Early Monday morning a spacecraft launched in November of last year made it to Mars. On arriving, a pod detached which hurtled towards the planet at over 13,000 mph. Shortly after entering the atmosphere a huge parachute opened to slow the craft. Approaching the surface, rockets fired in the first ever "space crane" to lower the one ton Curiosity Rover gently to the surface. It was a miracle of modern technology. The Daily Mail has the details including the first pictures returned showing a wheel of the giant Rover resting on Martian soil.
Meanwhile, Obama tried to horn in on the credit. Just as he did with the killing of Bin Laden (anything that goes wrong in his Administration is Bush's fault). My response to Obama: You didn't build that! Curiosity began as a NASA program in 2004 under the Bush Administration.
Obama canceled the next generation of NASA rockets and left the U.S. dependant on Russian spacecraft to take astronauts to the International Space Station. Thousands of highly skilled aerospace workers in Florida were put out of work.
Graphic describing Curiosity Rover follows:
Photos from Curiosity are available on this NASA page.
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