There was an incredible amount of engineering put into getting that rover safely to the surface of Mars. Any little miscalculation or freak accident (unexpected dust storm, etc.) could have been disastrous.

It made me happy to see the looks on their faces when that first picture arrived. Wish I could have been a part of it.

Waiting for those radio signals must have been really difficult, especially knowing that they couldn't do anything to change the outcome.

I can see it now. Roombas everywhere inspired to take over the world until they discover the reason the planet is named "earth" is because it's made of dirt.

Great bit of editing to let everyone know what the cheers were about at each stage, and also how utterly incredible and astonishingly brilliant this landing was. The crane idea alone was a marvel of human ingenuity and engineering.

JPL has every right to crow and boast about this one--now and for years to come. I only wish we could give them all Gold Medals for such an achievement.

The braking rockets wrecked the Iludium Pew-36 Space Modulator!

Watched it live, but now everything makes sense. Thanks so much for posting this!

Found it there by googling the file name from JPL. "msl20120806".

You can get a high def version here:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/videos/index.cfm?v=60

Or right click and save this direct link:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/videos/movies/msl20120806/msl20120806-1280.mov

I'm bummed out that we haven't seen more about what Curiosity's been up to on the news. How much more interesting is this than anything Rmoney could do or say?

Not a single one of the scientist were fat!

This is SO cool! Sorta restores my faith!

And I loved watching all the nerds celebrating so raucously like that!

but now we have science fact. OK, when will we have a manned flight to Mars? I am hoping it will be in my lifetime, but I doubt it.

Think of the name of the agency. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration sounds like it's goal is to combine air travel with space travel so we would have planes that go into space,...for everybody.

Then "2001 - A Space Odyssey" came out and there it was, the future within my lifetime:

[img][/img]

Instead we got an overweight gas guzzler with the name of a good blow job:

[img][/img]

I wanted to go to space myself, but so far, there are no routine space flights to be had. And I am not rich enough to even get a flight on a supersonic jet or the "vomit comet" airplane.