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NASA's Mars Science Laboratory |OT| 2,000 Pounds of Science!

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R

Ramma2

Member
birdcity said:
I respect you, man. My friends, even ones without jobs like me, have absolutely no interest in this and laughed at me when I told them I napped all day to stay up all night watching with my NASA shirt and NASA glass. :)
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Internet high five. This is a huge milestone in space exploration, something that's easily worth a few hours of sleep.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Be terrible if it fails. Media woudl have a field day about the failure, and politicians on both sides would also call it a giant waste. No mention would be made that a rover that landed in 2004 with a 90 day life expectancy is still going 8 years later.
 
T

TheNatural

My Member!
FACE said:
I'm guessing tonnes of bullshit.
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Hopefully more of this:

Hoagland has commented at great length[68][69][70] on the so-called Norway Spiral, an extraordinary display of light seen over much of northern Norway on 9 December 2009, caused by the partial failure of a Russian SLBM test flight. Hoagland draws special attention to the fact that this event occurred close to President Barack Obama's arrival in Norway to accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

On 2–3 February 2010, on the Coast to Coast AM radio show,[71] Hoagland announced that the Russian SLBM had in fact been captured by Dark Forces intent on preventing mankind's exploration of outer space. These Dark Forces, he explained, were probably headed by Nazi officers who had escaped into space after World War II. To Hoagland, this was a sufficient explanation of President Obama's desire to cancel Project Constellation, since Obama had clearly accepted that any attempt to return to the Moon would be thwarted by the superior technology of the Nazis in space.
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So there you have it. If you're pissed about this being one of the few space things to get excited about nowadays and projects being cancelled, don't blame the government, blame the space Nazis guys. They don't age up there you know. They're like twinkies.
 
O

owlbeak

Member
DrForester said:
Be terrible if it fails. Media woudl have a field day about the failure, and politicians on both sides would also call it a giant waste. No mention would be made that a rover that landed in 2004 with a 90 day life expectancy is still going 8 years later.
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Yeah, any failure is met with ridiculous outcry from everyone. Guess they don't understand you're sending an object 225 MILLION km (avg) and trying to land it in a 7x20km ellipse. The margin for error is practically zero, but they don't care. Failure is the best learning experience.

However, if it succeeds, it will be one of the greatest engineering feats of all time. An amazing system that will be the future of payload delivery to remote bodies in the solar system! Can't wait! :D
 
R

Ramma2

Member
effzee said:
I don't think its live. Showing something that is pre-recorded.
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Its not live now, but will switch to live at 8:30 PDT.

Under upcoming events (below the video)

Sunday, August 5
NASA Mars Rover Landing
8:30 to 10:45 p.m. PT
Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover Landing Coverage and Commentary #1 - Entry Decent and Landing
 
K

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
I will admit that anxiety over the nihilistic circus that will erupt from failure is a big reason why I'm staying up to watch this myself.

There's already a sea of people who can't comprehend why this is important or even of any interest at all.
 
A

AnathemicOne

Banned
Ramma2 said:
Its not live now, but will switch to live at 8:30 PDT.

Under upcoming events (below the video)

Sunday, August 5
NASA Mars Rover Landing
8:30 to 10:45 p.m. PT
Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity Rover Landing Coverage and Commentary #1 - Entry Decent and Landing
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Eh? I thought it was 10:30 PST is when it shows live. Btw is this going to be streamed on NASA TV?
 
F

FACE

Banned
TheNatural said:
Hopefully more of this:

So there you have it. If you're pissed about this being one of the few space things to get excited about nowadays and projects being cancelled, don't blame the government, blame the space Nazis guys. They don't age up there you know. They're like twinkies.
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My head hurts.
 
E

Eric C

Member
Is this going to be on the NASA tv channel DISH network has? My programming guide just has "Education Hour" listed all night.

Or is it online streaming only?
 
J

jgkspsx

Member
Kaijima said:
I will admit that anxiety over the nihilistic circus that will erupt from failure is a big reason why I'm staying up to watch this myself.

There's already a sea of people who can't comprehend why this is important or even of any interest at all.
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It is very much a vigil for me. Pointless yes, but terribly important to me. I might call in miserable tomorrow if it's a failure.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Angry Fork said:
Will the actual landing itself be streamed? Is that possible from mars? What time? I'm on east coast US.
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RoadieTMA said:
This is what I wanna know... what kind of view am I getting?
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No, there will be no live video, and outside MAYBE getting few landing zone pictures, it's likely that there will not be pictures for several hours.

NASA TV and others will be showing live video of mission control.

Eyes on the Solar System has a special "live" simulation of the landing going now you can watch. Closest you will get.

http://eyes.jpl.nasa.gov/
 
D

danwarb

Member
I'm going to watch it land in this Eyes on the Solar System simulation, and hope it works out as well in reality.

Mars getting bigger.
 
E

Emwitus

Member
I'm feeling all giddy!! Let's get this party started!! What if the first images we get are of some worms swarming in and out of the soil? lol excited.
 
R

Razek

Banned
DrForester said:
No, there will be no live video, and outside MAYBE getting few landing zone pictures, it's likely that there will not be pictures for several hours.

NASA TV and others will be showing live video of mission control.

Eyes on the Solar System has a special "live" simulation of the landing going now you can watch. Closest you will get.

http://eyes.jpl.nasa.gov/
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Eh, knowing that I think I'll just wait for the result tomorrow.
 
B

blainethemono

Member
Clevinger said:
No. It'll take some pictures as it lands (but we won't get them until at least 7 minutes or something like that after it lands or crashes), but that's about it as far as I know. You can watch a simulation of the live event on NASA's site.
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Just figured out that if you turn on Preview mode and change the Speed + Rate setting at the bottom, you can see the landing sequence and everything. Can forward and reverse it however you want. Fraps works with it too, for taking captures
 
O

owlbeak

Member
Emwitus said:
I'm feeling all giddy!! Let's get this party started!! What if the first images we get are of some worms swarming in and out of the soil? lol excited.
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That would be so amazing, but probably not scientifically founded lol.

I am hoping, though, with the outcrop of rock they're landing near, they might find fossils of some sort. That would be unreal.
 
D

DrForester

Kills Photobucket
Won't shock me at all if NASA has positioned the orbiting satellites to try and take pictures of the landing. But we wouldn't' see those for days probably.
 
C

ckohler

Member
RoadieTMA said:
This is what I wanna know... what kind of view am I getting?
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Well get to watch mission control relay what happens as the signals come in in real time. However, Mars is roughly 14 light minutes away. So what they'll be reporting will have already occurred. Also, it can't stream live video or anything. All we'll get is the data. The first image will be shortly after it lands and it'll just be a very tiny, low resolution thumbnail from the rover's rear collision avoidance camera. Slowly over the next few hours, more images will come in but it could be days before anything really spectacular is seen. I'm not even sure they'll raise the main camera until a few days later. They like to take things slow and extra careful.

For people expecting megapixel color photos or video upon landing, you've got to realize that with these kinds of distances, they're working with data speeds similar to a 56k modem.
 
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