Mars Curiosity Rover $2.5 Billion Cost: "The Best Stimulus You Could Imagine!"

In the above video, NASA engineer Adam Steltzner discusses the awesomeness that is the Mars Curiosity rover.  My favorite part is when Stelzner addresses the critics of the program's $2.5 billion cost: 

"It's not 2 ½ billion dollars we stuffed in a trunk and blew into space. It’s thousands of high tech jobs spread over 37 states. It's honing and developing our skills in science, engineering, and math."

He notes that the U.S. has slipped to 14^th in science education and 18^th in math¹ – in a world where we're competing for economic prosperity with nations 1 through 13.

"This mission is an investment in high tech jobs, in inspiring the youth of our country, in stepping up rung by rung toward 1^st place.  It's the best stimulus you could imagine!"

If we ever want a chance to be a reputable country in science and math education, we need to spend on the programs that inspire the future.  I hope to see this country become tops in science and math education within my lifetime.

Celebrate Women in Science!

Photo via Mike Wall and Space.com shows Clara Ma, the originator of the Curiosity name

I came across a great article profiling some of the women involved with launching the Curiosity rover into space and landing on Mars. In particular, I love the following quote by Ann Devereaux, a flight systems engineer on the Curiosity team:

When she speaks about her job to young students, she tells them she hates math, according to a profile on NASA’s website. “Who ever said you have to like math to be an engineer?” she adds, understanding that a dislike of math keeps many kids from exploring STEM career. “What’s interesting are the cool applications you can do that need some math applied to them to make them work.”

It's not just about learning obscure, theoretical math - it's about applying math to real world solutions. This is something that I try to get across to the youth that I work with,  but especially young women that tend to be more easily deterred from math than young men.  Showing people the cool applications of math, instead of just problems and equations, is a much better way to get people excited about science.

The Science of Being Wrong

Image from the Mars Curiosity Rover appears courtesy of NASA

I've had several conversations with people that don't see the point of sending a Rover to Mars. The criticism I've heard most is "what if we don't find the signs of life that we're looking for? Will the mission still be worth it"?

Yep.

Curiosity is essentially a full laboratory on wheels. It will analyze everything it finds, so we will learn more about the surface of Mars than we have ever known. As we yearn to understand the beginnings of the universe and where we all come from, we need as much information as possible, even if it doesn't seem obvious at this point. The knowledge will lay the path for future generations to explore the universe in ways that we could only dream of.

NPR has a great article entitled "Science is Sometimes Wrong, For All of the Right Reasons". From the article:

In order to move forward, a scientist must have the courage to take the risk of being wrong. You stick your neck out so that you can perhaps see a bit farther than the others.

Curiosity and Shatner - A Perfect Combination

The Mars Curiosity Rover is still on track to land on the surface of Mars this weekend.  Who's a better person to add to the lore than Captain Kirk?  Check out William Shatner's narration of the 7 minutes of terror video that I blogged about earlier. The video describes  the harrowing 7 minute period when the Rover drops from Mars orbit and attempts to land on the surface.

Red Rover, Red Rover, Let Curiosity Come Over

 I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords

Time's Techland blog has a great piece showing the technology on the Mars Curiosity Rover. I've posted about the 7 minute process for Curiosity to land on Martian soil from orbit. Curiosity is scheduled to land on the red planet on August 6th to commence its mission of looking for signs of life such as water.

The coolest piece of tech that Techland features is the Heat Rejection System, which pumps out heat when it's hot and stores heat when it's cold.  Even in my mighty man cave, my computer needs a constant room temperature to run smoothly. On Mars, where the temperature can vary 300 F in a single day, this heat regulation is even more important. Additionally, temperature change can cause metal to expand and contract rapidly, meaning that the rover has to tolerate this variability in the metal throughout the day.

 To view the fact sheet for the mission, click here. There's also a lot of Curiosity games on the Xbox Kinect, web, mobile, and tablet devices - check them out here!