

Next Stop Mars: Huge NASA Rover Launches Toward Red Planet - llambda
http://www.space.com/13738-nasa-mars-rover-curiosity-msl-launch.html

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xgenster
Watched the launch with the kiddies on NASA TV.

Then went outside and saw it come over South Africa. Got a picture of it as
well.

To see the little white dots we saw check... <http://imageshack.us/photo/my-
images/600/igotapicofit.jpg> <http://imageshack.us/photo/my-
images/14/picofitand2nd.jpg/>

Now I can justify to the wife that I NEED a 15" telescope

-edit-

Sorry, it is more like, see if you can spot the white dots with these
pictures. 52mm lens is not that great.

The dots are about 5mm to the left of the arrows

-edit-

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pasbesoin
I see the dots. You definitely need that 15" telescope -- tell her I said so.
;-)

Reminds me a bit of being in the Palm Beach area and seeing a shuttle launch.
That's some distance away, but it was still very visible. IIRC, we had
binoculars, which made the details much more evident.

Then, a few days later, I looked out the kitchen window to see some rather
distinct exhaust plumes. No official announcement. Turns out it was a secret
launch/payload, later confirmed in that non-confirming way the government
sometimes has.

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gallamine
"NASA began planning Curiosity's mission — which is officially known as the
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) — back in 2003. The rover was originally
scheduled to blast off in 2009, but it wasn't ready in time.

Launch windows for Mars-bound spacecraft are based on favorable alignments
between Earth and the Red Planet, and they open up just once every two years.
So the MSL team had to wait until 2011."

I can't imagine how agonizing that decision to delay the launch must have
been. "Do we work our asses off to try and meet the launch, and risk 1.5
billion usd, or wait two extra years?" Managers nightmare!

~~~
mturmon
They had been working 24 hour shifts for weeks to make the prior deadline. The
delay was mainly due to a problem with the reliability of the mechanical
actuators used by the robot. This happens, but it was an embarrassment to all
concerned.

I just found a good link to the story:

<http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1319/1>

The amount of planning and risk management for large projects like this is
amazing. I remember seeing the chart of subsystem deliverables and
dependencies for a medium-size instrument (~100M$, far smaller than MSL),
printed out from a large-format printer, tacked to a hallway wall. It was
about 20 feet long by 4 feet high, printed just large enough to read.

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jakeonthemove
Congratulations on a successful launch! I just hope it lands without problems
- the landing sequence looks quite complicated and this is the biggest probe
yet - it would be a real drawback if it failed (like Russia's Phobos-Grunt).

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nathanlrivera
Here is a video of the launch: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irBg4DvHI6c>

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adrianwaj
I heard Nick Begich say today in an Alex Jones interview that rocket launches
punch big holes in the ozone layer, and have done far more damage than CFCs
have ever done.

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mkramlich
> in an Alex Jones interview

my impression of Alex Jones is the man is at the center of his own little
right-wing/conspiracy/propaganda empire. i'd take anything that comes from his
direction with skepticism, if not avoided altogether.

~~~
adrianwaj
Thanks for the tip. He does have some good guests, which makes for interesting
viewing. His main problem is that he cuts people off midway before they make
their key points or conclusion. And there is no common organized enemy, "the
globalists" -- he may as well talk about "the CEOs" or "the Politicians" and
these groups do organize around greed, especially "the Bankers."

So yes, when he cuts people off, he replaces the ending with his own agenda.
But that's not to say he should be totally ignored, I think.

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InclinedPlane
Simply put: this is the most ambitious space mission since the Apollo program.
I hope it succeeds.

