

Where to watch Mars Curiosity Landing Online - littlesparkvt
http://spaceindustrynews.com/where-to-view-the-mars-curiosity-landing-online/420/

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basicallydan
For anybody else interested in the objectives of Curiosity (I wasn't sure so I
checked)

The MSL mission has four scientific goals: 1\. Determine whether Mars could
ever have supported life 2\. Study the climate of Mars 3\. Study the geology
of Mars 4\. Plan for a human mission to Mars

Sweet!

From Wikipedia:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_rover#Goals_and_objec...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_rover#Goals_and_objectives)

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brunoqc
What would be the objectives of a human mission? I'm wondering if it's mostly
an ego thing since the robots can do most of the science stuff.

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greyfade
To do it.

And while we're there, science the place up.

There are still some experiments we can only do in person that can't be done
with robots. I can imagine experiments relating to terraforming would be high
on the list.

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Pfhreak
Does anyone have an idea of when this will occur? This article says 15:31, but
provides no timezone. The wikipedia page says 05:31 UTC. I assumed the article
is written by someone at NASA from the author tag "JULY 11, 2012 by WILLIAM in
NASA" which suggests they are putting times in ETC...

Edit: Further research shows the JPL saying 'just after ten pm, PST' which is
in line with the 05:31 UTC touchdown.

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ChuckMcM
Note that it lands on August 6th "GMT" but it lands just after 10PM on the
west coast on Sunday the 5th. That's why I'm having a "Welcome to Mars!" party
that day. Drinks, snacks, and we'll watch the landing live on big screen TV
courtesy of the NASA TV channel.

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capnrefsmmat
Just after 10PM? Wikipedia gives the landing time as approximately 05:31 UTC
August 6th, which is 1:31 AM EDT.

I'd like to be wrong, since I'd like to stay up and watch, but I have work in
the morning :(

Also, I expect there will be quite some delay between actual landing and
confirmation received by NASA, given Mars' distance from Earth.

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ChuckMcM
Aye, sorry that your EDT, in PDT its 10:31 PM, and the 'fun' starts just after
10 (as in I believe the last big retro burn is around 10 and the final descent
begins) now the telemetry from that maneuver will let us know if there is a
chance it will make it (did you say 3000 "feet" per second or "meters" per
second?)

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Achshar
I am actually quiet sure there cannot be a live video feed. The best we can
have is a twitter feed or maybe a live-blog from someone form NASA. I would
have absolutely loved a video feed though.

