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Mars Landing Tomorrow - Check out NASA Ames.

Mars Alert! Today I took Maryam and Patrick to the new Mars Center at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Mountain View, in Silicon Valley.

I didn't even plan on going there, it's close to my bank at Lockheed and I just turned down there and said "let's see if NASA is doing anything interesting." I have fond memories of going to NASA Ames as a kid. It was there that I saw the Space Shuttle tiles (and got to hold one in my hand that was heated up to 5000 degrees and was glowing red hot). I also froze a balloon in liquid nitrogen. That stuff is FUN!

But, I didn't realize that Mars is such a big deal. The place was crawling with geeks. The center had only been open a couple of days. Free admission.

Why is it a big deal? Because tomorrow the first of two Mars Rovers (named Spirit -- one named Opportunity will land in February) from the United States will land on the red planet.

The Mars 2004 center is great fun. You can drive your own Rover. Watch a movie. And talk to a geek who helped build the Rover. Most of the Rover was built at JPL in Pasadena, but the parachute, parts of the software, the heat shield, and other systems were designed at NASA Ames in Silicon Valley.

By the way, if you're a Mac OSX lover, check out the two-screen display in the back of the center. It has a neat interface for navigating around the landing site. Click on surface of Mars on one screen and it shows you high res pictures on the next.

Speaking of which, you know you're a geek when you look at a computer and you keep asking yourself how you'd do it better. I can see several things that would be better with Longhorn's video composition engine and the new panoramic control (where you can fly through thousands of images). But, the display their developers put together is a great use of multi-monitor displays.

If you're in Silicon Valley looking for something to do, definitely check it out.

Update: images from "Spirit" on Mars won't be available for four days, so the Mars Center is having a family night on January 7 from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. to give people a chance to come in and see the latest. They promise presentations from NASA personnel then too.

[The Scobleizer Weblog]
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