Poking around this old thread led me to Dr. Brown's blog and from there to the information that he is teaching a free Coursera online course March 30th through June 9th called "The Science of the Solar System."

Major congratulations to everyone involved! Great job of improvising in a very difficult situation and thanks for inviting us along for the ride.

Is receiving telemetry the same as getting transponding?

Done. Best money I've spent in awhile.

My take switching into LAB space:

Yep. No more DAWNs.

I think it is pretty tough to argue with this selection. It's an instrument package that we've needed to send for a long time and it's got a well-defined risk profile.

Additional Thoughts:
I think this is a really important mission. Between it and Curiosity, we'll really be at an inflection point in Mars exploration strategy by 2018/20 or so, with prety good data confirming one of four big picture views of the planet:

1) Wet Mars and live internal heat/movement;
2) Wet Mars and no current internal heat/movement;
3) Dry Mars and live internal heat/movement; and
4) Dry Mars and no current internal heat/movement.

The relative value of a major effort like MSR compared to other solar system exploration priorities really depends on which of these four broad stroke pictures ends up being closest to the truth.

Given the budget constraints of the Mars Exploration Program in the next couple of launch opportunities, I wonder if it would make more sense to transfer the existing funds to Discovery and fund InSIGHT and one of the others for Discovery 12. It would be nice to get back to two missions per announcement.

I vaguely remember the front page of the newspaper when one of the Vikings landed. For me "Mars" really began watching a bunch of "kids" my age (in very un-NASA like attire) in what looked like a spare conference room at JPL waiting to see if a spacecraft in a bouncing ball would work. How did they ever get old?

What's amazing to me is that we've gone from thinking how cool it would be to get a closer look at "Twin Peaks" to getting ready to climb a mountain with a freaking nuclear-powered rover in 15 years! That's faster than I would have ever imagined back in 1997.

Given the extremely thin atmosphere on Mars I doubt that wind pressure could overcome (or even seriously diminish) whatever force vector the parachute centroid had following the impact of the backshell.

What struck me most in Iceland most were the glaciation deposits and stream runoff structures but I guess the rubble fields DO look a lot like the rubble fields at Gusev and Ares Vallis. The color difference is disconcerting though--Iceland for me is a shadowy place of blues and white (I was there in winter).

By far the most Earth-like terrain any lander has encountered. Looks a lot like desert pavement in Namibia.

That's my interpretation. There's actually a smaller object with four bounces south of there as well:

Looks like a major component hit, bounced twice, and then finally impacted against that small rise.

Love that oblique impact from the skycrane. Looks like a single piece skidded a fair way further than the rest of the vehicle; maybe the hydrazine tank?

I'm very happy at the first look at the ground; whatever else Gale is like, it isn't like Gusev!

Rob, felt a lot more controlled than Pathfinder or the MERs.

I love seeing that shadowed silhouette of MSL.

No kidding, Phil. The visualization is astonishing even compared to MER (let alone Pathfinder when I actually drove out to Tidbinbilla to see the feed)

Redstone, thanks for that link. I wonder if that over 10 percent failure probability is why JPL isn't too keen to use any more bouncing ball landings on Mars....

What I really love about this site is the vertical relief and huge stratigraphic column that the rover will traverse, particularly since the landing ellipse is in the deepest trough of the crater. As awesome as Oppy's mission has been our ability to peer deeply into the past there is limited.

Gale will be the grandest Mars mission of our lifetime. I am so excited about this.

Circle your calendars for Friday at 10 AM EDT--landing site will be announced then.

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=34138

What does a 2018 launch opportunity provide that a 2020 launch wouldn't? In other words, are there technical reasons beyond the obvious 2 year gap to prefer one versus the other?

Interesting language in the House markup:

They are restarting production, finally:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30621668/