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Where To View the Mars Curiosity Landing
An anonymous reader writes "In addition to the NASA mission pages here's a decent list of links showing where you can view the Mars Curiosity Landing online or at an event. Does anyone have recommendations for other sources of coverage on August 6?"
I'll be joining the Fraser Cain hangout on G+. BA will also be there. :)
I've found spaceflightnow.com has some of the best coverage of space missions around. They usually have live updating mission status center and live streaming video and I'm sure this event will be no different.
When I was fairly young, I remember being allowed to spend the night at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia by myself to watch the first moon landing live. The moon landings certainly inspired a generation of engineers and scientists. I'm not sure what the equivalent is today? (Watching Wall Street and becoming a hedge fund manager?)
If you want to read a great book about JPL, check out "Moon Hunters: NASA's Remarkable Expeditions to the Ends of the Solar Systems". Out of print, but probably available in your library.
There is a much more comprehensive list of viewing parties organized by the Planetary Society at http://www.planetary.org/get-involved/events/planetfest-2012/worldwide.html
It's where NASA films all their best stuff.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
You can watch it virtually using this online tool:
http://eyes.nasa.gov/index.html
Will let you visualize the Mars rendezvous and "I think" the decent.
A better Idea would be to watch Streaming NASA TV
Streaming NASA TV
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
NASA TV on USTREAM
http://www.ustream.tv/blog/2012/07/31/get-excited-the-mars-rover-landing-will-be-live-on-ustream/
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
I'll watch it at TwiT.tv -> http://twit.tv/2012/07/30/mars-landing-special-aug-5th-10pm-pdt
The presenters/guests to this event will be:
Jonathan Strickland (How Stuff Works) -> http://www.howstuffworks.com/jonathan-strickland-author1.htm
Dr Kiki (Dr Kiki Science Hour) -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiki_Sanford
Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer) -> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/07/20/mars-attacks-of-the-show/
Steve Sell (JPL, Sky Crane) -> http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/30jul_skycrane/
Hope they do a good job!
Peace!
I happen to like SpaceVidcast:
http://www.spacevidcast.com/live/
They frequently stream NASA TV, plus you have a chatroom full of space nerds who more often than not have answers to almost any technical question you can think up. The only problem comes if they are crushed with visitors, but I've seen them handle 20k simultaneous users before. The chat room gets sort of nuts when you have that many people, so it isn't perfect.
Ben and Cariann also do color commentary when things get pretty slow, but also know when to shut up (unlike the NBC commentators for the Olympics).
I'm pretty sure NASA/JPLs first concern is: "How can we get the highest television ratings for this mission?" The thinking went something like this:
Mission control:
"OK guys, we're up against the Olympics most of that week, but market trend analysis show that most people will be tired of the Olympic stuff by Sunday at 5:00pm. However, we are looking at back-to-back "Family Guys" in the 5:00pm to 6:00pm slot, and we'll never make numbers against that. in the 6:00pm to 7:00pm slot we're up against TMZ and "Simpsons" we'll lose a lot of the geek demo there, uh, let's see... "Big Bang," no... "House," no... no... no...
I guess gentlemen, we're looking at 10:30pm. We'll be losing a big portion of our share to a "McHale's Navy" rerun, but any later and we're up against "Twilight Zone" - we won't have a chance.