Curiosity begins 8 Month Journey to Mars

[Jaketh]

BBC
CNN

Nicknamed Curiosity, the rover will take eight and a half months to cross the vast distance to its destination. If it can land safely next August, the robot will then scour Martian soils and rocks for any signs that current or past environments on the planet could have supported microbial life.

"Our spacecraft is in excellent health and it's on its way to Mars," said Curiosity project manager Peter Theisinger.

Im glad that our space program is still alive and well and that we had better luck then the recent Russian endeavor to mars, hopefully its long journey goes untroubled.

[MathiasOfAthens]

Curiosity has a built in lab and really seems to be a priority mission to study life so something good will come out of this in about 12 months we will know something big.

What would really suck is if a russian rocket transporting astronauts or cosmonauts got stuck in orbit.

[Jaketh]

It has the tools to possibly answer one the biggest questions of our time; is there or has there ever been life outside of the earth.

[visser300]

It has the tools to possibly answer one the biggest questions of our time; is there or has there ever been life outside of the earth.

The question is yes and it was answered by scientists long time ago.

The real question is: do we know a way to contact the intelligent life without scaring 'em?

[Jaketh]

The question is yes and it was answered by scientists long time ago.

The real question is: do we know a way to contact the intelligent life without scaring 'em?

No the answer is yes just from the sheer size of the universe alone but we dont have any hard proof yet.

[Sphere]

No the answer is yes just from the sheer size of the universe alone but we dont have any hard proof yet.

I don't think the question is if somewhere someplace there is something resembling life; given the shear size of the universe there has to be. The question is rather how common is life? If we find that there was/is life in any form on Mars (the rock next door) it means life is common, that it is a ubiquitous part of the cosmos.