NASA's latest Mars Mission involves a nearly 1 ton lander named Curiosity that will attempt to break through the Martian atmosphere using an untested method of entry and deployment. If successful, it will be landed in the 96 mile wide Gale Crater and begin taking samples of 3 billion year old rock and soil to determine if Mars can indeed support microbial life. With a 40% record of Mars mission failures and a 40% cut to Mars programs, a failure would be catastophic to NASA. The crucial part is the entry and landing dubbed "7 Minutes of Terror". Since Mars is roughly 350 million miles away there will be a communications blackout for 14 mins, so by the time NASA hears back it will all be over. The entry will have taken place yesterday night. The lander had 6 all-terrain wheels, a vaporizing laser, storage compartments, robotic arm, and is nuclear powered. Cost for mission? $2.5 billion!

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