[PLUG-TALK] Mars lander Curiousity, OMSI Sunday Night Aug 5

[Richard]

On 8/4/2012 10:56 AM, Ronald Chmara wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 10:27 AM, Keith Lofstrom <keithl at gate.kl-ic.com> wrote:
>> The landing is one of the most elaborate kludges I've ever seen.
>> It will be a miracle if it works.
> They lost me at the "sky-crane" portion of the landing. Too many
> points of untested technology, let alone autonomous untested
> technology.
>
> I'm going with "it'll be a miracle if we learn anything new from this".
>
I was a little disappointed at how much unproven technology they're 
using.  They have a method that worked very well with the last two 
rovers.  Then they went and completely abandoned it.  Considering their 
failure rate, it is not very logical of them.

That being said.  My birthday is on August 6th and I have decided to 
maintain a positive attitude.  I'm celebrating by having a few friends 
over to broadcast NASA TV on my big screen projector starting at 9pm and 
going into my birthday.  I'm hopeful for a back slapping, big hugs, high 
five feel at mission control at 10:31pm.

And if it does fail, I will have a moment of silence in memory of the 
fallen rover, and either way, in memory of the tens of thousands that 
died with the bombing of Hiroshima 67 years ago (August 6th, 1945).

Richard