[mtripoli]

Curiosity landed on Mars! These guys should have a holiday named after them and a ticker-tape parade. This is an amazing accomplishment and they should all be congratulated!

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/

[Mihai]

Yes it is, while down here on earth we still move around using engines that make tiny controlled explosions and waste 90% of the energy in their fuel as heat, and we spend trillions trying to find more dinosaur bones to burn. Humans.

[shen.de]

compared to how long it took us to land on the moon and return and that is now allmost 50(!)years ago landing on mars is nothing special imo.
probably just a waste of time and money.

but hey, we all knew this day would come

[Hervé]

well yes.. pretty images from Mars are cool.. but that whole thing is a bit pointless I think..

Let's say they find past life evidences ... then so what..? ... the human race colonization...? hehe..

Sounds like a "déja vu"...

[glebe digital]

[Hervé]

[mtripoli]

Wow. It's kind of staggering to hear the responses here. Pointless? Nothing special? Waste of time and money? It's obvious from these replies that you guys are out of touch. Every mission of this type has had direct trickle down to the public sector in terms of products that become available has a result of the research done. What they did with this mission is nothing short of extraordinary; even a cursory look at the information shown on the JPL/NASA website will tell you that (review the "7 minutes of terror"). This is an amazing accomplishment from almost every scientific sector; mechanical engineering, electronics engineering, software - the list goes on. To be so blasé about it; I don't know, I feel sorry for you guys. Maybe there's more to it; after all the United States pulled this off; I don't see much of an offering from your countries (yeah, I know, "flame on").

[glebe digital]

mtripoli -- shucks, this is nothin'. Try being in Britain and even remotely 'anti-olympics' right now, what with all the swivel-eyed 'patriots' flag-waving like their lives depended on it.

Personally I think curiosity is pretty amazing, I can't wait for the first colour 360 shot tomorrow. My kids are glued to it as well, and this mission has inspired them to drag the telescope out once more. For that, many thanks NASA dudes.

[Thomas An.]

If every human being had half the drive, vision, and pioneering insight of Elon Musk, earth might be a planet I wouldn't mind living in.

[rusteberg]

If every human being had half the drive, vision, and pioneering insight of Elon Musk, earth might be a planet I wouldn't mind living in.

i believe that would be called utopia. there are a lot of social and evolutionary factors which inhibit that notion from ever existing..... on earth we call this reality.

part of the beauty of space exploration is that it allows the mind to escape that (reality) if for only a brief moment.

such is the art of self exploration and that which is unknown.... this desire creates drive in human life. unfortunately it is not a common trait and a lot of us are left with reality.

for a lot of people, that reality becomes a barrier.

[Hervé]

exactly right... all I see around me are barriers, and behind that.. another barrier... and I am just too weak and my life is too short to try to break it... so meanwhile I sit here on earth like a dumbo... I don't even know why I am here on earth.. call me whatever you want, but space does not make me dream at all.. my curiosity has borders.. and that border is called Earth... in other words, I have not even explored my own mini brain, so for the space... hehe.. one guy was telling me the other day.. hey Man ! we all come from Star dust...!

What to say...? wow cool.. hhehe..

But... for the people that enjoy it, it might be fun.. I am not against.. really I like everything happening on Earth.. the good, the bad... everything..

h/

[Thomas An.]

Once, you have accepted the status quo as is, you have completed the objective of stagnation.

It doesn't have to be "space" though, but any frontier of knowlede is worth exploring so long as its a frontier.

For instance, I would be just as happy if we finally settled the true speed of gravity and such ... social engineering is a frontier too. Unique solutions require unique minds, and it would be just as useful spending a few billion on education and discovery of new unique minds globally.

[mtripoli]

I think the reason I was taken aback by the responses was it doesn't look like any consideration was given to such a monumental feat. We are so used to having "gadgets" around us that we take things for granted (like the internet). Maybe I'm a little "closer" to it given I'm an electronics (and mechanical) engineer. When I see a program like this my mind starts thinking about "how" to do this. When you consider that all it would take is one bad "trace" on a printed circuit board, one O-ring (as we unfortunately know) to fail and the entire mission is ruined. In watching the "7 minutes" video you see a little bit of what they did to put the rover on the surface; drop the machine down on tethers to the surface, then cutaway the rockets and make them fly off somewhere else? My point is when you consider the millions of details that go into something like this, and they got it to work - it boggles the mind. We can all argue that the money could have been spent elsewhere; education, helping the poor, etc. But just from a "look what we did" (as humans) point of view, I'm damn proud.

[Ha_Loe]

I really like looking at some cool new pics from mars. And I totally admire the engineering effort of making this mission work, BUT: what is it really, apart from those pics and some rock samples? What can be gained apart from some interesting facts about Mars and it's past?

It's not like the early days any more when space technology could advance technology on earth. Because of all the reliability and necessary testing involved, the on-board instruments actually lag pro consumer products by a couple of years. The next big super computer isn't some specialized monster of engineering, just a couple of PS3 linked together.

Say, we find some valuable minerals up there, we'd still have no way to put them to use. Meanwhile we switch from one way to waste resources to another, totally ignoring that rare minerals sunk unrecoverably into PV-cells will probably not last as long, as the reserves of fossil fuels will.

The next step, sending a few people over there, will not solve earths population problem. Instead we find some large sweet water reservoir in africa and are happy to be able to sustain half of africa for 400years on yet another fossil source... then what?

I mean, there's so many, many unsolved problems down here on little earth. Why not break those frontiers first?

[O2b4wln]

Hey 8-year-old me, I just watched NASA land a giant rover on Mars on my wireless pocket computer. You’re going to like it here in the future.