Nasa News: Maven Rover arrives at Mars

For years now, the tea baggers and their preferred party, the Repubnorants, keep yammering and whining big government can't accomplish anything. 

Well, morons, NASA can go to Mars, with 1 Rover on the surface still exploring and now with MAVEN probe designed to study the Martian atmosphere arriving today.

Would it surprise anyone if the current thin atmosphere of Mars resulted from global warming eons ago?

Repubnorants actively fight science by, among other things, slashing the budget of the space agency.  Don't want to hear facts about climate change and melting of polar ice caps?  Slash the budget of NASA programs that study our Earth.

Dipwads.

Let's hope all those marching today actually vote.  


[NASA's Maven spacecraft is on track to reach the red planet late Sunday night following a journey spanning 10 months and 442 million miles.

If all goes well, the robotic explorer will slip into Martian orbit for a year or more of atmospheric study. It's designed to circle the planet, not land.

Maven will be the first spacecraft to focus on the upper atmosphere of Mars. Scientists believe the Martian atmosphere holds clues as to how Earth's neighbor went from being warm and wet billions of years ago to cold and dry. That early wet world may have harbored microbial life, a tantalizing question yet to be answered.]
NASA's Maven explorer arriving at Mars after year

Picture courtesy NASA, view from Mars Rover, this is freakin' Mars, people.  Mars!  It's Mars, bitches!

A Robot may not...allow a human being to come to harm

["There's a relationship between human and robotic science exploration right now," said John Connolly, NASA's acting chief exploration scientist. "The robots we put down on Mars are our avatars right now. They are our eyes, our feet, our hands on the ground that inform us before we get there. Without these robots doing this work, it would be a very risky endeavor getting to Mars."

He added that sending humans to Mars largely depends on the information that robotic rovers and the Mars orbiters send back about the planet's geology, mineral makeup, water reserves and atmosphere.

"The robotic missions on Mars are helping us to handle these big questions," said Connolly.

During a news conference at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington today, Connolly added that Curiosity's discovery of evidence of ancient water flows as well as water in the Martian soil now is the most exciting find NASA has made yet.

"Finding water is like finding gold," said Connolly. "It's the stuff of rocket fuel. It's what astronauts will need. Finding that there are large amounts of water on Mars is the one find that's changed our way of thinking about human exploration of Mars."]
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245227/NASA_robots_blaze_the_trail_for_humans_on_Mars

Hey Republican'ts, We're on Mars, Bitches!

Yes We Can!

[Nasa is showing off a high-resolution colour picture sent back by theMars rover Curiosity, detailing the mountain where scientists plan to focus their search for the chemical ingredients of life.

The image reveals distinct tiers near the base of the three-mile-high mountain that rises from the floor of Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed on 6 August.

Scientists estimate it will be a year before the rover reaches the layers of interest at the foot of the mountain, 6.2 miles from the landing site.]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/aug/28/mars-curiosity-high-resolution-pictures

First Picture from Mars Curiosity

Found at Earthbound Misfit who wrote it came from George Takei's web page

It's Mars! Yes, We Did!

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/PIA15691.html

Yes We Can!: Mars explorer Curiosity lands successfully

"NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has touched down on the surface of the Red Planet, completing a 154-million-mile journey, and marking the beginning of a new era in planetary exploration."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/mars-rover-curiosity-landing-live-updates_n_1742499.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=080612&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

[They have the pictures to prove it: NASA successfully landed the Mars Curiosity Rover, its largest and most advanced unmanned exploration vehicle on target on the surface of the Red Planet at a time of 1:14 a.m. ET on Monday, August 6.

A few minutes later, the rover sent back its first images, one from a rear-facing black and white hazard avoidance camera (hazcam) on the rover’s body and the other from a front-facing one.

The rear-facing camera showed the rover’s wheel on Mars while the front-facing one showed its shadow across the surface of a shallow area of the planet where the rover landed known as Gale Crater. See both of them below in a composite image from NASA:]

http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/mars-curiosity-rover-lands-first-images.php

Mars Craft to Land 1:31 AM EST Monday

Whether it works or not, the Curiosity will land.  Gravity is funny like that.

[Computerworld - When NASA's newest and largest robotic rover lands on Mars early Monday morning, it will use a supersonic parachute, a tether and rockets to safely alight 350 million miles from home.

Seven minutes will elapse between the time the spacecraft enters the Martian atmosphere and the time it touches down on the planet's surface. NASA engineers say this will be the seven scariest minutes of the mission.

"Entry, descent and landing is referred to as the 'seven minutes of terror' because we've got literally seven minutes to get from the top of the atmosphere to the surface of Mars, going from 13,000 miles an hour to zero in perfect sequence, perfect choreography and perfect timing, and the computer has to do it all by itself with no help from the ground," said Adam Steltzner, a NASA engineer, in a video interview. "If any one thing doesn't work just right, it's game-over."

After a journey of more than eight months, NASA's SUV-sized robotic rover -- the Mars Science Laboratory, also known as Curiosity -- is set to land at 1:31 a.m. Eastern time on Monday in a 96-mile-wide crater.]
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9229925/NASA_s_Mars_rover_heading_toward_7_minutes_of_terror_?source=CTWNLE_nlt_dailyam_2012-08-03

Mars Google

Wow, as if Google Earth ain't cool enough, found Google Mars @ Suburban Guerrilla.

Who'd a thunk it in July '69 when my mama made us children walk out on the driveway to look up at the moon when men walked right then, we could wake up in the 21st century and go to anywhere on Earth or Mars?

Attached pic from Mars Rover found at Nasa multimedia galleries.