ASHTON KUTCHER WOULD BE ANNOYED... If you guys read this recent Blog I posted, you’ll know that the Dude, Where’s My Car? star is peeved at all the spacecraft we’ve been sending to Mars lately. Well— Kutcher is about to shake his head in disgust once more, as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California continues to make progress on constructing America’s next Red Planet rover, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). Below are a series of photos that were posted over the last month or so showing the spacecraft in its final assembly process.
There have been lots of reports recently about MSL falling over-budget and sapping money from NASA’s other planetary programs. NASA will review the mission again in January to decide whether or not it will continue with the flight, but judging from the progress it has made, I think it’s safe to assume that the giant rover will soar to the Red Planet in October of next year.
One more thing... If you’re a student in grades K-12, then you have the opportunity to name the MSL! Just click here. NASA having a contest to name its rovers is not new... Spirit, Opportunity and the Sojourner rover (which touched down on Mars in 1997 with the Pathfinder lander) were monikers submitted by the public in the past. The name I gave for the ’97 rover before it became Sojourner was Minerva...which eventually became the name for a small lander that was dropped onto an asteroid’s surface by Japan’s Hayabusa space probe in 2005. ‘Kay, I’ll stop bombarding you with my nerdity (yes, I made that word up. Forget 'nerdiness'). For now.
All images courtesy of NASA / JPL-Caltech
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