Futurist Foresight

The Mars Rovers just keep on getting bigger and bigger.

for-all-mankind:

jstn:

The wheels of three Martian rovers, left to right: Sojourner (1997), Spirit/Opportunity (2003), Curiosity (2012).

Curiosity is the size and weight of a Mini Cooper with a top speed of 0.05 mph. It lands August 6th.

Did you know that the rectangular “holes” on the bottom of Curiosity’s wheels are not for better movement or traction? They spell out the letters J P L in the Martian soil in Morse code every time the wheels turn. JPL is immensely proud of their robotic work, and always puts their logo on the things they send out into the Solar System. NASA has a strict no-advertisement policy, and admonished them for the little JPL logo stickers on the previous Martian rovers. Being engineers with humour, they came up with the Morse code idea. When the NASA guys found out about this, they said (and I quote) “Those sons of bitches did it to us again!” How do I know this? I was at the Kennedy Space Centre for her launch, and in the presentation in the ExplorersWanted building, where the mock-up was located, the presenter said it to us. I then overheard those NASA men ask him if it was true and make that remark.

(via abcstarstuff)