have been watching very closely.
Colbert asked what he thought Curiosity would discover. The guest said it would not discover anything. After he enjoyed watching Colbert’s jaw flap for awhile, he said words to the effect that the probe is just a tool and that its operators would be the ones making the discoveries.
“Our Germans are better than their Germans.” 
So that Mars can have elections like we do here in the US!
So the guest was a Doper then?
Plus there’s a lot less lag.
the photos look like the deserts in the western USA.
Neil Armstrong is supposedly having heart surgery and is out of the public eye, while he is really on the movie set creating those scenes.
hi Uncle Martin.
Kansas is cheaper than Manhattan. Obviously people find some places much more exciting than others.
Judging from the control room crew, I’d say our pudgy long-haired hippies and Mohawk-sporting punk rockers are better than their Germans. 
One answer: because it is there.
2- As a base for space exploration further out into the solar system.
3- Earth is getting pretty darn crowded.
4- Assuming there is an entire planet’s worth of resources out there, and assuming the colony gets big enough, with a space elevator on Mars many many tons of materials could be hoisted cheaply into orbit and boosted toward Earth for splashdown delivery. Or is space mining not cost-effective under any circumstances?
5- Tourism.
6- Taxes and regulations on Earth drive people nuts?
7- Farming? Manufacturing?