I'm so sad that I subscribe to emails from NASA which has informed me of every correction to the flight path and every test that has been done on internal instruments.

By the way, in case anyone is worried, they've all worked perfectly!!!

Didn't know this was happening, love this stuff so will keep up to dates with what happens. Hope it lands safely like the previous probes. Maybe it's me but I always feel a bit sad thinking something we've made is millions of miles from it's home alone, I know it's just a machine but still.

Hopefully we get tons of new pictures from the Red Planet over the new few weeks and months!

I would want our first manned mission to Mars to be one way.

Why?

The cost to bring them back would be astronomical.

There is an obvious advantage to having humans on Mars as robotic instruments are pretty mediocre.

Surely, there are two or three people who would be willing to sacrifice their lives to become famous throughout the rest of human history?

If I had the skills I would consider it (but I'm 51!).

I love this stuff.

I get NASA emails about the two Voyager missions which are now moving beyond the solar system (launched in the '70s). The first thing that humans have sent out beyond our solar system and they are still beeping away sending us data. They are telling us what it is like at the limits of the effect of the Sun.

The two human made Voyager craft will travel through the universe long after Earth exists. Earth will be destroyed in about 4-5 billion years yet the two Voyager craft will still be drifting along.

I find the thought of that astounding.

Just by chance, NASA have just sent me an email to explain how people on DigitalSpy can keep track of this mission:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cf...lease_2012-205

It's odd, considering this type of thing is one of the fields I may end up in, I never really follow live feeds from it. The only exception is some of the shuttle launches that I've watched

Tell him Americans are paying for their rover, not him.

It's the biggest lander yet, the size of a car!

Don't worry, it will have all the other landers there to keep it company, maybe it can go and find the Beagle?

Thx for that.

You mean like every other product made in China?

I'm excited about New Horizons arriving at Pluto in 2015, so I'm very excited about this.

Planet Mars Facts

It's not cost that's the problem but political will. For example, President George W. Bush spent over $300 billion on Operation Iraqi Oil and Prime Minister Blair spent $15 billion on the same reckless escapade.

That would translate into 60 American crewed return missions to Mars and 3 British crewed return missions to Mars. Aerospace engineer and consultant Robert Zubrin has shown that you can get to Mars and back for about $5 billion per mission if Martian resources are utilised and that was described in his book The Case for Mars which I highly recommend. It's about £10 new in paperback form.

In the meantime, I'd also like to see robot sample and return missions to both Mars and its largest moon, Phobos, using the techniques pioneered by the Soviets to bring back their own rock and soil samples from the Moon which they successfully did as part of their Luna series of probes. That aspect of the Soviet space programme is little known and the Soviets do deserve credit for what they achieved.

I'll go! I'll do it! I'll just get my coat....

There again, I'm probably too old too. Damn that age thing!

So what will this find over what the Mars pathfinders did not?

Can your question be answered? No one knows what it will find because it hasn't been found yet.

...stopping off at the Moon to take on coal...

...which is then stored in the rear end of the British crew capsule which itself looks scarily reminiscent of a reused Austin Allegro !

The hover and lower part of of the landing mission in the video, looks very ambitious.

Sort of thing the gremlins of Mars would have a field day with !

Nah, move up a generation....to fibreglass!

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3200/3...7c7f2b27_z.jpg

I'm very interested in seeing how the new 'sky crane' landing system fares.

Whoever came up with that landing method must have balls of steel.

Quick video with some of the NASA bods responsible explaining EDL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cu..._of_Terror.ogv

He is a (very successful) business man.

He just does no like to hear about bad investments (in his pathetically limited terms).

I don't want to be judgemental but that sort of comment shows that you will not be successful. Sorry.

You have won the prize for being the first ignorant negative post of this thread!

Well done!

Go and look at the NASA web site to see what Curiosity is aiming to achieve. I am not going to condense it into byte sized chunks for ignoramuses like you.

I disagree and your comment illuminates a big misunderstanding in science.

All tests done by Curiosity will answer questions posed by scientists back here on earth.

The scientific questions that Curiosity may answer are not just "out there" waiting to be answered.

Scientists and engineers have posed questions and designed experiments to answer these questions.

They are not grabbing in the dark.

I'm 51 but I am hopeful that, in my lifetime, we will confirm life on another planet in our solar system or life on planets outside our solar system (exoplanets).

When proved to be true, all world religions will need to perform a radical rethink to remain credible.