Touchdown!! wow, that room looks like the scene at the end of Apollo 13 (the movie)!!! Pretty cool stuff...
Whenever I see the approach of events like this on the news, I make it a point NOT to read anything about it. Instead, I call my son Jacob and ask him about it. Jake has Asperger Syndrome, and as some of you that have or know kids with this condition (on the lower end of the Autism spectrum) know, they tend to obsess on certain things that for whatever reason peak their interest. Well, Jake's obsession is anything to do with NASA. I called him a couple days ago and said that I had heard that we were about to land a new Mars rover or something, and he wasted no time excitedly detailing every aspect of the upcoming event. He explained in detail how the "sky-crane" would lower Curiosity onto the surface, and that the initial images might be a little fuzzy due to all the dust kicked up by the MSL Spacecrafts engines as it pulled away. He told me the time of expected touchdown, and told me the coverage on the NASA channel started at 11:30 PM. He also reminded me what channel NASA was on Dish Network (which I have here at the house), even though he has Comcast and would be forced to watch it online. I think I heard that the website had gone down due to traffic, so he will be very excited when I tell him I recorded the entire thing on the Hopper!

Can't wait to talk to him in the morning, though he will probably be doing the majority of the talking.
