Space: Curiosity Says Hello to Mars with a Million Watt Nuclear Laser

Not enough attention has been paid to the Curiosity rover that landed on Mars on August 5, 2012. And there really should, because there's a nuclear powered robot on another fucking planet. Head's up, kids, there's some seriously awesome science going on here.

Let's start off with a bit of basics. Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. Earth and Mars, can be anywhere from 55 to 400 million kilometers apart. I'm sorry, let me say that again: 400 MILLION KILOMETERS. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. The Curiosity Rover, however, traveled a paltry 350 million km. The landing cycle, as Curiosity dropped it's 1 tonne, 2.5 billion dollar ass on the Red Planet like a nuclear powered sack of awesome, became known as the "7 minutes of terror" because of the 14 minute delay of transmission between the third and fourth rocks from the Sun combined with the seven minute decent; NASA scientists had to wait for seven terrifying minutes to find out if Curiosity landed safely, or in a highly expensive pile of rubble.

After spending a few days stretching its arms and testing it's systems, combined with a four day software update, Curiosity is ready to get down to business, and it's first order of business it to interrogate a rock. With a million fucking watt laser. Stop and let that sink in. It's okay, I'll wait. The Chemistry and Camera instrument (hereby known by its far more impressive name, ChemCam) developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory is capable of firing a more than million watt laser in order to figure out the composition of different objects. Over a 10 second period it managed to fire a pulse at the fist-sized Coronation rock 30 times, each pulse applied for five one-billionths of a second each.

"Fucking SCIENCE, bitches!"

The cam part of ChemCam comes into use after the laser has fired. The area of rock hit by the laser becomes a glowing plasma which the camera focuses on using a telescope and analyzes the light given off. Using three spectrometers (one for visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light), ChemCam can determine what elements are contained within the freshly obliterated rock. It's expected that thousands of “targets” will be analyzed in this way over the course of Curiosity’s 24 month mission.

"Fuck you, Johnny 5"

So, if you're interested in finding out more about Curiosity, and you damn well should be, spend some time with our good friend, the Internet. There's a metric shit-tonne of stuff out there about this, and lord knows if you're reading this article, you can find others. Probably with far less colourful language.

Space: Shuttle Endeavour Launch

Ever since I saw the Challenger blow up on take off way back in 1986, I've tried to make it a point to watch every shuttle launch closely, just in case it happens again. With the exception of the Apollo 1 fire in 1967 which killed it's three crewmen, and the Shuttle Columbia disintegrating on re-entry in 2003, things have been fairly smooth for NASA's space shuttle program.

But this is not about those tragic losses, but instead a wondrous look at today's launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour's final launch today at 8:56am, EST. After this mission, the Space Shuttle Endeavour will be decommissioned, ending it's 19-year run in active service. Mission STS-134 was initially slated for a September 16, 2010, launch, but was postponed because it's payload, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and the ELC-3 to the International Space Station would not be ready in time to meet the launch date. With the Discovery launch moving to November, Endeavour mission "cannot fly as planned, so the next available launch window is in February 2011," NASA said, adding that the launch dates are subject to change.

An amazing shot of Endeavour taken from
flight by passenger Stephanie Gordon.

The launch was once again postponed until April 29, 2011, in order to avoid a scheduling conflict with a Russian supply vehicle heading for the International Space Station. Since April 29, there have been a few false-starts in readying the shuttle for launch, and other delays, including the suicide of  United Space Alliance engineer James Vanover on 14 March 2011, jumping from the launch pad 39A, at the Kennedy Space Center.

The launch was witnessed by a crowd of about  500,000 spectators, which included Commander Mark E. Kelly's wife, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. Giffords has been recovering in Houston after being shot in January during a community outreach event outside a Tucson, Ariz., grocery store.

Endeavour's main payload is the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS), a $2 billion particle detector that will search for cosmic rays that might help unravel some of our most perplexing cosmic mysteries, such as what makes up the invisible dark matter thought to pervade the universe.

If you’d like to see NASA’s video of the final launch of Endeavour, that has been made available as well. NASA’s two-and-a-half minute clip shows the shuttle leaving the ground and then going through the lower parts of the Earth’s atmosphere. Today’s launch, the start of mission STS-134, went smoothly, and all of us down here wish them a safe voyage.