NASA Launches Mars Rover Curiosity

Mars here we come!  It feels like deja vu but you are in fact not dreaming, NASA launched yet another Mars rover and it's space bound for the red planet where it will search for evidence of life ever being there, starting by searching for evidence of microscopic life.  Then I guess if it discovers proof of it, it'll begin the grave robbing.

Whats the difference between this rover and it's predecessors?  Well besides about a billion dollars in funding and researching/developing Curiosity, it's bigger and much more sophisticated then the previous models sent.  (USA Today)

The 1-ton Curiosity — as large as a car — is a mobile, nuclear-powered laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and analyze them right on the spot. There's a drill as well as a stone-zapping laser machine.

It's "really a rover on steroids," said NASA's Colleen Hartman, assistant associate administrator for science. "It's an order of magnitude more capable than anything we have ever launched to any planet in the solar system."

Being more equipped with tools and technology then any other unmanned machine we have ever sent makes this project come in at an expensive number.  To the tune of around 2.5 billion dollars!  And while the thought of finding actual proof of life beyond Earth excites me, it confuses me as well because here I thought NASA was shut down?  Was it's "final mission" actually it's "next to final mission?" I guess what they were trying to tell us is "we're not sending anymore manned space shuttles, but we're still going to spend billions of dollars so just shut up and stop asking questions."

Either way, it'll take the shuttle around 8 & 1/2 months for the rover to reach the red planet.  So around a year before they start seeing any data from the rover, and most likely much longer then that before we get any word from NASA.  Which I am sure will consist mostly of lies.  They'll say they didn't find anything, when in fact they found huge, evolved civilizations that have been working us like puppets.  They've probably already found that in fact.  Am I crazy to thing aliens grew us in farms for billions of years?  Probably...