I think the best number I got from the ARS post was the 7.68 million pounds of thrust these things develop. What it must have been like to have been able to sit atop that beast at lift off ( Saturn V), and As an engineering student I marvel at the inaccuracies that where allowed on a mission ready engine. You cannot help but feel a small tingle of excitement at the prospect of these engines.

Now its common knowledge that support for adobe flash is falling faster than a brick. Most of the sites and video playing serveries say the solution is HTML 5. Youtube being the largest of video hosting site has recently been playing around with HTML 5. The reason I bring this up is because the TESTED channel has been added support for HTML 5. The experience was not pleasurable. Its still janky and loads weird, but the promise is there, the videos did load A LOT faster than it did with flash; however its still defiantly a beta product.

if you want to help make it better try it out.

http://www.youtube.com/html5

bored, its like eating cake,it might be fantastic cake but soon your just going to be left wanting more,and after a while it all tastes the same. I'd rather have pie

I think even with all these upgrades I wont be spending real money on any of it

At least I'm not watching it with anyone employed at gizmodo. Their all glorified apple fan boys.

its not a platform that curiosity "rolled" off of, the cables to the sky crane where attached to the rover it self. a platform would be too heavy to include on a 100 million mile trip.

wheres the video version !

I could bang on about this stuff (science and exploration) till I'm blue in the face, but Ill save it for another time

This is a repost

http://io9.com/5920597/find-out-why-nasa-engineers-call-the-upcoming-mars-landing-seven-minutes-of-terror

Here is the direct video link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzqdoXwLBT8&feature=player_embedded

i have to say i like the video version better

@will: curiosity is bigger than the previous rovers, but they could have gone with the lunar lander design from the apollo mission, the current design seems like added complexity to an already complex problem

volume kinda low, this could just be my problem

Does any one have any good resources on pepakura models and where to find good files.

mentioned in the "yet untitled Adam savage project"

So in 53 days roughly the rover curiosity will land on the surface of mars, in NASA's most ambitious rover landing yet. In the past with the two rovers that could, Spirit and Opportunity, entered the martian atmosphere like any other probe, under the protection of the heat shield, than deploy when its velocity had slowed down enough big air bags. they would proceed to bounce around on the surface till coming to a stop. Since then these two rovers have entered the realm of legend, lasting far longer than anyone possibly imagined, Opportunity is still operating on the surface which it landed on in 2004.Now with the new rover NASA has decided to be ambitious, ditching the tested air bag system for what is essentially a helicopter winch system, except using rockets. the rover is also bigger and uses a nuclear reactor to power it.

will it succeed?

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

With the passing of the hugely successful shuttle program, we find ourselves in a sort of space exploration depression. We now have to rely on the Russian to place astronauts into space, the dragon capsule and SpaceX are still a ways off before regular trips to the ISS happen (with live humans on board) and NASA's funding has been cut to the bones. Its a shame, not just for national pride but for the pride and hope of all humanity. Space exploration like science is something that has to happen in the good times and the bad; and like science the money that is invested into these programs is turned around into something profitable. The point here is that NASA increases the Awesome and decreases the suck ( as Hank Green of vlogbrothers would say). They increase the awesome by landing people on the moon sending rovers to mars and building the ISS. They decrease the suck by pointing out that we live on a slab of rock drifting through the vast emptiness of space; and so much more.

Things can be better.

Dracono said it best, if its not directly from the roasters then its not going to be fresh. however there ares some factors to consider here.

where are you located? try to find coffee that is roasted locally, there is less of a chance that when its shipped that it will be fouled by the shipping co.

Also if you can purchase it direct from the roasters there is a chance you can get some off label coffee and be informed when the high end coffee come in ( like Jamaica blue mountain)

Will & Norm please just use adblocker

I was originally on the fence about commercial space flight in general, it seemed like the typical corporate takeover worries where unfounded, as long as the corporate side stays to what it does best ( ie make profits from resources, tourism, energy, etc) and leaves NASA to do what it does best push the frontiers of everything or increase the awesome (vlogbrothers reference) I'll be happy, and that's just one person rotating on a small rock in an unassuming part of the milky way

this site is great, now one of my daily viewers