Hugs and high-fives among mission staff marked the risky but successful landing last week of Curiosity, the newest of the National Aeronautics & Space Administration’s Mars rovers. If all continues to go well, the craft will spend the next two years searching for evidence that the Red Planet has ever been able to support life. As the craft touched down at 1:32 AM EDT on Aug. 6, mission control engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory jumped up from their monitors in relief after the high-stakes landing; a few shed tears. Minutes later, shouts erupted as Curiosity sent back its first images, including one of its own shadow against the dusty martian surface. The 1-ton Curiosity is the “most sophisticated roving laboratory ever sent to another planet,” said John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, at a post-touchdown briefing. Curiosity, sent to Mars at ...