A World Away

I logged on to the video stream of NASA's Odyssey/Curiosity mission when they were 15km above the surface of our latest frontier in the solar system, just shortly before the high-altitude parachute was deployed. Shortly after, the capsule was travelling at 150 meters per second, at 8km when I cracked open the last of my peanut supply.

It seemed only seconds and mission control was announcing the speed had slowed to 90 meters per second, at around 6km altitude and I was literally on the edge of my seat. I did the only thing I could think to do besides scrawl on whatever scraps of paper were laying in front of my computer on my desk. I tweeted.

Silly as "tweeted" sounds I'm glad I have some record other than my groggy peanut-laced memories of ~1:30am EST.

Powered flight was announced at 50 meters per second, which then sharply dropped to 10 meters per second within seconds. It was almost immediately after that, moving at just 0.639 meters per second vertical and ~0.004 meters per second horizontal, that "touchdown" was confirmed.

I thought, 1) they've got to maneuver a nuclear powered vehicle using never-before-seen techniques, and 2) they've got to hope that it works when it gets there. Not long after touchdown someone from somewhere inside my monitor shouted "It's a wheel!" Caught up in excitement and hoping to make part of it my own, I again tweeted, "Curiosity sees it's feet!"

I couldn't do much but tweet and eat peanuts, but obviously the excitement was gripping. There are lots of opinions on this event and lots more on the fate and value of the space program. Though I'll end this post with the last message I forwarded on that ever so silly sounding message-board for the world-

Alfredo (@astronomer72) wrote: "NASA represents less than 1 percent of what the USA federal budget spends and just put a nuclear powered robot on another world."