We will forget about it because no exciting discovery will be made and a rover on Mars is old news. :c

I missed it. Do it again.

What's infuriating for me is that people just don't seem to care in the first place, and if anything comes of this mission, those most people will be like OH YEAH, CURIOSITY, TOTES A PART OF THAT, YEAH BRO.

For most people, the results are going to have pretty much no bearing on their daily lives whatsoever. But they still had to pay for it.

You never know what we could find!

What sort of findings do you think it'd take to make people care?

It'll probably only cost a couple of trillion dollars to get a barrel of oil off of Mars and back to Earth.

Positive proof of life on Mars. One theory floating around is that if there was life on Mars, it could've seeded life on Earth or vice versa. If we originally did come from Mars, that would technically make everyone a sort of descendant of Mars. OMG EVERYONE'S A MARTIAN.

Of course what I've said may or may not be complete horseshit but I have no other answer for your question. We'll find out eventually :B

There may've been bacteria, but I doubt there was such complex life there. Though even if there was, I could see people going back to not-giving-a-shit in two weeks.

Me too. But we'll see in a few days or weeks. Either way, it's a step forward for space exploration.

this is pretty awesome^^ i wonder if they will find signs that there was life on mars and if it was similar to life on earth!
the theory of panspermia, as in life or at least its buildingblocks being transported to earth, is still pretty popular today.
it would be interesting to know how life really started on earth, or maybe just on mars. the theory of abiogenesis is pretty much proven today but it would still be cool if we are all actually martians X3

I would counter with the idea that we might be Martian for the most part, but I think its a more involved than just that.


We are creatures of the universe. Mars may have just been a last stopping point for whatever was our genesis.

personally i belief that life on earth did in fact have its origins on earth itself.
we do know that life can come from non-life. so while it is entirely possible that life doesnt have its origin on earth i still think it is more reasonable to belief that it has its origins here because we simply havent found life outside of earth yet :P

And you may be correct. Theres just too much we dont know so any theory is fair game.

true. well, sort of. i just think it is the most reasonable choice to belief in the theory that has the most evidence behind it. and we do have a lot of evidence for abiogenesis on earth.

hmm If there are biker mice they are going to have so many fanboys after them o.O
I wonder what they'll find on the red planet.

Let's rock... AND RIDE!!

That is all.

Ride free, and safe streets, citizen!

Man I miss that series. Even more because I never watched it when it was on (trying to explain my interest in SWAT Kats was bad enough, and as such I missed out on a lot of good shows. Though I didn't get complaints from Mighty Ducks: TaS or Gargoyles. Weird.), but I've seen some eps since it went off. I'm trying to find a torrent of the entire series, now, but I'm not having any luck.

NASA managed to do it? Eh, I guess the thing was already in route before the budget cuts. But why another rover? What's this one got that the other two (including the one stuck on a rock) don't?

There's really not that much of a budget cut. They're back at '08 levels.

Quite a bit, actually. For one thing, the Mars Science Laboratory (official name, Curiosity is a nickname) weighs close to a ton and is about the size of a car. The other rovers were less than half that in size and weighed quite a bit less. It includes a fairly comprehensive chemical laboratory for testing rock samples, while the other rovers just had spectroscopic tests. In all there are 10 different scientific experiment packages on board. The earlier rovers were designed more for exploration than scientific research. The MSL's nuclear battery will keep the rover running year round, where the others used solar cells for power, so their systems had to shut down during the long nights of the Mars "winter." The battery also provides a lot more power to run other pieces of equipment, like a laser that can vaporize rock samples for testing. As for getting stuck on a rock, that's also been addressed. Each of Curiosity's six wheels has an independent drive motor. The two front and two rear wheels also have individual steering motors that let the rover make 360-degree turns in-place on the Mars surface. The wheel diameter is double the wheel diameter on Spirit and Opportunity, which will help Curiosity roll over obstacles up to 75 centimeters (30 inches) high.

I think it's a worthwhile experiment just for the data on the battery.

Does it weigh a ton on Earth or on Mars?

Heh, good point. As NASA's more used to dealing with mass rather than weight, I'd have to say Earth.

Now I feel less impressed. For some reason.

Well, just remember that the ratio matches the other two rovers proportionately.

Thank you, been wondering that. Though that battery (while having a long life) kinda limits its service time huh? The other two have long exceeded their projected lifespan. But I guess that’s the trade off. And nice to see they addressed the terrian problem.

Well, the rover's systems were tested from 2 to 3x their anticipated life on Mars (687 earth days, which equates to a Martian year.) They did not test to failure, so it's quite possible the rover could continue to operate well over its anticipated 2 Earth-year life span. As for the nuclear battery (actually called a radioisotope thermoelectric generator or RTG), its lifespan can reach 10 to 15 years. They're more concerned with mechanical breakdown then anything else: kinda hard to get AAA service if they need it.

They can send... MANUEL!

http://youtu.be/FeRlVaMtwDE

Seriously though, Spirit lasted somewhere around 6 years and Opportunity is still going. Though I think they’ve stopped using Opportunity.

Eight years of technology, and this one is the size of an SUV.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m.....e1h9o1_500.jpg

Huh. She really IS a space case.