Curiosity

Last night I watched with bated breath as the Mars rover Curiosity executed a picture perfect landing and sent back it’s first photo of it’s landing spot.  It was a crazy plan and not only did it work, it worked flawlessly.

This is a big deal, a big big deal. Weighing in at a little under a ton Curiosity is enormous beast, and has a lot more capabilities than it’s predecessor the Spirit.  The amount of data we’ll receive is going to be amazing and I cannot wait.

Think about it, we shot a 1 ton robot into space and landed it on Mars with a hover crane. There’s no way to cut it, that’s downright incredible. Good job and congrats to the team at Mars Science Laboratory, good job Nasa, and way to go humanity. I am so proud of you.

UPDATE:  Check out this rad pic take from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.