And, to think we put men on the moon back in 1969... then, I look at my 1969 Mustang under the hood and see how ancient that technology was back in
those days and wonder how in the heck did we do it? What a difference 43 years makes in advancing technology and put roving equipment on Mars !
WOW...
The SAME boiling water that softens the potato hardens the egg. It's about what you are made of NOT the circumstance.
Here's the official NASA animation of Curiosity's landing. The name was chosen by a grade schooler in a naming competition BTW. NASA laid it on the
line with this Mars landing, going so very public with this video and other news events before the landing. If it hadn't worked, subsequent funding
would be even more difficult to get. Putting it all out there and saying to the world "watch this" before the landing was, I think, a gutsy call.
I'm a retired engineer and I think the folks in this video have the greatest jobs I can imagine. What a challenge, what fun!!
Along the sidewalk in front of the Smithsonian Museums on the National Mall in Washington DC, there is a "Journey Through Our Solar System," visual
demonstration of how far apart the planets are from the sun and from each other, and how truly tiny earth is compared with the rest of our solar
system.
As you walk down the sidewalk, you pass by scale representations of the sun and planets. The two women in the foreground below are standing near a
representation of the sun, the size of a grapefruit. The person in the background is standing in front of a representation of Mercury, an
almost-invisible speck. The earth, at the next-to-last pole on the left, is 23 paces from the sun, and displayed as a dot the size of the tip of
ballpoint pen. Mars is at the last pole on the left in the photo, and is an even smaller dot on the display.
After the four inner planets, the distances become truly enormous. The entire exhibit spans about 2,000 feet down the sidewalk, and takes about 10
minutes to walk the whole solar system.
It was astonishing, and ... humbling.
Bill Nye also did a pretty compelling demo of sizes and distances in this video:
"If it were lush and rich, one could understand the pull, but it is fierce and hostile and sullen.
The stone mountains pile up to the sky and there is little fresh water. But we know we must go back
if we live, and we don't know why." - Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
"People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care." - Theodore Roosevelt
"You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them or to them." - Malcolm Forbes
"Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others
cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else's hands, but not you." - Jim Rohn
"The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer." - Cunningham's Law
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your mustang was real! 
