Farewell Sir

Neil Armstrong: 1930 – 2012:

The first human to walk on another planet has died at the age of 82.

Neil Armstrong's "one small step for a man" defined us as an interplanetary species.

Thank you sir, for your courage, your legend and for showing us all that we can dream. 

Farewell

Mars Boner!

Oh Hai!  I iz on yr Marz, stealing yr Vistas!

Curiouser and Curiouser

NASA, after landing a 1-ton, nuclear powered car on Mars, is now getting back some awesome imagery ...

First colour pic is in.  Looks like a dusty day on the red planet :)

Also, the other mars hardware is checking in .. the MRO has grabbed some awesome pics of the rover, heatshield and skycrane ... find those over at Space.com ... here.

In more local news, the Persid meteor shower peaks on Sunday night NZ time, with a rate of roughly 60 meteors per hour, would be a good night to be lying on a blanket under the open sky - if of course you have a sky, forecast here is for showers :(

We are down!

DOWN SAFE!!! She's down!  Data from the surface of Mars!!!!!!!!

Waiting for the first images now!!!  History being made .....

Go Nasa!

And here we go:
https://twitter.com/NASA/status/232350219700932608/photo/1

I have something in my eye :)

And she's heading down!

Just passed Crew Stage separation!  Heading for the 7 minutes of Terror!!  Go you good thing!!!

1 day and counting

Curiosity.  We have a little under 36 hours to go until touchdown - science willing.  5:31pm tomorrow evening is scheduled touchdown via a Rube-Goldberg-esque procedure, as outlined in the 7 Minutes of Terror.

Special public event happening at Carter Observatory in Wellington:  http://www.kiwispace.org.nz/display/PORTAL/Curiosity+Landing+Tweetup

And of course, you can watch the landing live! On NASA TV.


Bill and Val will probably watch it on the big screen at work, so stay tuned for upfates from the boys