People Are Crazy: Mars Edition

NASA's got another Mars rover that's supposed to land in about a week, on August 5. I hadn't really been paying attention so I wasn't aware this was happening until recently, when a friend linked to this video detailing how the landing will work.

Now, I know what you're thinking. What's the big deal? They've landed on Mars before. Well, watch the fucking video, jerk. This is people being really fucking smart and doing shit most other people couldn't even dream of doing. No matter how crazy shit can be nowadays, we can still do absolutely insane feats of engineering that 100 years from now, when the world lies in ruins, we will look back on and say 'yeah, we were pretty cool'.

Fuck your Mako, fuck your magic Star Wars landing shuttle, your 'wasting taxpayer money' bullshit, this is real fucking science that we're doing.

Awesome.  I can't wait to get my ass to Mars.
 
EDIT: That reminds me, does the new Total Recall even take place on Mars?  I haven't seen any orange rocks or anything in the trailers.

You're welcome.

Its going to be like Red Faction all over again

I remember watching a proposal for a mission to mars that was basically a plane that would run on solar power and fly over mars for like months taking readings. Never got funding but it looked awesome.

@Spoonman671 said:

Awesome. I can't wait to get my ass to Mars. EDIT: That reminds me, does the new Total Recall even take place on Mars? I haven't seen any orange rocks or anything in the trailers.

I think it does, but they're just saving it as a surprise for people who haven't seen the original (full disclosure: I've only ever seen a couple minutes on the Scifi channel). Sweep apparently worked on it, though, so maybe ask him?

@theguy said:

I remember watching a proposal for a mission to mars that was basically a plane that would run on solar power and fly over mars for like months taking readings. Never got funding but it looked awesome.

Was that the one that had big fucking sails made out of gold solar panel cloth-type stuff? I think I remember that.

This whole sky-crane thing is bananas. I'm sure they've done all the math and are confident that it's going to work but... man, it just looks like there's a hundred things that can go wrong here.

...I'm tempted to watch something on TV. This never happens.

Fly away Sky Crane and be freeeeeeeeee!!!

In all honesty this thing looks more complicated then it really needs to be. Then again, I'm no physicist and I'm sure it really is more complicated then that. Either way, space exploration is really fascinating so I'm interested in this, more so then the Olympics actually.

Hooray!

I've been following this for a couple of months. It's completely insane, it cannot fail, it must not fail. August 5th is going to be one hell of a day.

@MarkWahlberg said:

@Spoonman671 said:

Awesome. I can't wait to get my ass to Mars. EDIT: That reminds me, does the new Total Recall even take place on Mars? I haven't seen any orange rocks or anything in the trailers.

I think it does, but they're just saving it as a surprise for people who haven't seen the original (full disclosure: I've only ever seen a couple minutes on the Scifi channel). Sweep apparently worked on it, though, so maybe ask him?

@theguy said:

I remember watching a proposal for a mission to mars that was basically a plane that would run on solar power and fly over mars for like months taking readings. Never got funding but it looked awesome.

Was that the one that had big fucking sails made out of gold solar panel cloth-type stuff? I think I remember that.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/joel_levine.html

This one. I don't know if we're talking about the same one I don't think it has any sails it looks more like a drone.