re: #10 erik_t

Watching the Pathfinder landing in 1997, the whole thing had a very extemporized feeling. If we get data, then it worked! If we don’t, it didn’t.

Last night, I don’t think there was more than 30 seconds without some sort of update. They even had telemetry during the skycrane insanity brilliance, FFS.

We’ve come a long way. I don’t expect to habitually lose Mars landers anymore.

It’s as soon as you start to feel like these things are routine that the next space shuttle challenger comes along to make you realize just how easy it is for any one of these missions to go wrong. Watching the landing last night it was striking how even a minor mistake in any part of the landing sequence could cost years of work and billions of dollars.