
NASA TV feed of 10:31 pm PDT Curiosity landing - DavidSJ
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html?curiosity
======
lisper
I was at JPL when this mission was first being planned. I actually sat in on a
meeting where the sky crane was first being discussed. I remember thinking to
myself at the time that there was no way that it would ever work. I'm very
happy to say that I was wrong. Congrats to everyone on the MSL team!

------
hdivider
Take a moment to consider what you're actually seeing here: a truly historic
event.

This mission is so expensive, and has involved the figurative blood and tears
of so many extremely talented people, that it will probably always be
remembered in the history of space travel, whether or not the landing itself
will be successful.

(It could be argued that the value of having so many millions of people watch
or follow this (whether now or later), and have the associated mind-expanding
thoughts and possible subsequent ideas or decisions, is itself worth the price
of this mission.)

------
Wingman4l7
I noticed on the NASA TV schedule that the "Public/Education Channels" have
commentary, and that the "Media Channel" has a "Clean Feed with Mission Audio
Only".

The link given is for the public stream (<http://www.ustream.tv/nasahdtv>);
the media stream is here (<http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-media-channel>)
and should be HD as well.

~~~
magic_haze
The clean feed is awesome: it is quite funny how banal some of the talk
between the engineers really is: people reading out trace logs, complaining
about IT problems, asking each other how to open console windows they
accidentally closed, asking people to email them estimates, state machine
changes...

~~~
Wingman4l7
You don't get the cheering, though...

------
2arrs2ells
Curiosity is the rover for the Mars Science Laboratory, launched 11/26/2011.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory>

Purpose of the MSL is:

* Determine whether Mars could ever have supported life

* Study the climate of Mars

* Study the geology of Mars

* Plan for a human mission to Mars

~~~
glimcat
One major thesis of MSL/Curiosity is that sample return missions are hard.
Taking a jaunt over to Mars, collecting samples from various locations, then
shipping them all back to Earth is not something we can accomplish right now -
so Curiosity has been designed as the next best thing.

Take a look at the instruments section of that Wikipedia article. Curiosity is
crammed with every sensor and analysis tool they could possibly fit.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory#Instrum...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory#Instruments)

------
lisper
There were about 240,000 concurrent users on the web feed at touchdown. But
not a single TV news channel was covering the event live that I could find.

~~~
philippK
ustream was showing an even higher number of 11.4m viewers

~~~
elliottcarlson
That is total views on the NASA ustream channel

------
magic_haze
The BadAstronomy folks have started a google hangout covering this event:

    
    
        http://www.youtube.com/user/universetoday?v=wrJT1d1BKhw
    

Some interesting discussion going on there now; highly recommended.

------
yread
what's up with all the "what does it mean for the nation"? It's a huge step
for the humanity, not only the US. And the actual rover is filled with
instruments from all over the world. From wiki:

> ChemCam ... developed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory and French CESR

> Alpha-particle X-ray spectrometer ... APXS was developed by Canadian Space
> agency.

> Sample analysis at Mars ... was developed by Goddard Space flight center,
> the Laboratoire Inter-Universitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques (LISA)
> (jointly operated by France's CNRS and some Parisian universities) and
> Honeybee Robotics, along with many additional external partners.

> Radiation assessment detector ... was developed by Southwest Research
> Institute (SwRI) and the extraterrestrial physics group at Christian-
> Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Germany

> Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons ... provided by the Russian Federal Space Agency

> Rover environmental monitoring station ... provided by the Spanish Ministry
> of Education and Science

~~~
jcnnghm
The US paid for the vast majority and are responsible for getting this to
Mars. The crazy landing, and $2.5 billion at risk on a project with a 30%
historic success rate, wase not shared. US total annual space spending is
about $60 billion a year. The entire rest of the world combined is only about
$22. The entire EU is under $6 billion.

This is an American achievement. If you aren't from the US, you should try to
encourage your government to step up. If everyone committed at US levels by
GDP, annual global space spending would be about $240 billion instead of $82
billion. Biomedical research is the same way.

~~~
damoe
NASA's budget is about 18B, not all of which is space related. Where does your
other 42B come from?

~~~
jcnnghm
The total 2010 US Space budget was $64.6B. The entire rest of the world
combined spent only $22.5B. NASA's 2010 budget was $18.7B, 83% of the spending
for the rest of the world. The Air Force Space Command is the remainder, they
run many projects, including GPS.

~~~
damoe
Thanks for the info, but shouldn't we be comparing civilian space budgets?
Obviously dual use projects like GPS should be included but most of that 40B+
is purely military in nature.

~~~
jcnnghm
It would be almost impossible to get a reliable estimate for other countries,
most do not have separate civilian and military space programs like the US.
For example, the ESA is building Galileo, a positioning system similar to GPS,
primarily for strategic military needs. The Russians and the Chinese, who make
up almost the entire remainder of global space spending after the EU, spend
quite a bit on military space, but there is not reliable data. In fact, there
is basically no data on Chinese spending at all, it's an industry estimate of
their spending based on outside observations. In addition, there is some
crossover each way. Hubble, in particular, received substantial benefit from
military research into spy satellites, not to mention the recent gift of two
space telescopes to NASA from NRO. At best it's unclear how to decouple the
spending in the US, and nearly impossible internationally. I believe going
with the totals is fair, as the approximate civilian to military ratio would
be pretty close internationally, given the obvious military implications of
space, like ICBM's and spying, the interchangeable nature of the fundamental
research in each field (e.g. ICBM guidance systems research can be applied to
landing on Mars, spy satellites are space telescopes if you turn them around),
and the countries involved.

~~~
damoe
I see a company called Euroconsult publishes estimates of governmental space
expenditures. Unfortunately it costs over 4000 euro! But a summery is
available here:

[http://www.geospatialworld.net/index.php?option=com_content&...](http://www.geospatialworld.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24389%3Aglobal-
space-programme-budget-reaches-usd-70bn-euroconsult&catid=72%3Abusiness-
market-survey-research&Itemid=1)

------
noonespecial
"We are safe on Mars."

Humanity rocks sometimes.

~~~
jc4p
It seems like every single person at JPL is teary eyed, this is awesome.

Edit: The crowd at Planetary Society started chanting "USA! USA!" and Bill Nye
the Science Guy quickly made them change it to "JPL! Planet Earth!" freaking
awesome.

Edit #2: Every. Single. One. of NASA's websites is offline and overloaded. I
know it's a DDoS due to everyone trying to look at the images, but this is
really a good example of 'Hey, maybe the company that just landed a fucking
spaceship on Mars needs more funding.'

~~~
noonespecial
They're already getting pictures. I wasn't born for the moon landing, but this
seems almost as cool. Must have been something like this.

~~~
lisper
The images are a lot clearer this time around :-)

------
kyrra
This video is an animation (created by the JPL) of what is going to be
happening over the coming few hours:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4boyXQuUIw>

------
pokoleo
3 hours ago they were at 300k total views, ever. Now, it's about to hit 1M
total views.

This is a great chance for NasaTV to advocate for more funding. /just saying

~~~
kalininalex
Now, one hour later, they're at 11M views with 120K live viewers. This is good
TV.

------
yoda_sl
Wow! They made it... Great stuff happening and what a technological challenge!
Edit: even more impressive that they are already receiving some pictures

------
martythemaniak
I don't think it's an overstatement to say that this is one greatest
expressions humanity is capable off. Simply amazing.

------
seunghomattyang
Is there anything left to be done by NASA HQ? For example, are they still
controlling the trajectory of the probe to Mars or is that mostly done by
probe's onboard computers?

I'm genuinely curious about what kind of things the HQ is doing right now.
I've been watching the live stream and there's not much activity besides
milling around screens and resizing windows on the huge screen.

~~~
greatreorx
From a Reuters piece...

"Mission control contemplated sending Curiosity one last "parameter update" on
Sunday, hours before atmospheric entry, giving the vessel an exact fix on its
position in space. But NASA engineers said they would likely forego that
transmission because the vessel has varied so little from its ideal course.

Otherwise, controllers will have little to do but anxiously track Curiosity's
progress as it flies into Mars' upper atmosphere..."

"We're all along for the ride," Seltzner said."

[http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/06/us-usa-mars-
idINBRE...](http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/06/us-usa-mars-
idINBRE8721A920120806)

------
ck2
If they pull this off I will be thoroughly impressed.

I keep googling to try to find where they tested the landing system altogether
as a unit and there doesn't appear to be such an event, only individual
components.

Can you imagine designing and testing the individual parts of a car, then
assembling it and never testing the car as a whole unit and just hoping based
on theory it works?

~~~
DavidSJ
They tested it as much as they could. You can't simulate Martian gravity and
the full Martian atmosphere on Earth.

------
mtinkerhess
To see the images from Mars:

<http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/raw>

Edit: it appears that the page has moved to
<http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/>, discussion at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4343891>

~~~
lusr
Well that's disappointing, CloudFront:

    
    
        ERROR
    
        The request could not be satisfied.
    
    
        Generated Mon, 06 Aug 2012 05:59:11 GMT by cloudfront (CloudFront)

------
mbenjaminsmith
That's the second time in recent memory that I got chills watching a room full
of really smart people erupt into applause. Congrats to everyone involved.

------
oofabz
Is there any way to watch in VLC? I don't have Flash Player.

~~~
bri3d
<http://nasa-f.akamaihd.net/public_h264_700@54826> should work in any H.264 +
HTTP capable video player.

~~~
simcop2387
Definitely much nicer than the solution I found. How did you find that so
easily?

~~~
bri3d
I have Flash handy, so I just utilized the Resources tab in Chrome's Web
Inspector to see the video resource Flash was actually streaming.

This approach works for a large percentage of CDN-based streaming video, which
rarely has any unique authentication (as sharing any kind of per-user state
with the CDN edges would be quite difficult).

~~~
simcop2387
Interesting, I tried doing the same thing and couldn't since it was getting it
over rtmp from another cdn, which was how i found mine. Apparently NASA has
more CDNs for video than others that i've run into.

------
dakrisht
If this is successful, do you guys think we'll see a man on mars in the next
20-40 years?

~~~
jonknee
Elon Musk will be there waiting to greet the astronauts if it takes NASA 40
years.

~~~
mladenkovacevic
Usain Bolt of the space race.

------
cjdavis
One of us watching this right now is going to set foot on Mars. Probably more
than one.

------
rewatchhow
For people that missed the event on the livestream, how can we rewatch this?

------
LVB
The free NASA TV channel on Roku is carrying this as well.

------
metermax
I am so happy to have been watching this historic event! I cannot believe that
there were no network affiliates carrying the EDL live from JPL. I watched it
happily on Ustream, but I'm upset about it. I tried to check NBC up to 18
minutes prior, and they weren't even showing an olympic event. They showed
some taped interview with a British rowing medalist from 20 years ago. If the
whole thing is on tape delay anyway, what is their excuse? What if I'm not
someone who has a computer connected to their television and only had a TV?
Every American should have been able to see this live. This is the greatest
feat of engineering in history!!!

------
antimora
Screenshot of landing picture:

[https://dl.dropbox.com/u/76008/Screenshot%20from%202012-08-0...](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/76008/Screenshot%20from%202012-08-05%2022%3A38%3A06.png)

------
njharman
A word that is overused but truly applicable to this landing / 7min of terror.

Awesome

------
alanfalcon
Got my peanuts. Good luck, Curiosity.

------
pka
For those who missed it, here's a VOD:
<http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24512027>

Landing starts at about 19:00 minutes.

------
ccarpenterg
Curiosity just landed: <https://twitter.com/NASA/status/232348523050450945>

------
mladenkovacevic
This is amazing. I can just imagine the anxiety and excitement of waiting for
Odyssey to fly around for another pass and transmit more data back home.

------
jrappleye
Earth wins another round of expensive hardware lobbing! Here's a humorous
reminder at how difficult it is to reach other planets, especially Mars - too
bad it hasn't been updated in a while.

<http://www.bio.aps.anl.gov/~dgore/fun/PSL/>

------
TomGullen
One thing they mentioned is that one advantage to the sky hook is that it will
be a soft landing - no dust will go everywhere and land on delicate
instruments.

Isn't this easily solvable with some sort of skin it can just dispose of once
the dust has settled?

~~~
natep
They do have covers on the lenses that will be removed, but I don't think it
would be practical to put removable covers everywhere. What would happen if
the 'skin' didn't come off?

------
yread
Look at this video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij33yhdGn_g>

it's about the landing of the spirit rover. You can see the same people that
were in the room today talking about it!

------
gautamc
<http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/>

------
manglav
If you look at the images, it seems like they use linux as their OS? Can
anyone else confirm?

~~~
rickr
A little late and I don't work there but I know I've seen at least Sun
gear/monitors at JPL and Houston.

------
dinkumthinkum
Well, congratulations are in order I guess. Touchdown confirmed. :)

~~~
tux1968
Images arriving now.. Would like to be part of the next trip ;o)

------
RVijay007
Why can't they ever take just one horizon photo of the scenery in front of the
rover instead of the typical, "looking at the ground" photos that are common
with these rovers? That would have been a far better shot to show live.

~~~
ars
They did. Front and back.

~~~
RVijay007
Oh, do you have a link to those photos? I must have missed them. Thanks!

~~~
ars
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4343891>

------
bane
Just landed..."lets see where Curiosity takes us"

------
redwood
I recognize one of those guys from college! w00t

------
antimora
Congrats on successfully landing!

