The rover is in a dry creek bed, apparently.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1360

Peak Warming Man said:

The rover is in a dry creek bed, apparently.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1360

No signs of life yet though

Soft vehicle just come through here……..

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/images/Grotzinger-1-closeup-pia16156-br2.jpg

PASADENA, Calif. — The first Martian rock NASA’s Curiosity rover has reached out to touch presents a more varied composition than expected from previous missions. The rock also resembles some unusual rocks from Earth’s interior.
The rover team used two instruments on Curiosity to study the chemical makeup of the football-size rock called “Jake Matijevic” (matt-EE-oh-vick) The results support some surprising recent measurements and provide an example of why identifying rocks’ composition is such a major emphasis of the mission. Rock compositions tell stories about unseen environments and planetary processes.

“This rock is a close match in chemical composition to an unusual but well-known type of igneous rock found in many volcanic provinces on Earth,” said Edward Stolper of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who is a Curiosity co-investigator. “With only one Martian rock of this type, it is difficult to know whether the same processes were involved, but it is a reasonable place to start thinking about its origin.”

On Earth, rocks with composition like the Jake rock typically come from processes in the planet’s mantle beneath the crust, from crystallization of relatively water-rich magma at elevated pressure.

Jake was the first rock analyzed by the rover’s arm-mounted Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) instrument and about the thirtieth rock examined by the Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument. Two penny-size spots on Jake were analyzed Sept. 22 by the rover’s improved and faster version of earlier APXS devices on all previous Mars rovers, which have examined hundreds of rocks. That information has provided scientists a library of comparisons for what Curiosity sees.
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http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/

I wonder why they didn’t name the rock-type. That’s frustrating…

So what is the most expensive part of this thing? The launch would be not a lot in the pie chart, maybe 20 degrees would be all, the other 340 degrees would be development production and manufacture of two of them. I think the total cost was 2 billion, what’s the cost of launching a two tonne payload by say one of Jim’s Rocket Launch franchises.

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/431680.html

launch costs. you can probably add a bit more because it needs a bigger booster.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1384

Shopped.

Peak Warming Man said:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1384

Shopped.

Dunno how they ever expect to find water., it’s as dry as a nun’s whatsit.

It’s shopped alringht Peter, those whatsits at NASA think we’re idiots.

Something peeping out of the sand, here:

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/?ImageID=4818

those whatsits at NASA think we’re idiots.

Not Another Shopped Arescape