Backstage - OOC Forums
General Discussion => The Speakeasy: OOG/Off-topic Discussion => Topic started by: orange on 23 Jun 2012, 16:31
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Seven Minutes of Terror (http://youtu.be/Ki_Af_o9Q9s)
No, FTL. No crew on board. Everything comes to down all the programming and mechanisms working just right, 14 light-minutes away.
Enjoy.
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I think Spirit and Opportunity used up all of NASA's luck points. This thing will explode on re-entry or something. It's Mars.
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Nice use of "Mind Heist". :)
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When I first saw their plans for landing this thing, my thought was "...dafuq are they smoking?!"
Then I thought about it. Then I grinned.
Let's just hope it works right. NASA seems to have luck with these rovers.
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re-entry
Minor point... entry and landing. Not re-entry, it was not on Mars to begin with :P
When I first saw their plans for landing this thing, my thought was "...dafuq are they smoking?!"
It is still a bit like "WTF were you thinking!"
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Obligatory:
(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/spirit.png)
However, that video is one of the coolest ones on the internet. I just love those vids that kind of make you go "Wait, we actually do this kind of thing? Jebus.".
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I will be staying up extremely late on Sunday to follow this as it happens. Screw sleep. Now, I wonder if NASA or JPL or whoever will be doing any sort of live feed.
Edit: There is -- http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/5782/watch-mars-landing-live
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Ooh, being overseas is suddenly convenient for once! It'll be right in the middle of the morning here!
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I don't get to go to the huge Party in Pasadena due to household budget constraints :(
It will be awesome. If you are on Google+ there will be a Hangout in parallel!
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Man, I hope this works.
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Man, I hope this works.
This. :)
One friend, a cosmologist, is saying it's all a media beat-up to get suspense and attention for something they're pretty sure will go okay. Others are pointing out that although NASA is 3/3 for landings (depending on how you count things) other agencies are 0/3, and this is a risky one.
Not long to go, now.
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This is really risky and nowhere near as much of a "sure thing" (inasmuch as such a thing can be when we're talking about enterprises like this) as any previous successful landing.
Essentially, tonight (at least for US values of "tonight") we are using a sky crane to land a robot car on Mars - this is way better than measuring how many kilograms a genetic freak can lift over his head. Proof that we [1] can still build great big awesome things when we decide we want to.
[1]: Mankind, not the US. This should not be a nationalist moment.
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This is really risky and nowhere near as much of a "sure thing" (inasmuch as such a thing can be when we're talking about enterprises like this) as any previous successful landing.
Essentially, tonight (at least for US values of "tonight") we are using a sky crane to land a robot car on Mars - this is way better than measuring how many kilograms a genetic freak can lift over his head. Proof that we [1] can still build great big awesome things when we decide we want to.
[1]: Mankind, not the US. This should not be a nationalist moment.
Add: Article looking back over the past 10 years of rovers: http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/08/mars-needs-rovers-and-its-getting-a-big-one/
(http://i.space.com/images/i/19435/i02/mars-exploration-history-120713f-02.jpg?1342198376)
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That's a really great infographic.
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(http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/199/693/disgusted-mother-of-god.png?1321272571)
It worked. The whole crazy thing worked... Cruise mode separation. Guided entry. Chute deployment. Powered flight and final descent. The sky crane. ...and Odyssey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Mars_Odyssey) and the Deep Space Network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_space_network) let us see it happen live on telemetry. Absolutely incredible. Bravo. Bravo. Bravo.
Edit: It sent its first image within 3 minutes. Pic of its own wheel from the surface. Social media rover http://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity/status/232354875189628929/photo/1
(http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/391/curiosity.png)
(http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/9543/curiosity2.png)
Edit: Unbelievable success. I feel like we can do just about anything right now. Dare mighty things.
(http://rgifs.gifbin.com/1233928590_citizen%20kane%20clapping.gif)
Edit: Doesn't matter how long your mission lasts on the surface, Curiosity, welcome to the club of future world heritage sites:
(https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/553524_546910326948_1424230366_n.jpg)
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(http://i.imgur.com/CBbV9.jpg)
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(http://i.imgur.com/CBbV9.jpg)
Not empty quoting
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(http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/673444main_curiosity_first2.jpg)
"I look good!"
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"I look good!"
10/10
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Good Guy Rover
(http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/205/ggc.png)
[spoiler]Bad Luck Sky Crane
(http://i.imgur.com/ndeY2.jpg)[/spoiler]
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This was incredible to watch.
And it really makes me want to go back to bleeding-edge physics.
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Holy crap, that insane skycrane doohickey actually worked. Congratulations to the team. Congratulations to us, really. This is pretty cool.
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I overslept and missed it, but hurrah for science!
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These kinds of things still give me some hope for humanity. Very happy.
Also incredibly sad, as most of the American news sites don't seem to care all that much. Fucking embarrassing.
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Also incredibly sad, as most of the American news sites don't seem to care all that much. Fucking embarrassing.
Go America, can't even get good Olympics coverage, what makes you think they would shit up that garbage with something from another planet?
Very impressive though, any replay's up around the net?
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It looks like there is split coverage between the shooting in Wisconsin and MSL's landing. The "established" Media will be playing catch-up today as the read the web. Sadly "if it bleeds it leads" will likely win the day over "awesome" (as in filling the viewer with awe). Props to both BBC News & CNN for having it very prominently (big image) "above the fold" (no scrolling required.
It is telling however that the the tech-savy world was watching (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2408085,00.asp). NASA's website crashed shortly after landing (ok... maybe it was a DoSA, but I prefer to think it was from a traffic spike).
‘Curiosity’ Killed The Apathy? #fundNASA Crowdfunding Plea Goes Viral (http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/06/curiosity-killed-the-apathy-fundnasa-crowdfunding-plea-taking-shape/)
Very impressive though, any replay's up around the net?
Mission Control during Descent (http://youtu.be/wnG-rFFpP8A) - the room explodes with victory at around 03:15 in the video. I would note the lead up coverage was better than anything I have seen from NBC for the Olympics.
Images from Sol 0 (http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/)
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Also, as a reminder, Opportunity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_rover) is still chugging along after 8 years.
(http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/opportunity/20120522a/PIA15684_B2888_LowLight_L257-F_br.jpg)
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I have a Mars hangover this morning.
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(http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/673727main_PIA15980-full_full.jpg) (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/gallery-indexEvents.html)
MRO caught a picture of MSL during descent.
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I have a Mars hangover this morning.
You and everyone else who has their priorities straight. :D
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(http://i1251.photobucket.com/albums/hh543/HK95/Bronyscience.jpg)
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some stuff makes for :| reading
like the deep space network of radio antennae being unmaintained, not having been serviced for years, and unlikely to be anytime soon.
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I have a Mars hangover this morning.
I almost passed out at work twice today. So worth it.
MRO caught a picture of MSL during descent.
That is an incredible image.
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some stuff makes for :| reading
like the deep space network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Network) of radio antennae being unmaintained, not having been serviced for years, and unlikely to be anytime soon.
It is a matter of priorities for those nations providing the funding. Maintaining 3 70 m Antennas and associated "smaller" Antennas (34m being small) is not a priority for most people, their Representatives cannot connect the dots on how it benefits their district.
The US Congress is cutting NASA's Outreach & Education budget.
It is pushing a rocket program that few believe will survive budget cuts and that lacks the funding for payloads that actually use its capabilities, SLS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_launch_system)*. It is hamstringing the Commercial Crew Development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Crew_Development) program, a program that will provide the US with not 1, but at least 2 Human Launch Vehicles for less total funds than a year of SLS.
The President has cut Planetary Science funding (http://President has cut Planetary Science funding), and it is in the fight in Congress.
*I used the pejorative in the url.
At the end of the day, NASA gets 0.5% of the Federal Budget or 0.1% of the GDP/year or ~1/4 the cost of the DoD's Overseas Operations. If you are an American, call your Congressman and tell them that the Space Program matters to you, such that even in a rough economy it should have its budget increased! Every dollar spent on the Space Program is spent on Earth and is returned to the economy, provides jobs, etc! If you are a European, figure out how much funding you provide ESA (Mars Express (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Express)) and talk to your representatives and ask if there is more your country could be doing to push the frontiers of space.
As others have pointed out elsewhere, a vibrant forward leaning Exploration Program provides the advances in technology and challenges only one other human activity provides - war.
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Okay, to the uninitiated (not that I don't love spaceflight, just wake me up when we make colonies), but what makes this rover different from preceding ones?
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Primarily, it's size, power supply, and method of delivery. The earlier rovers were much smaller, had solar power, and used airbags or legged landers to safely reach the surface. This thing weighs one ton, has a nuclear generator, and came down using powered flight (retrorockets) and a sky crane.
And with all that added complexity, it still completed the Earth-Mars transit more or less flawlessly.
Edit: Size also means larger payload. Curiosity has ten times the mass of scientific instruments than the previous generation of rovers.
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(http://www.planetary.org/assets/images/4-mars/msl/RLA_397502188EDR_D0010000AUT_04096M_dust-puff.jpg) (http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2012/08060303-we-are-on-mars.html)
But here's the coolest (and, admittedly, most speculative) thing I can see in the images. In both of the rear hazcam images taken just after landing, there is a strange shape on the horizon. It is not there in the later view. It is there in both left and right eye views. It is something that was there just after landing, and is not anymore. My hypothesis is that we may be seeing the cloud marking the crash site of the descent stage. Others on unmannedspaceflight.com have proposed the same. It seems crazy that we should see that, but I can't think of any other explanation for a puff-shaped thing on the horizon seen right after landing and not later. Which makes me laugh, because I've always given Doug Ellison a hard time for not including that detail in his otherwise excellent animation showing the landing. (Which he responds to by asking me if I'm crazy to think that NASA will show themselves blowing things up on Mars.) Looking forward to asking the mission people what they think about this.
*image is a link to the blog
Okay, to the uninitiated (not that I don't love spaceflight, just wake me up when we make colonies), but what makes this rover different from preceding ones?
I will start with a picture.
(http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/science/assets_c/2012/08/EvolutionofRovers-thumb-615x410-95270.jpg) (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/08/from-sojourner-to-curiosity-a-mars-rover-family-portrait/260779/)
Curiosity is big, it comes in at about 1-ton. This is because it can do a lot more. Where previous rovers looked at rocks & dirt (using a variety of different tools), Curiosity is able to take small samples and actually put them through its on board lab. It is the difference between a geologist having a hammer and his own eyes and having a field lab to use to get more information about the chemistry of the materials.
Curiosity is powered by a Plutonium Radio Thermoelectric Generator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator), the previous 3 rovers were all solar powered. This is important because it means that Curiosity can operate year-round, not just during the summer. Spirit/Opportunity would setup "camp" on an equator facing slope during the winter (not being able to do this is what resulted in Spirit's shutdown) to keep their heaters running and batteries alive through the very cold Martian winter. All of our Mars surface science in the past decade has been "summer" science, making it hard to gain a clear understanding of the impact of the seasons on the Martian environment.
The big deal last night was the EDL profile, a big change from the previous 3 missions. Those three missions came down in triangular prisms surrounded by airbags.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/MER_Spirit_Lander_Pan_Sol16-A18R1_br2.jpg/800px-MER_Spirit_Lander_Pan_Sol16-A18R1_br2.jpg)
Curiosity is just too big to land using the airbag technique. That technique also lacks precision.
(http://airandspace.si.edu/blogmedia/curiosity_landing_site.jpg)
None of the other landers have had the precision that MSL had. This let the team choose sites driven not by vehicle safety, but by science.
And lastly Mount Sharp from a Hazcam
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-LgfEjoI-7KA/UCBRFe6PNTI/AAAAAAAAt0E/_pfjT6vT6Bw/w497-h373/673885main_PIA15986-full_full.jpg)
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And lastly Mount Sharp from a Hazcam
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-LgfEjoI-7KA/UCBRFe6PNTI/AAAAAAAAt0E/_pfjT6vT6Bw/w497-h373/673885main_PIA15986-full_full.jpg)
(http://alltheragefaces.com/img/faces/svg/happy-cuteness-overload.svg)
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MRO not only grabbed MSL under chute, but it may have also got the the separated heat shield. (Taken from Phil Plait, aka Bad Astronomier (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/08/06/curiosity-update-heat-shield-spotted/))
(http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/files/2012/08/hirise_curiosity_heatshield.jpg)
If you are wanting to see what all is flying around our solar system, Eyes On the Solar System (http://eyes.nasa.gov/) from NASA is a fun way to do it (Java applet)
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Thanks very much for that informative reply, Dex, you got me singlehandedly excited through that!
Here's hoping China can provoke the US (or anyone else for that matter) into another Space Race, and back into dreaming about the future as we did in the 50s/60s :o
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Thanks very much for that informative reply, Dex, you got me singlehandedly excited through that!
Here's hoping China can provoke the US (or anyone else for that matter) into another Space Race, and back into dreaming about the future as we did in the 50s/60s :o
I think it would be better to avoid racing.
Races have "finish lines," whether they are defined at the beginning of the race or not. When JFK defined the "finish line" as landing men on the Moon and returning them safely to Earth by the end of the 1960s, he changed the parameters for the engineers. Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about it constantly. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlGemHL5vLY) (Warning: you may find yourself watching video after video of Dr. Tyson.)
A big part of being a Space Exploration, Development, and Colonization advocate is to convince others there are reasons other than fear to dare mighty things. When we dare mighty things, whole industries are created, children grow up wanting to do the impossible, and when we turn yesterday's science fiction into everyday life. A Race, it ends, and you stop daring mighty things.
No, there has to be another driver. We, humanity, must embrace our manifest destiny and leave the cradle and win the Solar System for future generations.
Edit:
The last 2 1/2 minutes of Curiosity's descent in 297 images. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcGMDXy-Y1I)
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We, humanity, must embrace our manifest destiny and leave the cradle and win the Solar System for future generations.
http://youtu.be/QzntZLHcYy0
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I was on pins n needles till earlier Monday morning when I checked the news headlines and saw that Curiosity landed safely. Robotic exploration for the time to be is actually cheap compared to sending man beyond the moon, I saw where 100billion I think would be required to send six people to Mars, compared to 2.5 billion for this mission to pull off like it did at a great start.
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I was on pins n needles till earlier Monday morning when I checked the news headlines and saw that Curiosity landed safely. Robotic exploration for the time to be is actually cheap compared to sending man beyond the moon, I saw where 100billion I think would be required to send six people to Mars, compared to 2.5 billion for this mission to pull off like it did at a great start.
It is all in the architecture pursued. A lot of those estimates make a big assumption - you build everything from scratch for the Mars mission and do not reuse technology you have on hand.
To illustrate - Mars Direct (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Direct) vs Mars Semi-Direct (a variation on Mars Direct)
Mars Direct utilizes a Heavy Lift Vehicle, like the previously mentioned Senate... I mean Space Launch System (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System), to conduct all of its launches. The first launch of the program is an unmanned Earth Return Vehicle, followed 26 months later by the first manned mission in a Habitat Module. Depending on whether it is a "Flags & Footprints" or actual outpost building program, you might also launch a second ERV with the Habitat Module for the following mission. Basically 1 HLV per year.
SLS's current timeline is 1 launch every 2 years at a program cost of $41B for the first 4 launches (which for a Shuttle-derived rocket makes very little sense - Shuttle's launched 4/year)! (Unit cost is $1.6B) So for two missions, the rockets average $10B each, or 20% of the cost and you haven't even bought other hardware, like the ERV or Habitat Module!
By contrast, lets replace every HLV with 2 Falcon Heavies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy) ($125 Million) and a Falcon 9 (with DragonRider so ~$140M) (or Mars Semi-Direct). Instead of launching direct from Cape Canaveral to Mars, we apply the lessons of the ISS, Mir, and Salyut programs and do some minor LEO assembly (maybe some Mars surface assembly too). Now, the program's launch cost is $390 million/year and its Earth infrastructure cost is shared with other SpaceX customers.
I think $100 Billion is a high guess and based on the cost of the ISS ($150B). Part of the ISS cost was the $1.4-1.5B per Shuttle Launch with 36 Shuttle Launches (or $54B dollars).
Politics in Spoiler
[spoiler]Many of us in the space engineering/advocacy community consider the SLS to be a jobs program. The program's major backers are Representatives and Senators whose districts and states would lose some jobs and Federal programs when the Shuttle was retired and Constellation canceled. Among the engineering community, even those who back a HLV are concerned about the piss-poor launch schedule and the relative ease with which it can be canceled despite Billions being spent on it each year.
The President can easily call out SLS as a jobs program and place the responsibility for it squarely on the shoulders of its predominantly Republican backers.
That is not to say it lacks Republican opposition and the Democrats haven't exactly pushed back on it.[/spoiler]
Edit: Photo.
(http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/PIA15691-first-MAHLI-br.jpg) (http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4282)
Edit 2: Another image
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-NHvql_c2aWY/UCFOS98xjTI/AAAAAAAABoc/wL2yZ5JLNZ8/w497-h373/576100_4534320480624_2138974807_n.jpg)
My understanding is that the Rover will avoid the Skycrane since it had remaining fuel on-board when it crashed.
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https://twitter.com/MarsCuriosity
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(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-NHvql_c2aWY/UCFOS98xjTI/AAAAAAAABoc/wL2yZ5JLNZ8/w497-h373/576100_4534320480624_2138974807_n.jpg)
Larger (resized) version of that awesome image:
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/674237main_PIA16001-43_946-710.jpg
The four main pieces of hardware that arrived on Mars with NASA's Curiosity rover were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured this image about 24 hours after landing. The large, reduced-scale image points out the strewn hardware: the heat shield was the first piece to hit the ground, followed by the back shell attached to the parachute, then the rover itself touched down, and finally, after cables were cut, the sky crane flew away to the northwest and crashed. Relatively dark areas in all four spots are from disturbances of the bright dust on Mars, revealing the darker material below the surface dust.
Around the rover, this disturbance was from the sky crane thrusters, and forms a bilaterally symmetrical pattern. The darkened radial jets from the sky crane are downrange from the point of oblique impact, much like the oblique impacts of asteroids. In fact, they make an arrow pointing to Curiosity.
This image was acquired from a special 41-degree roll of MRO, larger than the normal 30-degree limit. It rolled towards the west and towards the sun, which increases visible scattering by atmospheric dust as well as the amount of atmosphere the orbiter has to look through, thereby reducing the contrast of surface features. Future images will show the hardware in greater detail. Our view is tilted about 45 degrees from the surface (more than the 41-degree roll due to planetary curvature), like a view out of an airplane window. Tilt the images 90 degrees clockwise to see the surface better from this perspective. The views are primarily of the shadowed side of the rover and other objects.
The image scale is 39 centimeters (15.3 inches) per pixel.
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(http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/675225main_pia16029-43_800-600.jpg) (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/gallery-indexEvents.html)
Fun fact - the tire treads are designed to spell out JPL in Morse Code. They also allow the team to determine the distance the rover has traveled based on the images of its tracks.
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Scorch marks, best marks.
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Panorama... (http://www.360pano.eu/show/?id=731)
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Split screen video showing the EDL sequence from both simulation and from the vehicle's own POV: http://youtu.be/GMsdobLq1-4
Also awesome, the heat shield was imaged impacting the surface on the rover's descent camera: http://youtu.be/vVLPXfF3l_U
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Wiggle in the Gravel before moving. (http://mars.nasa.gov/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1321)
(http://mars.nasa.gov/images/pia16087_Watkins1A-ci.gif)
(http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-images/proj/msl/redops/ods/surface/sol/00016/opgs/edr/ncam/NLA_398919692EDR_F0030078NCAM00301M_-br.jpg)
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The landing sequence video (originally shot by the rover at 4 fps) has been edited to 24 fps, a frame rate that more or less shows how it happened in real time. Beautiful video:
http://youtu.be/fJgeoHBQpFQ
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Ken - you have to find the next fun thing ;)
Curiosity first 360 Color (http://www.panoramas.dk/mars/curiosity-first-color-360.html)
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:cube:
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Ken, you disappoint ;)
Wired has a nice gallery (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/09/curiosity-close-ups/).
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I expected more duckface in a self-shot gallery.
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By far the best shot from the self-portrait gallery:
[spoiler](http://www.technovelgy.com/graphics/content08/snomote-probe-droid.jpg)[/spoiler]
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Streambed! (http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/09/curiosity-water-on-mars/) FTW!
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Shouldn't be much longer before we stumble across the Prothean ruins.
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Shouldn't be much longer before we stumble across the Prothean ruins.
I'm waiting for the Tharsis cache.
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They find the Vault of the Beast yet?