Do you believe in life outside our planet?

[veritatemfurto]

My daughter is Officially a Trekkie - she stayed home from school and is watching a full season of "Next Generation" !

LOL the entire series I grew up watching during dinner every weekday after Oprah.... TNG first, then homework ... I think I didn't eat a bite when Best Of Both Worlds was running for the first time!

[veritatemfurto]

  MSL is a one way trip.  A 3 month transit to Mars was on the books long ago.  It is the return that's the problem.  In the 3 months that it took to go to Mars, the Earth had zoomed past Mars in its orbit. 
  The technology for a nuclear powered hydrogen thruster was made and tested long ago for the purpose of going to Mars.  That project got canned due to funding.  I knew someone on that project and he spoke at my club meeting once showing pictures of the breadboard setup and tests and a government flick on it.  That place is still in mothballs waiting for refunding.  Most of those on that project are gone now, it has been a long time.  There is much ado of sending nuclear reactors up safely using rockets.  The Cassini Saturn spacecraft was in legal limbo for a while before it was launched.  MSL is the hope here.  There is a reactor aboard "Curiosity" , but nobody did challenge that launch. 
  Curiosity will have an interesting landing on Mars this August.  It is called a skycrane method.  Something that's never been tried before.
  Joelene

I was there when we packaged Curiosity up for the trip. the power core was pre-certified by all the necessary watchdogs before final assembly began. Curiosity is powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), like Viking 1 and Viking 2. Cassini's power core was an older design, and contained 72 pounds of ²³⁸Pu, versus just 10.6 pounds to power Curiosity. The skycrane delivery method was previously used to deliver the Viking probes in the 70s.

[Joelene9]

  Viking 1&2 was a simple drop from the top part of the aeroshell after the heat shield dropped away.  The 18 nozzle retro rockets on the bottom of both landers ignited and the landers were released from the top part about a mile from the surface.  Similar for the Phoenix lander not too long ago. 
  This Mini Cooper of a rover is going to be lowered onto the surface by the tethers from the retro pack above the rover after they are dropped from the top part of the capsule and is hovering above the surface.  This lowering is like what you'll see at a shipyard loading dock.  When the lowered rover touches down, the tethers will release and the upper retro pack will fly off away from the landing site.  This is a very unusal landing indeed. 
  Joelene

  JPL page with the trailer video of the flight and landing:  http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/videoarchive/?n=2011
  Scroll down to where it says "Curiosity Rover Trailer - August 10, 2011"