This is cool stuff guys- NASA has landed a rover the size of a small car on Mars early this morning. First photo from the lander using the "small" camera: http://twitpic.com/ag43lt/full

It is very cool stuff. Of course, I like the gag photo with Marvin the Martian looking into the camera.

Oh gawd, someone thought of that besides me!! I kept having a voice in my head saying something like, "Where's my intergalatic space modulator!"

Made me feel kinda old a little. From black & white tv's when I was 5 yrs old, to transistor radio's to sputnik, to my hair going into 2 satlelittes, to landing on moon to big probe landing on mars. Wow!

*sorry for spelling.

Pfff, wait till I get there to fix the camera (bad Made in China stuff), that will be really cool stuff

NASA breathes a collective sigh of relief since the landing coincides with their request for more money for Mars expeditions. A crash would have ended it.

Marvin is carefully moving around out of sight of the camera as he "fixes" the rover.

I have a coffee cup that I use for people who ask for decaf that shows Marvin with the quote, "Where's the ka-BOOM!?"

Heh! Now that's funny. I have a white recipe box with a Marvin sticker on top pointing his 'gun' at the viewer. I used one of those alphabet tape thingies to make a line that reads, "Touch my recipes and your TOAST!" Which I put just above Marvin.

I think they said last night that 'Curiosity' will start moving around in a week if all goes well with testing stuff.

Thats awesome, i used to have a coffee mug of marvin's head.

I swear, its not everyday that you find a community that can go from "hey gaiz mars landing!" to Marvin the Martian from the old Looney Tunes cartoons. This community is awesome <3.

I admit I am very interested in space travel myself, and would like to see it become more advanced over time. The few times the government threatened to shut down NASA I got sad. We're the only country (to my knowlege) with an active seperate branch dedicated to space travel. The future is space, granted it'll probably be another hundred years or so, but who knows?

I have to have decaf coffee due to medical reasons and the fact that I refused to completely give up coffee.

Im sorry to sound stupid, but i dont follow these things and would like to. What is the idea of this entail? I only heard a few things people spoke of at my job but didnt have a clue as to what they were talking about.

NASA, our government run space department, has sent a robot the size of a small car to Mars. Why? Well because we humans have always been explorers. We have a need to understand the unknown, to travel to places uncharted.

This robot will primarily look for signs of life- whether existing now (unlikely) or fossilized (possible, given that water once flowed on Mars). This will answer the most profound question in all of human history: is Earth the only location of life in the universe. Beyond that, it is also looking to see what kind of resources are readily available on Mars. Can humans eventually live there- is there enough frozen water? Would the soil support plant growth (in a greenhouse dome, of course).

Mars is an entire different planet from us, just an 8 month journey away...think about that for a minute. It really is amazing.

Please don't go until we get some screenies

One door opens... today Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, has passed away.

I met him a few years ago. I was with a pilot who absolutely went into a state of total hero worship and adoration. Mr. Armstrong was so kind and gracious. You would never have known that he had done anything special in his life. I almost felt that he was embarrassed by the recognition. And, of course, he had done something unbelievably special....

A special man has gone to join other greats of history.
I can remember sitting in our living room clued to the tv with my son on one side of the couch and hubby on the other. What an exciting event that was. And at that time I was thankful it wasn't the Russkies. (Cold War and all for those under 40 ) Science Fiction met Science that day.