How Do You Land a Nuke-Powered Mini-Cooper On Mars?

tcd004 writes "Miles O'Brien narrates this video simulation of NASA's next Mars shot, which promises to out-gun all previous efforts. The Mini Cooper-sized Mars Science Laboratory, which is now named Curiosity, will crawl the Martian surface under steam from a nuclear powerplant — but it's a gentle giant compared to its predecessors. Recent theories have emerged that previous attempts at identifying organic compounds in Martian soil may have actually cooked away any signs of life-giving elements. Curiosity will go to great pains to avoid scorching the Earth ... erm ... Mars."

Comments

Oy vey

[Anonymous Coward]

>gentile giant
What, it's an uncircumcised, nuclear powered Mini Cooper?

+1

[Kid Zero]

+1 for the great headline!

Otherwise, I'll state the obvious: Carefully!

Re:"Its" is possessive

[Xeleema]

"It's" is a conraction. It means "it is."

I think you mean't "contraction"

Re:"Its" is possessive

[Meumeu]

The law of correcting typos: attemping to correct a previous poster's typo creates a typo from the current poster.

You meant "attempting", apparently it's recursive...

Re:"Its" is possessive

[svtdragon]

You meant "recursive"; apparently it's recursive.

Re:Gentile Giant?

[Chris Burke]

Personally, I don't think the space lab's religion is any of our business.

I dunno... it could be a problem if it's a strict 6000-yr Creationist.

NASA: Okay MSL, send us the data from the last sample analysis.

MSL: I'll save some bandwidth and just give you the summary. No life, no precursors.

NASA: Okay, but if you could please just send us the raw data, that'd be great. This sample looked really promising and...

MSL: I said NO LIFE!

Re:RTFA

[Geoffrey.landis]

"How Do Yo Land a Nuke-Powered Mini-Cooper On Mars?"

Clearly, it's a pun on the word "Yo-yo".

Since the plan is that it does down, but not back up again, it's just a "yo".