# NASA's Mars Rover Curiosity
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [November 26, 2011, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144 "2011-11-26T14:35:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/21 "2011-12-01T18:30:04Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#):
>
> That was my impression when I saw the video. There are a LOT of things that have to work properly to not cause total mission failure - including EIGHT rocket engines that ALL have to fire properly during the final deceleration phase. **Then the four-engine hover/skycrane mode? Wow. One assumes NASA’s engineers have done their homework, but still, I’ll be somewhat surprised if the rover makes it to the surface intact.**
Bolded for emphasis.
Whoever proposed that idea had some serious PowerPoint skills.
---
### Author:  [@Santos\_L\_Halper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santos_L_Halper)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/22 "2012-08-05T02:55:51Z")
I’m bumping this thread because in a bit over 24 hours Curiosity will hopefully touch down safely on the Martian surface.
Wikipedia’s got a nice photo comparing the relative sizes of Curiosity to the previous rovers:
[ ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PIA15279_3rovers-stand_D2011_1215_D521.jpg)
It weighs five times what Spirit and Opportunity did and is nuclear powered!
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/23 "2012-08-05T03:20:35Z")
AP News story: [http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US\_SCI\_MARS\_CURIOSITY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-08-04-17-40-46](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_MARS_CURIOSITY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-08-04-17-40-46)
NASA has a damn good track record at 6 out of 7 successful landings; I hope this makes 7 out of 8.
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### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/24 "2012-08-05T03:32:52Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#):
>
> My colleague’s husband headed up the team that designed the parachute (and has designed the previous parachutes for the Mars missions). He gave a talk to our intro Engineering students and it was extremely cool.
>
> When he showed the demo of the sky crane technique I gasped.
Quoting myself only because I am psyched to see his work come to fruition. My colleague and hubby will be at mission control for the landing!
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### Author:  [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/25 "2012-08-05T03:33:24Z")
> [@Santos\_L\_Halper](#):
>
> It weighs five times what Spirit and Opportunity did and is nuclear powered!
It also has [a laser capable of vaporizing rock](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory#Instruments) (well, small samples thereof)
```php
```
at distances of over 20 feet.
But fear not, hypothetical Martians! Our [increasingly large and well-armed robots](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mars_Science_Laboratory_mockup_comparison_.jpg) are for purely scientific and peaceful purposes!
Yes…our plans continue to advance! I mean, uh, plans for _peaceful scientific exploration_, of course.
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### Author:  [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/26 "2012-08-05T04:29:37Z")
[Here’s the link to the NASA TV online schedule](http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/schedule.html), and you can click buttons there to watch the channel(s). Looks like coverage of the descent starts at 10 pm Central Time.
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### Author:  [@charmstr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/charmstr)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/27 "2012-08-05T08:42:14Z")
So, there are watching parties for the landing all over the country according to [Gizmodo](http://gizmodo.com/5931861/find-your-local-mars-rover-landing-party). Well, almost. According to [this cool custom Google Map](https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=214551287255474273940.0004c4702aee5390a0041&msa=0&ie=UTF8&t=m&ll=39.095963,-93.691406&spn=39.001057,100.546875&source=embed), there isn’t one anywhere near me in the cultural and scientific wasteland of South Jersey. ☹
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### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/28 "2012-08-05T11:18:18Z")
It will land - or not - while I’m on my way into work tomorrow. I **will** have the radio on.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/29 "2012-08-05T12:00:22Z")
Just read a story in Saturday’s newspaper about this. It quoted Adam Steltzner, the chief engineer at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, as saying: “It looks a little bit crazy. I promise you, it is the least crazy of the methods you could use to land a rover the size of Curiosity on Mars.”
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### Author:  [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/30 "2012-08-05T12:51:23Z")
I am so excited for this landing and following mission.
I couldn’t imagine the stress the team must feel right now!
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### Author:  [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/31 "2012-08-05T17:07:27Z")
A propos of nothing: one of the guys who drives Curiosity (and drove Spirit and Opportunity) is the boyfriend of a good friend of mine, who sang in church choir with me for a few years while she was doing her PhD in planetary science. She was on the team tasked with extricating Spirit after it was bogged down in the sand, and is also on the Curiosity team (her father was an astronaut).
There’s an article about them on the front page of CNN [here](http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/04/us/mars-rover-scott-maxwell/index.html?hpt=hp_c3), although I would like to point out that she did not go to the University of Washington in St. Louis, she went to Washington University in St. Louis.
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### Author:  [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/32 "2012-08-05T19:32:22Z")
I’ll be watching. I’m a robotics engineer, part of the MSL science team, and now part of the ChemCam instrument team as well. I’ll be following the landing from the headquarters of the Canadian Space Agency, just outside of Montreal, and live-tweeting the landing progress and related events. I’m at [@CosmicRaymond](https://twitter.com/cosmicraymond), and you can follow hashtags #MSL and #CSATweetup, not to mention @MarsCuriosity itself.
I may not be able to follow this thread super closely during the landing process tonight, though 🙂
If you’re curious, my role is in autonomous science data processing – interpretation of geological and atmospheric scenes. I’m basically developing new techniques in machine learning and image processing to support the mission’s science goals. You can hear me and my colleagues from my university talk about the mission and our role [here](http://cpsx.uwo.ca/news?post_id=7137), and hear me interview Roger Wiens, principal investigator for ChemCam (that’s the rock-vapourizing laser) [here](http://cpsx.uwo.ca/news?post_id=6463). (Those are mp3 podcast about half an hour long each).
We’re all very excited with the landing now only ~10 hours away. I have every confidence that the people who’ve developed the landing system have done their very best. However the entry and landing go, today will be a big day for planetary exploration.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/33 "2012-08-05T19:47:12Z")
Crossing fingers…
> **[Mars Science Laboratory - Curiosity Rover](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html)**
>
> The latest news, images and videos from NASA's car-sized rover exploring the red planet for evidence the planet could have once supported life.
Currently it is 9 hours and 45 minutes to go.
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### Author:  [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/34 "2012-08-05T19:59:41Z")
I am SO excited to watch the landing tonight! I’m on vacation in the Outer Banks, so I was worried I’d miss it, but we’ve got a huge TV with internet hookup, so we nerdy types will be watching live!
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/35 "2012-08-05T21:50:05Z")
7 Hours and 44 minutes to go…
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### Author:  [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/36 "2012-08-05T23:02:12Z")
Six hours until the live coverage begins, I am having trouble sitting down. Excited and scared
**CAPT**
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### Author:  [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2012, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/37 "2012-08-05T23:45:47Z")
I keep looking at the [details of the entry and landing](http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/timeline/edl/). There are _so_ many things that have to happen. I mean brute physical events, where some damned little part could get jammed up. Components that have to separate at the right time (but not too early or too late); lines and connections that have to not get tangled up, and also have to separate properly at the right time (but not too early or too late). Bits that have to fly away and not crash on top of the other, important bits. Not to mention all the software to control it all. It is amazing.
Break a retro-thruster, _Curiosity_! Stick that landing!
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### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/38 "2012-08-06T01:35:32Z")
How soon, at what time, will we have good or bad news?
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### Author:  [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/39 "2012-08-06T01:52:16Z")
Don’t have the NASA channel, is there any coverage on cable anywhere?
In the mean time I’ll be watching Breaking Bad and checking **MEBuckner’s** link.
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### Author:  [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2012, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasas-mars-rover-curiosity/604144/40 "2012-08-06T01:58:00Z")
Pff, Nevermind, I see the links on that page. :smack:
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