***The Official Space Thread***

[Spaceman]

Great day for space exploration tomorrow morning when the MLS... Curiosity space probe attempts to land on Mars.

The landing procedure for this mission is particularly difficult as they attempt to land it on a thing called '' the sky crane''.
The mission objective is to see whether Mars ever had favourable conditions to harbour life.

Everyone has had trouble trying to land probes on the red planet and it's only been the last 4-5 nasa missions where they have had consistent success.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

EDIT.. if any of you are up at crazy hour like me you can watch live coverage of the landingon FB and other sources

 

[WookieD]

Nice one, cheers mate

 

[Jordinho]

Thirty minutes left to touchdown. Now they've lost communication.

 

[Jordinho]

Touchdown!

 

[Jordinho]

Images from Mars will be added here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/images/first_images_mars.html

 

[Jordinho]

While we're waiting, a screencap showing one of the wheels on the rover:

 

[Notmegov]

Curiosity Rover WELL DONE

Has Landed and sending back pictures....... Incredible well done!!

 

[Jordinho]

 

[raboner]

clearly being shot in a studio... 8-[

 

[braineclipse]

Monumental achievement, well done NASA.

Looking forward to some cool photos and hopefully some interesting scientific results.

I know they're not doing it, but I think it would have been super cool if they had it go to one of the earlier rovers and take a photo of that.

 

[jts1882]

There is way too much focus on the manned space programme. While clearly that has fallen on hard times, NASA have continued with some excellent scientific projects. Hubble, the probes to the outer planets and the older ones trundling to the edge of the solar system have been fantastic successes. Without the obsession with putting man in space, they could have done so much more.

Now they have managed to land one on Mars without losing it (the only significant hiccup in the non-manned programme) we can look forward to some more good stuff.

 

[Mumorn]

thats just crazy!

 

[braineclipse]

There is way too much focus on the manned space programme. While clearly that has fallen on hard times, NASA have continued with some excellent scientific projects. Hubble, the probes to the outer planets and the ones trundling to the edge of the solar system have been fantastic successes. Without the obsession with putting man in space, they could have done so much more.

I agree fully. At some point we should have course try to get men further into space, but for now getting anyone to Mars should stay on the drawing board. Meanwhile what is being done with these rovers and probes, the magnificent Hubble telescope and exo-planet discoveries is great to follow.

 

[braineclipse]

thats just crazy!

Almost a metric ton in weight it weighs about the same as a small car, it had to be slowed down from around 20.000 km/h to a soft landing in the super thin atmosphere on Mars after around 8 months in space...*

*I think those facts are close to correct.

 

[linnet_spur]

Didn't we already do Mars? et me know when we get to Jupiter :yawn:

 

[southstand1882]

We need to start Terraforming, then it gets interesting

 

[Spaceman]

Didn't we already do Mars? et me know when we get to Jupiter :yawn:

only 367 days left

 

[linnet_spur]

only 367 days left

Really? that's quite cool.

So where are the John Terry photoshops?

 

[Spaceman]

Really? that's quite cool.

So where are the John Terry photoshops?

dunno about terry but have a read of this. theres also a probe on its way to pluto which was launched in 2006 and due to get there in 2015

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html

 

[Gifter]

Are they near Cydonia?

[video=youtube;G_sBOsh-vyI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_sBOsh-vyI[/video]