By ROD ZOOK
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The Cosmosphere held a virtual landing party for the latest Mars rover landing as Perseverance landed on the Martian surface shortly before 3 p.m. central time.
Schools from around the area and space fans joined in via Zoom and Facebook.
A special guest of the Cosmosphere was Michael Staab, who was a Cosmosphere camp alum and now works for Northrop Grumman. Staab is part of the NASA rover program and says his time at the space camp had him hooked right away.
“I got started in 1996 watching Pathfinder land on the surface of Mars,” Staab said. “(I) pretty much wanted to work on space missions.”
Staab says living only a short distance from Hutchinson also made it easy to visit and become a part of space camps.
“I live an hour from the Cosmosphere, it was right there,” Staab said. “It’s not hard to get inspired when you see all of the Apollo history and the stuff that happened real time growing up.”
The rover is the fifth for NASA to successfully land on the Martian surface. The rover will collect geological samples and then attempt to return them to earth.
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