When this post is 75 minutes old, Curiosity will touch down on Mars

[Skoshi Tiger]

Originally Posted by Robert

As exciting as watching the early Apollo flights. Do we realize what has been accomlished and in how many different ways this could have gone wrong? Amazing! I was surprised the images were as clear as they were.

good work NASA, JPL.

I remember reading a book by Michael Collins the Apollo Astronaut. In it he was talking about the lift off and pressing the buttons to release the first stage. He said there were close to a million individual components in the first stage, any of which would kill them if it failed at the wrong time and the sense of relief felt as the stage fell away.

At that point there were a million less things to worry about, and only five million other things left.

[Robert]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

I remember reading a book by Michael Collins the Apollo Astronaut. In it he was talking about the lift off and pressing the buttons to release the first stage. He said there were close to a million individual components in the first stage, any of which would kill them if it failed at the wrong time and the sense of relief felt as the stage fell away.

At that point there were a million less things to worry about, and only five million other things left.

As amazing as that is (and it is), what always filled my mind with awe was the recoupling of the lunar lander with the command module. I've heard it described as a slingshot hurtling two men in a craft toward another craft in hopes that they'd meet. Now it might not be 100% accurate, but if the two parts in reality missed each other, would there be enough power to realign another docking? (I'd hope so, but I've never heard if there was enough boost for another go 'round) The margin for error boggles the mind. Some mighty big stones. Mighty big.


Can't wait for some video.

[Sternjaeger II]

what annoys me is that this will be swallowed by the other gossip news soon

[Viking]

Congrats Nasa. Amazing that such a complex operation have worked out well so far.
But the amount of effort we put in to finding life and a new livable planet compared to the effort we put in to destroying and mistreating the only one we have is also puzzling to say the least.
Viking