Tagged: Space

The Mars rover Curiosity is exploring the surface of the Red Planet in the Gale Crater, and it is also tweeting about its mission. The rover has a distinct personality, albeit one made by the strokes on a keyboard from the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif.

The Mars rover Curiosity is beginning its fifth day on the red planet, and it's been performing flawlessly from the moment it landed.

That's been especially gratifying for NASA landing engineer Adam Steltzner. Last Friday, while Steltzner was still on pins and needles waiting for the landing to take place, I told the story of Steltzner's decision as a young man to give up his life as a rocker and go for a career in space engineering.

When we reported the 'total loss' of NASA's moon lander Morpheus during testing, some readers expressed disappointment.

Sandra Chapin called it a 'bummer':

"To me the sad thing is not the loss of money, but the loss of time. How long will it take to redesign and build a new one? Puts us that much further behind in gathering data."