CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The world’s biggest extraterrestrial explorer, NASA’s Curiosity rover, rocketed toward Mars on Saturday on a search for evidence that the red planet might once have been home to itsy-bitsy life.
It will take 8½ months for Curiosity to reach Mars following a journey of 354 million miles.
An unmanned Atlas V rocket hoisted the rover, officially known as Mars Science Laboratory, into a cloudy late morning sky. A Mars frenzy gripped the launch site, with more than 13,000 guests jamming the space center for NASA’s first launch to Earth’s next-door neighbor in four years, and the first send-off of a Martian rover in eight years.
The 1-ton Curiosity — as large as a car — is a mobile, nuclear-powered laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and analyze them right on the spot. There’s a drill as well as the laser-zapping device.
This is socialism at its worst. The space programs should be eliminated and left to the private industry that will undoubtedly fill the gap if government would just get out of the way. Just like our infrastructure… If the government would just stop building roads and bridges, private industries would build them, and they’d be better quality because there would be competition and profits… and other mindless right-wing talking points that have no basis in reality.
Also, this is a liberal programs since it’s science and uses facts and logic. Everything we need to know was written 2,000 years ago in the Bible.
DRUDGE RETORT 