This whole Mars Curiosity thing is pretty exciting, but part of me wishes NASA had named the probe "Major Tom."
Finally, 41 years after David Bowie posed the question, "Is there life on Mars," we're finally hot on the case. The Curiosity is now bee-bopping around the Red Planet, looking for a new friend. It has already sent back a couple of stunning photos, including the first ever color photo taken on Mars (by representatives of Planet Earth, that is).
The $2.5 billion mission survived a tense, 7-minute landing, as the Curiosity entered Mars' at 13,200 mph, using a heat shield, parachutes and reverse rockets to protect and slow itself to 1 mph, and a gentle landing on a "nice, flat spot."
In the coming days, months, years, as Curiosity gets settled into its new environs and scientists unleash its fully array of camera technologies and life-seeking doo-dads, we'll see some spectacular images, and learn more about Mars than human beings have ever known.
But the ultimate question will rest beneath it all: Is there life on Mars? And if there is, will Curiosity find it? And if Curiosity finds it, are we ready?
There's a Starman waiting in the sky, you guys. He'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds.
Finally, 41 years after David Bowie posed the question, "Is there life on Mars," we're finally hot on the case. The Curiosity is now bee-bopping around the Red Planet, looking for a new friend. It has already sent back a couple of stunning photos, including the 
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