The first photos of Mars taken by Curiosity's 'main' 34 and 100mm cameras

I look at this with absolute amazement. Take a step back and think that the average distance from Earth to Mars is about 225 million km at any particular point in time (depending on orbit)

To think humans being are capable of building something that complex, sending it that far, landing it successfully and subsequently transmitting high quality images is as mind blowing to me as I am sure our forepersons before us considered the moon landing. It is just staggering when you consider that we are looking at Mars as clear as its depicted in Total Recall (the Arnie version which doesn't suck) and many other Hollywood depictions.

The feat of technological capabilities achieved by NASA in this project just definitively illustrates to me that anything human beings want to achieve - can be achieved. I hope this project, the people involved and the continuous breakthroughs it realizes inspires more people to go and do great and amazing things. Nothings impossible - we just don't understand it all yet.

They look to me like some drawings from a sci-fi book. It's amazing how close peoples imagination can come.