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At 10:31 pm PDT (1:31 am EDT, 05:31 GMT) the "Curiosity" rover will land in the Gale Crater on Mars. You can watch the live feed from the control center at JPL on http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl Hopefully the complicated landing procedure - where the SUV-sized rover will be lowered on the surface of the planet by a rocket-powered sky crane, after being slowed down from 13,000 mph to about 100 mph by aero-braking and a parachute - will be successful.
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A Linux Longhair
One hour before the touch down: "Curiosity" is at 10,000 miles from the landing site.
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A Linux Longhair
...been watching since 11:00CDT. Have watched the previous two before, so might as well watch this third :p ~
Sincerely,
Eric
There are a couple of longhairs in the control center...
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A Linux Longhair
You beat me to it! I have been watching too.
Here's a screen grab of one of the guys.
One of the camera guys has a nice ponytail too.
- Oren
I have been watching it for the last three hours or so... It's almost 2 am here, time to go to bed.
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A Linux Longhair
Kudos to NASA on a successful landing. And yes, those longhairs look awesome in the control center.
Ted
Yes and a mowhawk too. They must be pretty liberal regarding
hair styles.
About a year ago, I watched a Mars history documentary on PBS that showed the control room in 1976 during the Viking I and II landings. Many controllers wore their hair long, common with the longer hair styles of the mid 1970s. Just a general shot of the control room showed this. Not necessary to spend hours looking around zooming in and out to confirm who might have long hair during the recent Curiosity landing. Attitudes have shifted significantly on hairstyles in the workplace since then.
Don
"Curiosity" has landed on Mars and is transmitting pictures!
Yes!!!
Our long haired friend just a minute before landing and the the first photos.
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Curiousity has safely landed on Mars. I got to see the live images from the surface of the red planet. What amazes me is how those at JPL can control and land such a device with such great precision AND with a time delay of many minutes. It seems impossible to me, but yet they do it routinely.
Thank you so much for the link to that live event.
Cheers
Scott
Currently there is a delay of about 7 minutes between Mars and Earth; it can get to more than 25 minutes when Mars is on the other side of the Sun.
The spacecraft and the lander were programmed in advance with the sequence of actions to be taken and the lander had a terrain-scanning system that selected the best landing spot once the vehicle was close to it.
The rover movements have to be programmed in advance too, but it has a certain degree of autonomy so that it can avoid obstacles.
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A Linux Longhair
Truly one of the greatest scientific and engineering achievements of out lifetime !!
Not entirely o/t! In the pictures on TV I spotted a lman with longer than shoulder length hair in the lineup of scientists.
It's an amaing project. I wonder if it will discover humanoids with long green hair.