Relatively speaking, it's getting really close at this point. It's at the equivalent of "Please return your seatbacks and tray tables to their full, upright position," bracing for landing.
Whoever thought of the Sky Crane thing must be super excited right about now. Come on, that's awesome, right?
I am such a nerd for stuff like this. Five minutes to entry!
From NASA's Twitter feed: "NASA #MSL: We're in the seven minutes of terror for @MarsCuriosity 12 seconds ago"
The whole process seems so Rube Goldbergian. Parachute! Rockets! Sky crane! At least they didn't use the giant beach ball this time.
So awesome. Loved the applause at each successful stage.
Slept right through it. I'm a rock.
Slept right through it. I'm in another time zone.
But the hell with walking and fucking. This is what humans are good at. Doing shit that no other animal could understand, let alone imagine.
I like to think that dolphins right now are doing all sorts of things we can't understand, let alone imagine.
14: Good work, rob, since I'm declaring this smut week on Unfogged*. Off to a good start.
*At least that's the way I'm going to interpret everything independent of what you fuckers actually write.
JPL has a chart somewhere that shows the evolution of the skycrane landing system. From what I recall, it was mainly driven by the weight of the rover, and the danger of tipping over when landing on uneven or sloping ground. Logically the skycrane makes a lot of sense, but getting it to work in real life is impressive.
Also, I bet other animals think humans are gross. Sort of like naked mole rats... mostly hairless, with long wriggly feelers, limited night vision and poor sense of smell.
14: is this time for the dolphin scuba rape story again?
