Sunday, August 5, 2012

Tonight's the night.

Curiosity, the MiniCooper-sized rover --- the most complex interplanetary robotic device ever deployed --- attempts its landing late tonight/early tomorrow (depending on your time zone). Mars has eaten more probes and landers from more countries than any other planet; it's incredibly hard to get stuff to Mars in working order, and even harder to get the gear down on the Martian surface, safely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars

Here's the main link for the Mars Science Lab mission, of which Curiosity is the centerpiece: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

I was there as a guest of NASA for the launch last November. You can bet I'll be watching live tonight.

Your cable/satellite service may offer the NASA channel; Roku and some other streaming devices do, too.

It's also free on the web: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

Beghgaca

That's me, on the far left. Also: front dead center, Bill Nye ("Science Guy", and now head of the Planetary Society), NASA Chief Admin Bolden. Front row, 9th in from the right, political cartoonist "Tom Tomorrow." It was quite a crew!

(Other sizes: )

Succeed or fail, it'll be a bit of science history in the making. Watch if you can!

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