"All kinds of impressive" – about sums up this very cool creation

Two robots, two big screens, and a whole lot of projection mapping.

Friend Ed Brown described this: "Whoa. That's all kinds of impressive."

I have to agree.



The producers of this work describe it thus:

"Big Dog" robot gets a doozy throwing arm. Be afraid...

We've seen Big Dog developing over the last few years, learning to walk over rocky ground, ice, and run down slippery slopes:


But now Boston Dynamics have giving it an arm—an arm with some serious heft:


Anyone else having War of the Worlds visions of HG Wells' Martian machines throwing people into the baskets on their backs?

This robot is starting to get a little creepy...

Via Stephen Lee (@LeeCuriosity)

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• Is this the most awesome selfie ever? And it's on Mars...

My interview with Keri Bean: Mars meteorologist, Curiosity Rover team member

Keri Bean in the NASA JPL Mars Yard, with the Curiosity test-bed twin 'Maggie'

Keri Bean is a meteorologist specialising in the atmospherics of other planets. She is on the team operating the Curiosity Rover for NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission. Prior to MSL, Keri has had roles in the missions for other Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, a prototype Moon rover, the Phoenix Mars Lander, and the Hubble Space telescope. And she's just 25 years old! That's a pretty incredible CV to rack up already...

In this interview, Keri talks with me about her work on MSL and the other missions, plus how and why she got into space science. It all started when a tornado hit her pre-school...




(If Soundcloud widget doesn't show in your browser, use this link to play the file direct.)

Finally, Mars Curiosity is making tracks on Mars!

The EDL stage of the Mars Curiosity mission is finally over, everything tested, and the rover is mobile!

These are NavCam images, rather than taken using the high resolution MastCam, and they could stand some brightening. But they clearly show Curiosity's tracks away from her landing place.

Lead rover driver Matt Heverly was the one who sent the commands down yestersol (yes that's the Mars NASA word for the previous Mars day), with this message tweeted afterwards:

It is a strange feeling to send commands to Mars and then go home. It is all up to the rover now.

At 3:18 this morning our time, he tweeted:

1! Tomorrow is Curiosity landing day! Play NASA's pick-a-geek to find out how it will happen.

Just one day to go! Exciting. Nervous. But very very pleased at how much this mission to Mars has put space exploration and science firmly back on the public agenda.

So how will it play out tomorrow - if everything goes OK?

The geek's geek Wil Weaton explains in this NASA clip:



But if - like Sheldon Cooper - Wil Weaton isn't your thing, then here's the same clip but hosted instead by William Shatner - the trekky's trekky:

2! Two days to landing. Want more input? Watch this.

"Input! Give me input!" quoting Number 5, the robot in Short Circuit.

Here's more input on the critical, nail-biting EDL - Entry, Descent, Landing - stage of Curiosity's long flight to Mars.

So how do you slow a spacecraft from a relative velocity of 12,844 kilometres per hour to zero - in just seven minutes?

Spaceflight 101 have annotated the landing video, giving great information on each key point of this complex landing process:

Interview with lead Mars Rover driver Matt Heverly

Matt Heverly being interviewed during testing of
"Scarecrow" in the desert near Death Valley. Photo: Reuters

When the Mars Science Laboratory - Curiosity - touches down on Mars next Monday, one of the people there ready to take control of it will be Matt Heverly.

Matt is an engineer with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and has been working on the design and build of Curiosity, as well as being one of the drivers of the lone surviving rover currently on Mars - Opportunity.

And Matt has been appointed by NASA as the lead driver for Curiosity.

This week I interviewed Matt about this important role, about driving rovers in general, and about the science work that he'll be helping with.

I was surprised when Matt came online - he'd quite literally been in the "Mars Yard" conducting some testing with Curiosity's twin, and he had parked it right behind himself before joining me on Skype! You can see the rover in the background.


Interview with Matt Heverly - Mars Curiosity lead rover driver from Ashley Kerlin on Vimeo.

Running time is about 20 minutes.

3! Three days to the Curiosity launch. Check this beautiful brochure.

Continuing the nerve-racking countdown to Monday's landing of Mars Curiosity, here's a beautiful brochure from NASA's JPL containing all the must-know information about Curiosity and her mission.

4! Four days to go. Want more detail on the Mars Curiosity landing rather than flashy videos. Here you go then.

http://www.spaceflight101.com/msl-edl-presentation.html

Just four days left until Curiosity lands on Mars.

So I just know you want to learn a little bit more about it all.

Spaceflight 101 have put together this neat little presentation with a detail level that is right in the Goldilocks Zone.

Spaceflight 101 Mars landing presentation.

5! Just five days to go until Curiosity lands on Mars. Have you checked out the crazy landing method?

NASA must be incredibly confident in the engineering behind the entry, descent and landing (EDL - everything about NASA has to have acronyms!) stage of Mars Curiosity's trip to the red planet to put out a YouTube clip called "Seven Minutes of Terror".

Some would say it's tempting fate. But we're scientists so we don't believe in fate, right? Right?

But the people working on the project I've talked with are confident, so that's good enough for me. (Nah not really - I'll be sweating it out like everyone else!)

And you can't blame NASA for playing it up a bit - it's resulting in amazing exposure for this critical stage of this critical project. It's not make-or-break for NASA, but there is an incredible amount riding on its success.

So if you missed it when it first went viral across the Twitterverse, here is Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror:

Very cool synchronised robots - want!

Robotics are coming ahead in leaps and bounds.

This clip is interesting for the near-perfect synchronisation of the robots. But it is more so for the way the single unit responds to being taken out of the line-up and then put back - it "knows" how to get back on track.

I say "wow" and "where do I buy one?"



Via Dvice.com