NASA Administrator Bolden’s Remarks from the “Go Curiosity” Video

I want to talk to you for a minute about one of the most exciting and important events in NASA’s future: our return to Mars. Before we send humans to the Red Planet, we’re going to undertake one of our most challenging missions yet, landing the Curiosity rover on the Martian surface Aug. 6.

Curiosity will not only demonstrate precision landing technology that we’ll need for future missions to planetary surfaces, it will also be the largest rover we’ve ever sent to Mars. It will land at a site close to a mountain range that we hope will help us answer questions humanity has been asking for centuries. Curiosity’s sophisticated instruments will help us answer questions about Mars’ geology and whether or not it has ever been hospitable to life. It’s going to generate a lot of excitement around the world, including NASA Socials at 7 of our centers and many other outreach activities.

That’s where you come in! Curiosity is going to do great science, and it’s going to help pave the way for future human missions to Mars. It’s important that the entire NASA family know how to communicate what Curiosity will be doing on Mars, because it’s an excellent opportunity to let people know about the hard work and great achievements that NASA and their space program is taking on today and for the future.

We’ve put together some materials that will help you tell this fascinating story to your family, friends, and neighbors, because no doubt, they’ll be asking you as the NASA expert, no matter what your job is with the agency.

It’s a pretty straightforward story, and we should all be happy and proud to talk about it. So we’ve sent your supervisors some materials that you can use to answer questions and relay your excitement about working for NASA. You’ll be able to tell folks how Curiosity is just one of many great things coming up in this new era of exploration. I hope you’ll take advantage of these materials to help prepare yourself for the many interesting conversations that Curiosity and its work on Mars are bound to inspire.

I also encourage you to visit http://communications.nasa.gov/marstoolkit where you can find videos and pictures about the mission to share as well as information about what NASA will be doing around the Curiosity landing.

I hope you’ll join me in wishing the Curiosity team all the best and help me spread the word about the great things NASA is doing now and will continue to do in the future.

Go, Curiosity!

Charlie B.