This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
Last weekend, NASA successfully launched the Mars Science Laboratory - called Curiosity, which is currently well on its way towards the red planet.
Back in May, I went to an Open House at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena. What a refreshing sight it was to see so many people – couples, families, grandparents and grandchildren, groups of teenagers – coming to a scientific laboratory to learn about space and science! But the real reason I was there was to see Curiosity. Visitors could only see it from a closed viewing area high above the clean room where the rover, about the size of an SUV, was being built.
It boggles my mind to think: that contraption that I saw being built in Pasadena is now millions of miles away, en route to another planet.
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