Planetary Society Hangout 2012-12-13: GRAIL's Demise, Curiosity Arrives, and the 2020 Rover Surprise

We talk about the GRAIL gravity probes around the moon and where they will crash, get an update on the Curiosity rover, and talk about how the 2020 Rover mission gets from announcement to launch.

Host: Casey Dreier

Guests: Mat Kaplan, Emily Lakdawalla, Bruce Betts

• Category

  Science & Technology

[ShaniaSuperFan]

Great content, but I absolutely HATE the "Hangout" screen. Those of us who do not normally suffer from ADD do suffer from watching this kind of perma-split-screen video. The screen-bottom-dwellers are nothing but an annoying distraction! This is a feature that adds no positive value whatesoever and consistently detracts from value of the main presentation. Seriously, do you really need me to point this out?? Is it not obvious to EVERYBODY??

[planetarysociety]

This is implemented by Google and we cannot remove this. We'll pass this along.

[Tony Mach]

44:23 "The joke is, that Mars Sample Return has always been 20 years in the future."

In the seventies, the Soviets had (supposedly) build hardware for a "Mars 79" sample return mission.

[Tony Mach]

After the failures of their early Mars missions, the Soviet leadership decided that it is a waste of resources and ordered all hardware destroyed in 1977, 2 years before the planned launch date…

[Tony Mach]

Whether they would have made the 1979 launch window, and whether it would have worked is another question…

[Tony Mach]

Wonderful information, but you should add an index:

5:34 GRAIL

24:27 Curiosity

31:06 Mars Rover Mission for the year 2020

[electsteveallen]

Sorry but most of us have to work during the MIDDLE of the fuckin day !!!!!

[yerp215ish]

Very exciting science in progress !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[James Haney]

Excellent presentation! Something to look forward to every Thurs.!