Geekologie I Watch Stuff The Superficial

High-Def Video Of Curiosity Rover's Descent To Mars

August 22, 2012 / a thing of beauty, amazing, beautiful, good lookin', holy smokes, i still can't even believe it, interplanetary travel, man send me next time I don't care if it is a one-way trip i'm done here on earth anyways, mars, nasa, outerspace, sign me up, success!, yayayayayay!

mars-rover-descent.jpg

Holy shit it's a smiley face.

This is a high-definition video (created using photographs) of the Mars rover Curiosity landing on the red planet. That's not it in the picture though, that's just the heat-shield being jettisoned. "The sign clearly said 'NO DUMPING'" I imagine a Martian thinking to itself before pushing the button that melts earth with a powerful laser-beam.

Though they can't be seen in the video, the rover gets lowered down on 25-foot-long cables for its "sky crane" maneuver near the end. Just before hitting the Martian soil, the engines kick up a huge amount of dust and pebbles, which obscures the ground and may be responsible for damaging one of Curiosity's wind sensors. The soft landing went off with pitch-perfect precision and was a big victory for NASA engineers.

I still can't believe we're advanced enough as a race to successfully land things on other planets with such precision. I guess I just don't have any contact with the smart people. No lie, most people around here don't even know what half the road signs mean. "Okay now the upside down triangle -- that means try to put on makeup and drive, right?"

Hit the jump and get your outerspace face on.

Thanks to Terrence, Doombah and Rick, all volunteered to be shot to Mars wearing nothing but a track-suit and helmet cam.

There are Comments

  • Someone needs to add a 'Ride of the Valkyries' soundtrack to this...

  • Can they get done for littering? Fist toxic fuel now heat shields left scattered around everywhere!

  • ZomBBombeR

    I tried desperately to follow the descent of the heat shield despite the damn rover not holding the camera still **shakes fist** but lost it about halfway through the landing to the bottom of the screen, I was just trying to see the impact dust cloud in HD rather than the 2.0mp rendering you get at the end lolz.

  • bakuryu

    It's hard to find,but I think I've figured out where it is;around the end of the 21st second a very little black dot appears for a brief moment at the bottom of the screen,just a few millimeter left of the cursor on the streaming bar(viewing it with the youtube window embedded in the site).The video is quite shaky and the moment the shield impact,the camera shift upward very quickly,the all event ends when the spot is almost out of the view.I suggest to first seek the right spot in low def and only after try to watch it in HD,but it's not all this deal,I think the view edited at the end of the video works better(the first one).
    Here's where you have to look:
    http://imgur.com/tATRE
    in the pic I've linked,the entire event is already started,you can see the black dot even before that moment.
    Hope you read this comment even if posted after a while.

  • BillGatesIsYourDaddy

    doesn't really look that red

  • Pascale Laviolette

    Meh, colour is subjective.

  • Guest

    You know, they could have picked up a microphone at Radio Shack for a couple of bucks.

  • Nick Adelman

    here's how to make your own. grab your audio recorder. get in your car. put on your seat belt (safety first!). start your car. drive somewhere where you can do about 80 mph (try to avoid listening to your favorite milli vanilli song). start recording. roll down your window. stick the recorder mic out of the window (make sure to get it in the flow of air). after about 45 seconds, jerk the wheel to the right to make your AMC pacer do multiple barrel rolls. be sure to stop the recording at 50 seconds. timing is everything.

  • n_a_a_s

    woops..... u dropped ur shield, probably going to want that after landing on a martian planet

  • Those were the droids I was looking for!

  • BillGatesIsYourDaddy

    *waves hand
    No they are not.

  • Tyler Mussman

    I don't think those swimmers/gymnasts/water polo-ers in the Olympics deserve HALF the "USA! USA!" chants that those crazy NASA scientists do.

blog comments powered by Disqus