{"id":11594,"date":"2012-08-06T13:48:20","date_gmt":"2012-08-06T17:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=11594"},"modified":"2012-08-08T13:12:04","modified_gmt":"2012-08-08T17:12:04","slug":"curiositys-seven-minutes-of-terror-best-explanation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/curiositys-seven-minutes-of-terror-best-explanation\/","title":{"rendered":"Curiosity’s “Seven Minutes of Terror”: Best Explanation"},"content":{"rendered":"

This video has been out for awhile, but I still find it entertaining. It’s a bunch of NASA folks explaining all the things that have to happen exactly right in order to get the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), a\/k\/a Curiosity, safely from space to the Martian surface. It’s way more complicated than the landings of earlier rovers: this one is the size of a small car, weighs about a thousand pounds, and is (per the device’s full name) chock-full of chemical-analysis and other testing instruments.<\/p>\n

One of the cooler items on board: a rock-blasting laser. It can focus in on a rock several meters away, and vaporize it — filming the dust, which will tell it [something or other] about the material the rock was made of.<\/p>\n

(On the other hand, I have a little science-fiction scenario in my head: say there are two single-celled organisms remaining on Mars, on the whole planet, following eons of extinction. Say these two have just successfully mated, and reproduced single-celled organism #3<\/a>. The happy family is all excited, of course, and starts to plan for the future of their species on, oh no!<\/em>, on\u00a0exactly the wrong pebble…)<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

As you probably know by now, the landing seems to have gone off without a hitch. So, so cool.<\/p>\n

Update, 2012-08-08:<\/strong> Just saw this cartoon in the e-newsletter for\u00a0The Funny Times<\/em>, which pointed out that both Gabby Douglas and Curiosity stuck their landings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This video has been out for awhile, but I still find it entertaining. It’s a bunch of NASA folks explaining all the things that have to happen exactly right in order to get the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), a\/k\/a Curiosity, safely from space to the Martian surface. It’s way more complicated than the landings of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[94,95,17],"tags":[447,528,1494,1495,2119,3130,3131,3132,3133],"class_list":{"0":"post-11594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-02_in-the-news","7":"category-science-medicine","8":"category-04_technology","9":"tag-funny-times","10":"tag-science-fiction","11":"tag-nasa","12":"tag-mars","13":"tag-curiosity","14":"tag-msl","15":"tag-bob-englehart","16":"tag-gabby-douglas","17":"tag-olympics","18":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-310","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11594"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11602,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11594\/revisions\/11602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}