I know most people find the achievement of landing this thing on mars with robotics and computer programs to be the most amazing thing. And I really do find that amazing, but as always I find one other aspect far more incredible. The fact that they could slingshot and fire out an unmanned craft from earths orbit, across that vast and void gap, millions of miles across. To hit another planet's very precise orbiting belt, all while this planet is traveling at relative speeds that could never be achieved by anything on our planets surface, because air friction would pull it apart.
Reminds me of the line from Armageddon. "Its like hitting a fired bullet, with another bullet, while riding on horseback." (Paraphrased)
That achievement alone has always left me amazed.
The intricacies of any one element, and of the project as a whole, are both individually and collectively mind-bending. How's about the fact that Curiosity took since 26 November last year to reach Mars... 8 and a bit months just to reach our next-door neighbour, travelling at break-neck speeds. Douglas Adams in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comes to mind:
"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space..."
Or the matter of the entire entry and landing procedure being autonomous, with final descent being below the horizon as seen from Earth? Or being able to hit an 8km by 20km ellipse after having travelled 570,000,000km? Or coordinating the existing orbiting satellites to actually snap a freaking photograph of the freaking capsule and freaking parachute?
It's just an exercise in superlatives. Notwithstanding the fact that NASA could obviously make course corrections during the voyage, a commenter on Phil Plait's blog put it thusly: "This is equivalent to going to New York City and, from the top of the Empire State Building, throwing a single red blood cell (approximate size of the craft at this scale), having that red blood cell fly all the way to Orlando, Florida where it hits a dart board. And 250 meters from landing? That makes the comparison into: hits a dart board less than a millimeter from dead center. *jaw drops*"
I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say that it is one of humanity's most impressive achievements ever. Science, bitches... it works!
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