Dude, Where’s My Mars Rover?
By Patrick Sharma (Newsbound)
NASA’s Curiosity rover has been slowly exploring the red planet for months now. But what’s it looking for? How did this SUV-sized robot get up there in the first place? And what does the future hold for NASA’s Mars program?
- This interactive feature allows you to explore all the parts of the Curiosity rover up close.
- This quick video from NASA visualizes the “seven minutes of terror”.
- In this hour-long documentary, PBS Nova explains in detail how NASA scientists used a “sky crane” to land the rover on Mars.
- This question and answer session with members of the Mars Curiosity mission team contains a number of interesting insights. (For instance, over 400 scientists and engineers are required to run the rover at any given time!)
- In a 2012 Atlantic interview, scientist Neil DeGrasse Tyson discusses how “space exploration can make America great again.”
- This piece in the Washington Monthly describes the U.S. government’s recent efforts to promote private space flight.
- Speaking of privatization, read about SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s dream of building a 80,000-person colony on Mars.
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Credits: Designed by Tabriz Ghazi and Katie Tonkovich.
Images courtesy of the Associated Press and NASA.
First Published: 1/23/2013
