Muscatine

Just watched the live feed from NASA (around 12:30 am) of the landing on MARS! Such an honor to see this important mission come to fruition. Got to see the first photos come thru live online. America is a great country of achievements.

Couldn't stay awake, but hope to catch the replay.  I've been fascinated with NASA achievements since the 60's.  Watch Apollo 13 every time it's on.  As you say, this keeps showing America to be the greatest country in the history of mankind,  sometimes despite rather than because of its leaders.

The wife and I watched it too.  It was great that they got the other orbiter to transmit the info so they could watch, in real time( - 14min.) what was actually happening.

It was a significant demonstration of the U.S. technical capabilities to see all the series of critical functions occur flawlessly in sequence.

  But they did all look like geeks, didn't they?   Not that geekism is bad.

It was great to watch actual intelligent and experienced experts doing their work.

First photo from the Mars rover camera.