Giant Nasa rover launches to Mars

[jimmy olsen]

Awesomesauce! Hopefully it will discover some evidence of past life.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15904408

Giant Nasa rover launches to Mars
Jonathan Amos By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

The Atlas 5 launch rocket carrying the Mars rover blasted off from Florida

Nasa has launched the most capable machine ever built to land on Mars.

The near one-tonne rover, tucked inside a capsule, left Florida on an Atlas 5 rocket at 10:02 local time (15:02 GMT).

Nicknamed Curiosity, the rover will take eight and a half months to cross the vast distance to its destination.

If it can land safely next August, the robot will then scour Martian soils and rocks for any signs that current or past environments on the planet could have supported microbial life.

The Atlas flight lasted almost three-quarters of an hour.

By the time the encapsulated rover was ejected on a path to the Red Planet, it was moving at 10km/s (6 miles per second).

Spectacular video taken from the upper-stage of the rocket showed it drifting off into the distance.

"Our spacecraft is in excellent health and it's on its way to Mars," said Curiosity project manager Peter Theisinger.

Nasa received a first communication from the cruising spacecraft about 50 minutes after lift-off through a tracking station in Canberra, Australia.

Controllers will command a course correction manoeuvre in two weeks to refine the trajectory to the Red Planet.

The rover - also known as the Mars Science laboratory (MSL) - is due to arrive at the Red Planet in early August 2012. Then, the hard part begins - landing safely.

One senior space agency official this week called Mars the "Death Planet" because so many missions have failed to get down in one piece.

The Americans, though, have a good recent record and they believe a new rocket-powered descent system will be able to place the rover very precisely in one of the most exciting locations on the planet.

[Razgovory]

Hopefully it does not.

[KRonn]

We should just collarborate with other space faring nations (Russia, China, for instance) and send a manned flight there. Share the costs and knowledge. Set up a scientific post for some research.

[jimmy olsen]

Hopefully it does not.

Why not?

[Tamas]

hopefully it will find oil and uranium.

[Neil]

Hopefully it does not.

Why not?

Just to annoy you.  And then they'll stop looking.

[Neil]

hopefully it will find oil and uranium.

Why?  What good would those things do?

[Tamas]

hopefully it will find oil and uranium.

Why?  What good would those things do?

well, I am fine with them finding anything which would kick start the industrialization of the solar system.

[Neil]

hopefully it will find oil and uranium.

Why?  What good would those things do?

well, I am fine with them finding anything which would kick start the industrialization of the solar system.

Unobtanium?  Magnetic monopoles?  Element X?  A working mass relay?

There's nothing feasibly there that's worth getting.

[Tonitrus]

hopefully it will find oil and uranium.

Why?  What good would those things do?

well, I am fine with them finding anything which would kick start the industrialization of the solar system.

Unobtanium?  Magnetic monopoles?  Element X?  A working mass relay?

There's nothing feasibly there that's worth getting.

[jimmy olsen]

hopefully it will find oil and uranium.

Why?  What good would those things do?

well, I am fine with them finding anything which would kick start the industrialization of the solar system.

Unobtanium?  Magnetic monopoles?  Element X?  A working mass relay?

There's nothing feasibly there that's worth getting.

The secrets of the Anti-life equation?

[Tamas]

hopefully it will find oil and uranium.

Why?  What good would those things do?

well, I am fine with them finding anything which would kick start the industrialization of the solar system.

Unobtanium?  Magnetic monopoles?  Element X?  A working mass relay?

There's nothing feasibly there that's worth getting.

Maybe not yet, but we are getting there. It is inevitable. I would just like to live to see it.

[Caliga]

Hopefully it does not.

Why not?

Just to annoy you.  And then they'll stop looking.

Nope.  What you're forgetting is that most NASA scientists are Tims with PhDs.

[Neil]

hopefully it will find oil and uranium.

Why?  What good would those things do?

well, I am fine with them finding anything which would kick start the industrialization of the solar system.

Unobtanium?  Magnetic monopoles?  Element X?  A working mass relay?

There's nothing feasibly there that's worth getting.

There are bad girls here already.

[Razgovory]

Hopefully it does not.

Why not?

We've been over this before.  Finding life in the solar system is a really bad sign.