On August 5, NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover will touch down on the surface of the Red Planet. Or that’s what we all hope, because it will be the craziest landing in the history of space exploration.
I mean…
We engineered this incredible piece of technology to great precision, with state-of-the-art robotics and scientific instruments.
We put the thing, unmanned, on top of a giant tube of highly combustible fuel, which itself is a marvel of engineering and power, and shot it out of the atmosphere and toward a tiny point of light millions of miles from Earth.
We waited over 8 months while this small craft traversed the vacuum of space at great speed, getting ever closer to our planetary neighbor, the whole time keeping on a precise course after being launched from and heading toward constantly-moving planets to ensure it reaches just the right location in a fairly small window of space and time.
And soon, our craft, aiming for a relatively small area on the surface of the planet, is going to slam into the Mars atmosphere at high velocity and endure intense heat that would melt the craft if it weren’t for its heat shield.
In the span of several minutes, it will then have to engage in a number of precisely-timed maneuvers and functions as it hurtles toward the surface of Mars; deploying a parachute, firing boosters, bringing it practically to a hover over the surface, before finally lowering the rover itself to the surface with a sky crane.
Assuming that all goes off without a hitch, our curious not-actually-so-little rover will robotically wander and study the sands of an alien world, possibly bringing forth wondrous new discoveries.
Isn’t that amazing?
Give NASA ALL OF THE MONEY, I say!
Space exploration ftw!!
