Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror is a YouTube video guaranteed to get you excited about NASA again. It shows the elaborate process that will get the Curiosity rover onto the Martian surface on August 5. It involves the largest supersonic parachute ever built, multiple vehicles, 76 explosive devices, and a skycrane.
posted by blahblahblah on Jun 22, 2012 - 91 comments

The Queer, the Quaint, the Quizzical (1882). A Cabinet for the Curious.
posted by stbalbach on Mar 21, 2007 - 18 comments

"Hi, Mom? Hi, I'm just calling to say I'm on my way to Baghdad." In which a Floridian teen decides he wants to see what's going on in Iraq. So he, you know, goes. "It was mid-afternoon Tuesday, after his second night in Baghdad, that he sought out editors at The Associated Press and announced he was in Iraq to do research and humanitarian work. AP staffers had never seen an unaccompanied teenage American walk into their war zone office. ("I would have been less surprised if little green men had walked in," said editor Patrick Quinn.)"
posted by LondonYank on Dec 29, 2005 - 109 comments