I stayed up late last night to watch the scene at JPL as the new, car-sized, 2000 lb., Mars rover plunged into the atmosphere at 13,000+ mph and came to a dead stop landing in about 7 minutes with a very complex sequence of events. Fascinating stuff. Being old enough to remember some of the probe landings on the Moon prior to Apollo 11, it gave me renewed hope that I might live long enough to see humans land on Mars. I've heard all the whining about how we shouldn't be funding exploration while there are poor people starving and I just have to wonder whether cavemen had to put up with other cave people telling them not to explore the next valley over to look for big game when they could be staying local and slinging rocks at the last of the rats.