NASA livestream - 'Curiosity' rover will touch down on Mars @ 10:31 PST

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by RyanN

By far the coolest thing was the skycrane. I couldn't even begin to imagine the person trying to pitch this idea.

It's one of those off the wall ideas where you chuckle at the person pitching the idea, but then once you think about it, it makes sense. Very cool to see this idea actually work (and quite impressively at that).

I've pitched and received crazy ideas in that mode before. "It'd be so easy if we could just lower the thing onto the surface from a crane. Hey..."

However, don't forget that sheer exasperation is the nagging grandmother of some inventions. In which case, the origination would've been more like:
A: I'm thinking we need a powered descent.
B: I'm just concerned about what that'll do to the landing site.
(Hour of back and forth
A: Look, the only way we're getting something this heavy to the ground is with a powered descent and landing.
B: A powered landing is going to bury us under a foot of Mars dust. Which I'm sending YOU to shovel off the rover.
A: Fine! We'll just drop the thing from orbit on cables so you don't have to worry about any scaaaary exhaust plumes disturbing your precious dust. Erm. Hold on a second...

Or, atleast, that's the movie script or FRC design session version of things in my head at the moment. I'll grant that the real process was likely a bit more staid and drawn out than all that. Thankfully, NASA has a bit more than 2 hours or 6 weeks to solve these little problems.