Mars Landing tonight
 

Should be interesting.
Hope it comes down clean.

They are using parachutes
and thrust to slow it down
instead of the bouncy ball
balloons hope I come to rest
in one piece.

Good luck to U of Arizona they
are calling the shots.

Let's watch.








Should be fun.

Watch?

Did you place cameras on the
surface of Mars? Or have you
been playing with Thebbie's
toys for too long...

For the teeming millions interested,
nothing more can be done now.
Last instructions were sent.

On Sunday, the pull of Mars gravity will accelerate the spacecraft from 6,300 miles per hour to 12,700 miles per hour when it enters the Martian atmosphere.

“And then we have seven minutes to take that velocity down to zero,” Mr. Goldstein said.

The friction of the atmosphere will slow the craft down by 90 percent. Then a parachute is to provide further drag, and for the last kilometer down to the surface, 12 rocket engines are to slow Phoenix to a velocity of 5 miles per hour as it bumps into the ground.



This type of landing failed in 1999.
Hope it makes it... and Morton's
cameras on the surface get a
good picture as she
glides in from above.

They aren't possibly putting this online for the world to see, are they??

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ph...ain/index.html

Live:

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/

http://www.nasa.gov/

@ NASA television link. Discovery Science has coverage too

CNN Right now interviewing NASA and will stay live throughout! :D

Cmon Bill, you still have TV right?

Mine has tinfoil on the rabbit ears. :D

Cool.

Morton has a tinfoil hat on.

They're there!

A geek party breaks out.

Hopefully all equipment is in order
and we get some shots of a perfectly
flat boring surface.

Yesssssssssssssss!

Bodog had +110 on it making it! Had big money on this one!

Photo finish.

Spyder

online and on CNN...

Some people actually are interested.

First Pictures In from Mars
 

Los Angeles.

why do they get so excited? 40 years ago they did much more difficult landings and takeoffs on the moon. now they do hi fives simply to crash land?

They wanted to do something to recognize the record 11 explosions in Mr. Garden's physics lab this month.

Right next to Wal-Mart
 

Maybe working a project for 15 years has something
to do with it.

It has to come down intact to get
information from the probes. We have learned
so much more from these missions than sending
people up which is infinitely more expensive
and not nearly as productive in gathering
information.

What time are they suppose to crash?