50 Years of Mars Exploration

Hey. There we go.

There she goes. That's data.

Announcement: There's some sort of pattern to the data. We have now full confidence that this will correspond to a photograph of Mars.

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"Upon preliminary analysis of this data, can you describe what you see on Mars?"

"Yes, it's there!"

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(Cheers)

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(Cheers)

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The rover has landed base pedal down, which means right side up.

(Cheers)

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50 meters.

30 meters

27 meters

20 meters

16 meters

Standing by for touchdown.

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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden:

Led by the extraordinary men and women of NASA and our Jet Propulsion Laboratory, right now, the wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on Mars.

John Holdren:

Well, today on Mars, history was made on Earth. The successful landing of Curiosity will stand as an American point of pride far into the future.

President Barack Obama:

I just wanted to call and say congratulations to the Mars Science Laboratory team and all of JPL. You guys should be remarkably proud.

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