Anyony else Curious enough to get up and watch the Mars Landing?

[BobCox2]

"The Next Big Point" is kinda missing the point. There won't be a Mars colony in our lifetimes, and I'm not sure if a Mars colony is all that important. The idea is that we will be a space-faring species one day, and that will take various forms as we go along. This is all VERY long term. Basically, it's forever-long process. Here, this planet, is just a stepping stone, a beginning. I think of us as kittens being born in a box. To them, that's the whole world. Everything that happens there matters, and anything that could matter happens there. Our eyes have finally cracked open in recent centuries, particularly the latest century, and I can't wait until we get out of the box, start stumbling around, work our way into the next room, and try to figure out to not eat the litter or piss in the cat food. Eventually, we can get to know our way around the house and chase each other through the chair legs and bust our noggins! Later on, we can find our way outdoors, and ZOMG!! ZIS IS TEH AWESOMENESSSS!!! Run around for a good while longer, grow up a little, get a little smarter, get adopted (or wander) to another home, set up shop, own the place, stretch out, purr, play, etc. Then one day, we can have kittens of our own and watch them do the whole thing all over again.

At that point, the goings on in the original box won't seem so important.

I guess I'm just in a hurry to grow up and play!

Something in the long term periodically comes along and kills off all the major life forms on Earth, Finding another place to play is really important in something shorter than the long term for the species.

Or chances are we won't have one.

[Stevinator]

Something in the long term periodically comes along and kills off all the major life forms on Earth, Finding another place to play is really important in something shorter than the long term for the species.

Or chances are we won't have one.

Something like us.

once upon a time, here a long long ago, little algae cranked out so much oxygen that the ocean changed color and the atmosphere changed, there was noting to suck up all that extra oxygen and the change neded up throwing the planet into a "snowball earth" scenario. And those were tiny little algae. Now, i don't know if we're having an effect on the planet with the CO2, like they say, but i do know that we have spent our very short amount of time here blocking rivers, moving rock, starting fires, and blowing stuff up (and hunting things to extinction). At some point, what we do will undoubtably affect the earth. If we're not careful, we will be that event. Look what we've done in the last 12k years (rocks to rockets). imagine where we'll be in another.

[BobCox2]

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is slated to fire its rock-vaporizing laser for the first time this weekend, shortly before the 1-ton robot's maiden drive on the Red Planet.

Scientists plan to blast a Martian rock called N165 with Curiosity's laser, which is part of the rover's remote-sampling ChemCam instrument. The 3-inch-wide (7.6 centimeters) stone sits just 9 feet (2.7 meters) from Curiosity, well within ChemCam's 25-foot (7.6 m) range,

[Stevinator]

Reminds me of Tiny From Eureka

[Stevinator]

Stupid intarwebs.

[BobCox2]

NASA honors Ray Bradbury by naming Curiosity's landing site after him.
On what today would have been Bradbury’s 92nd birthday, said Michael Meyer, NASA’s lead scientists for the Mars Exploration Program, “In his honor, we declared the place that Curiosity touched down to be forever known as Bradbury Landing.” Meyer’s announcement was followed by applause for Bradbury, as requested by Pete Theisinger, Curiosity’s project manager.
The NASA news conference started not with an update on the Mars rover, but footage of science fiction writer Ray Bradbury reciting his poem, “If only we had taller been.”

[BobCox2]

OK FYI
This is a hoax

"On August 27th … Mars will look as large as the full moon."
And finally, "NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN."

[LozHinge the Unhinged]

I'm glad you posted that, Bob. There was a danger that I was going to be taken in by something that happened years ago that I was entirely unaware of.

Dodged a bullet there.

[BobCox2]

Sadly I saw it reposted elsewhere in the past week

[BobCox2]

Pictures from Mars do not understand why people are so intense, mostly black and white?

Here

Irony