Curiosity Has Landed on Mars

[get straight]

rovers have been sent before by US, whats so special about this??

 

[karan21]

rovers have been sent before by US, whats so special about this??

Its the size of a car carries much more equipment and a long life.
The way it landed will be used in future space missions to Mars.

 

[gubbi]

rovers have been sent before by US, whats so special about this??

1 - the rover is much bigger than anything sent before.
2 - since the rover was huge, conventional means of slowing it down through Mars's rarified atmosphere would not have worked because of its weight. People came up with a brilliant but risky idea of lowering the whole rover on Mars by means of a skyhook - essentially a rocket powered crane which lowered the rover on Mars's surface by cables and after the touchdown, released the cables, flew off and crashed at a safe distance.

This required brilliant engineering, and although it was a freaking crazy idea, it worked!! That is what makes this mission special.

 

[karan21]

Pretty sure Isro is watching. Dont know what they will be thiking.

 

[Wright]

I read it's also nuclear powered and designed to last two years. It's really pretty awesome.

 

[harpoon]

Congrats USA & NASA..you once again showed why you are the sole superpower on Earth.

 

[Wright]

Congrats USA & NASA..you once again showed why you are the sole superpower on Earth.

Well to be fair, Russia, UK, Germany, France, Canada, Spain, and Finland were also part of the project, and provided some of the instruments.

 

[Huan]

China was not involved.

 

[Oldman1]

rovers have been sent before by US, whats so special about this??

Its also nuclear powered.

 

[anon45]

rovers have been sent before by US, whats so special about this??

Aside from what everyone else mentions about its power source and basically the accomplishment of moving an extremely sensitive 1 ton suv sized rover millions of miles to another planet in an unprecedented fashion that can be used for future flagship missions, it is paving the way for manned missions to mars in a very real fashion by testing for radioactivity.

 

[Fazlu]

Its also nuclear powered.

Is it too early to start dreaming of nuclear powered automobiles on earth ?

 

[BelligerentPacifist]

Now this is the kind of thing we'd like the Americans to be doing, rather than invading other nations. Congratulations!

 

[Oldman1]

Now this is the kind of thing we'd like the Americans to be doing, rather than invading other nations. Congratulations!

Other nations should stop giving America a reason to invade them. Its that simple.

 

[Serpentine]

That's a hell of a scientific and engineering achievement,Congrats to NASA with this terrific job.

 

[Ajaxpaul]

Amazing...power of people and its resources.

congrats to all humanity !!