Curiosity Has Landed

Shot of my teevee... JPL post-landing celebrations.

I've been watching the Curiosity landing on the surface of Mars for the past hour.  I was MOST impressed as the event unfolded; the atmosphere within the CalTech JPL went from quiet, apprehensive, and tension-filled professionalism to unbridled joy and pandemonium when Curiosity settled down and sent back its first pictures from the surface of Mars.  From the link:

A chorus of cheers and applause echoed through the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Sunday night after the most high-tech interplanetary rover ever built sent a signal to Earth. Minutes earlier, it had been in a harrowing plunge through the thin Mars atmosphere.

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The arrival was an engineering tour de force, debuting never-before-tried acrobatics packed into "seven minutes of terror" as Curiosity sliced through the Martian atmosphere at 13,000 mph.

I hope you caught it, Gentle Reader, coz it was the ultimate "ya hadda be there" sorta moment.  It reminded me of the moon landings back in 1969.  Really... THAT big.  We've landed on Mars... Mars!  (OK, it ain't the first time we've put rovers there but it's the biggest, so far)  And ain't that America?  Hell Yes!