It sounds sort of interesting and I have nothing better to do, so I might give it some attention.

I love being the only person I know that remembers when this was launched. By that I mean people are so short minded and it annoys the hell out of me.

I've been following the Curiosity Rover feed on Twitter (which I only use to follow space exploration missions, ZUN, and a few hentai artists I like, so don't get on my case about it.) It's all written in first person from the perspective of the probe, which is cute in a weird way.

and yeah, I'm excited. Hoping it goes as planned.

I find it fascinating how risky and complex space travel is. Even the slightest mistake could fuck up the entire trip.

I really hope this goes well though, for the sake of future missions.

I'm interested in seeing what it comes up with.

Space travel is something that should be getting more money, but sadly it's one thing most nations around the world who have space programs, cut back on these days.

What would be the best stream for this to watch tonight, and when?

>>16205

HD stream: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html

>>16206
thanks

I hope it fails in the worst and most lame/uninteresting way possible.

>>16208
its gonna crash on an alien

We're going to find spiders, I'm telling you.

>>16208

An alien spider will eat it, as >>16210 says.

My money's on accidental collision with a Martian rover en route to Earth.

>>16212
will we have to exchange insurance info?

Oh wow, they actually landed this thing.

touchdown!

We Mars now.

so, what now?

>>16218
We do what we've always done.

Wait.

>>16218

"How lucky we are to live in this time... the first moment in human history when we are in fact, visiting other worlds."

Post edited on 5th Aug 2012, 10:46pm

Eh, let me know when we're landing people on Mars.

mars is filthy

I forgot about this.

waste of my time

256 is high resolution?
boy people sure weren't kidding about nasa's funding problems.

>>16225
Yeah, the whole point was to please you, wasn't it?

I don't pretend to understand most of what these guys are doing, but if people with doctorates say it's important work then I'm inclined to believe them.

Anyway, these probes are just the first steps to the ultimate goal of landing people on Mars. We did the same thing with the Moon. Though I would question why we aren't landing guys on the Moon and building stuff there since, you know, it's easier to get there and the conditions re: gravity and the lack of an atmosphere and a global magnetic field are more or less the same.

>>16237
>>16237
> but if people with doctorates say it's important work then I'm inclined to believe them.

lol

Color pic! They say we will get better pics once the dust cover goes down in the next week or so. I'm hoping I can get a cool one for a desktop background

Here's a couple of new, much bigger, pictures.

If there's one thing that can amaze me, that's space exploration.

This box of metal left this planet.
Then it managed to safely land on a different planet.
And now here it is, rolling around, sending back pictures of something that resembles our planet so much.

Yeah, seeing these pictures and knowing that they are from so far away makes me feel all fuzzy inside

Call me a downer, but I still can't see any further improvement from Viking's achievements.

>>16304
The mission has just started, and it's a 2 year long mission. Give it some time

>>16305
what happens after 2 years?

>>16307
fake

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/08/mars-image-thats-too-good/

>>16304
Well, we're just looking at pictures. It's not like the pictures will look any different. The rover must be performing a lot of extra experiments and taking samples and shit. I don't know, I assume they wouldn't send more probes to Mars if there wasn't anything more to do with them.

What I find the most interesting is how people consider these probes as a mean of actual human presence there. I mean, then don't settle with saying: "We send a machine there" -but they jump into saying: "We ARE there: we reached Mars!" -as if the notion of being-there had blended enough with technology to consider those devices as some sort of orthopedical extension of us...

I see this as a very positive thing. Maybe one day we won't care about our biological or even material presence at all, when everything is finally acknowledged as nothing but virtual experiences; and so we may legitimately travel through space and time, at the speed of light, beyond death, as pure data. That would be my dream, if I had anyone left.

------------
"Now we are the Martians." -Ray Bradbury

>>16311
>I don't know, I assume they wouldn't send more probes to Mars if there wasn't anything more to do with them.
You assumed right. The rover is a science lab on wheels.
There's plenty of articles and videos around on what it will be doing.

panorama (too big to post)

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/pia16051_figure_1_raw_smaller-br2.jpg

>>16328
reminds me of the Sahara

Quite relevant to the topic matter at hand.

https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa

http://www.360cities.net/image/curiosity-rover-martian-solar-day-2#-366.35,14.67,110.0

Hello, sun.

>>16354

You have GOT to be trolling me if you believe any of this bullshit government propaganda.

>>16382
please elaborate.

>>16383
mars isn't real, and the moon is actually a big eye floater that everyone has at the same time

>>16384

Sounds legit.

During the course of the rover's travels, will it explore the famous pyramid, face, and red eye of mars?

>>16524
>Face
That's a couple of hills in a funny formation.
>Red eye
You mean red spot? That's clouds on jupiter.
>Pyramids
Probably more funny-looking mountains. I doubt they would target these for scientific exploration.

Post edited on 27th Aug 2012, 8:43am

>>16561
I'm pretty sure that there are pyramids on Mars. If we don't see any photos published of them, it's because the government is censoring it... there was a powerful race on Mars (I am unsure if they still exist, although I have my suspicions) which retreated deep within the surface. They are a race superior to ours intellectually, technologically, biologically, and spiritually. The Martians inspired early man through their visits to form primitive mythology. Our true purpose for exploring Mars with the Probe is to investigate the Red Planet and search for life. If possible, the U.S. would like to retrieve ancient Martian technology for military applications on Earth.

>>16564
but can they see why kids love cinnamon toast crunch

>>16561
>jupiter
You're right, my mistake.

>>16566

took a picture of itself, damn narcissistic robot

>>16835
Did he post it in his twitter too?

>>16836
Yes.

https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity

>>16838
Shit, mankind is making even robots behave like futile 3DPD. The future is grim.

>>16835
It's strange how a box of bolts with a lens on it can be so moe

>>16840
Not if you've ever seen wall-e

>>16839
It gets worse. Curiosity took a picture of its midsection and posted it to Twitter.

>>16861

It has no shame!

>>16861
Lewd

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/09/mars-rover-finds-a-crunchy-blu.html

>>16861
No timestamp. GTFO, you troll probe.

>>17020

It's a bunch of martian turds, which is going to make our fascination with them now very embarrassing when we start negotiating with the martians themselves

>>17023
I bet on some martian message posting system, someone said something very similar about anal probes.

Apparently they found proof that water was on mars, before they even got to their main objective site

http://www.capradio.org/news/npr/story?storyid=161896238

Post edited on 27th Sep 2012, 12:23pm

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/137570-curiosity-discovers-unidentified-metallic-object-on-mars

Wall-e would be interested.

>>17533
fuck I was wondering where my keys went

august 5th is my birthday