My son and I saw it being readied last year @ JPL's Open House.
It's big and the landing will be awesome with retros and cable lowering mechanisms.
Can't wait.

Originally Posted by Jim Colyer

The Curiosity rover will land on Mars, August 5. It will travel 12 miles in two years, analyzing soil and looking for a habitable environment. It will look for water, carbon and sources of energy, three things required for the presence of life.

When I got into astronomy over 50 years ago, Mars was little more than a light in the night sky. Now, it is a real place with geology and geography. Astrobiologists maintain that water once flowed and that fossilized microbes may await discovery. There was that meteorite in the mid-90s supposedly from Mars and containing fossils that turned out to be a sham. Imaginations can run wild. The movie 2001: A Space Odyssey forecasted routine travel to the moon by 2001. Instead, that year is remembered for the 9/11 attacks. When Carl Sagan was doing Cosmos in 1980, I thought we would be on Mars in my life time. Now, I doubt it. I also question the benefits of going to other planets. It is rough enough finding hotels in American cities and dealing with foreign languages in other countries. At least, we can breathe on earth. We can't breathe on the moon or Mars. (Not to mention the temperature extremes).

I think this time they will almost find life on Mars: microbes, plant, animal and man: of course not man of Earth but man of Mars, whom I think will be much like our Earthian man.

This time, they have chosen a good site for the landing of their Curiosity, not in the desert neither on mountains where it will certainly be crushed.

The Universe and the Quran 2

It seems inevitable that man will eventually walk on Mars. I wonder about the first men who will make that trip. They will be special people whose whole existence has been geared to that purpose. Our psychology evolved on planet Earth for the purpose of survival here. We are not by nature prepared to spend 18 months in a cramped capsule away from home. There could be serious psychological problems. There will be bone loss and danger from cosmic rays, meteoroids, etc. The astronauts will watch as Earth shrinks to become a dim light in the darkness. Apollo astronauts did not have that problem. From the moon, Earth retained its identity even though Buzz Aldrin said he held his thumb up to completely cover it. The first man on Mars will be a hero. He will travel the world, lead parades and appear in newspapers and on television in every country. When it is over he will seek seclusion, shunning the public the rest of his days. After some years there will be oddballs like Nashville's own Bart Sibrel claiming that man never went to Mars.