Saturday, December 03, 2011

all aboard to mars

We spent Thanksgiving weekend in Cocoa Beach and were lucky enough to see a rocket launch from our hosts's back yard. Talk about front row seats.


I had to look up the details of the mission later, which were pretty amazing - a probe headed for Mars:
The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will launch NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. The centerpiece of MSL is the Curiosity rover, which will assess whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support microbial life and to determine the planet's habitability. The rocket will fly in the 541 vehicle configuration with a five-meter fairing, four solid rocket boosters and a single-engine Centaur upper stage.
It was really interesting to hear the launch after the rocket was lost in the clouds and out of sight. Are we really going to try to test out of Mars is habitable? Sure sounds like it. Maybe my daughter's generation will someday be vacationing on the red planet.
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