Jackson Free Press

The Rev. Jesse Jackson doesn't think too highly of Hinds County Supervisor Kenny Stokes' proposal to fine kids 10 bucks for wearing their pants a certain way.

Rev. Jackson spoke at this morning's convocation for returning Jackson Public Schools Employees, who reported today for their first day of work in the new school year. School starts on Friday.

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If local leaders don't focus on what's important in children's lives,"People will be arguing about sagging pants and not sagging (access to) computers. Sagging pants not sagging salaries."

The line drew applause from the crowd of 4,000 JPS workers. A Hinds County supervisors' meeting yesterday drew public comments from both sides of the sagging pants controversial issue.

The NFL confirmed today that for the first time in history a woman will officiate a NFL game. On Thursday night when the Green Bay Packers meet the San Diego Chargers, Shannon Eastin will make history.

Eastin has officiated Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference games in the past. She has won six national judo championships and was the youngest athlete to ever train at the U.S. Olympic Training Center.

The Tempe, AZ resident will get a chance to officiate since the NFL is using replacement officials while the regular officials are on strike. The first preseason game of the year, the Hall of Fame game played on Sunday night between the New Orleans Saints and Arizona Cardinals, was played with replacement officials with little disruption.

I think it is great if women get a chance to break into a male dominated field because of this strike. I hope Eastin has a great game as an official to open doors for more women to officiate male sports.

The game can be seen on ESPN at 7pm central standard time.

When we looked at the clock last night and realized it was only about 20 minutes before Curiosity was set to land on Mars, I decided to root around and find a Web feed to see if we could watch it in action. Having been warned that there might be a blackout on communication between Curiosity and Earth, I figured it'd be a relatively uneventful web feed, if still a bit dramatic while they waited.

Well, it turned out that the 10-year-old satellite that NASA has in orbit around Mars -- Opportunity -- didn't fail JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) the way they were concerned it might, so they were able to maintain communication throughout and learn how Curiosity had done step-by-step through its complicated landing sequence.

Curiosity started the journey on Nov. 26, 2011, blasting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, arriving at Mars pretty much exactly on time.

The video starts after a long deceleration that included Curiosity employing a heat shield to enter the Mars atmosphere (thus slowing down from its interplanetary cruising speed) and then free-falling from 81 miles up to 7 miles up, reaching about 900 mph.

At that point, the most crazy-bad supersonic parachute ever deployed opens up and slows the 2000-lb contraption until its braking jets kick in -- I said braking jets -- and Curiosity slows down to basically hover about 65 feet in the air, when the "sky crane" deployed and gently placed the rover on the surface. (This is, for the record, pretty much how Hollywood has always envisioned the Martians invading us.)

The crew seems pretty excited for the 10 minutes prior to where this video starts, presumably because they knew they had access to Opportunity and would receive data on the descent -- instead of waiting minutes or hours for a quiet confirmation from their $2.5 billion rover on the surface.

Remember, though, that because of the 14-minute delay, by the time they do receive word that Curiosity has entered the Martian atmosphere, Curiosity has actually already hit the surface of Mars... they have no control over the landing; just an opportunity to find out "how hard."

The video starts with JPL communications desk saying "ready for sky crane" and saying "down to 10 meters per second" which means Curiosity has decelerated to under 10 miles per hour at about 40 meters above the surface. It continues decelerating quickly to nearly hover, followed by the "sky crane" going into action and placing the rover on the surface.

In case you couldn't hear it for the cheering, the line is: "Touchdown confirmed. We're safe on Mars."

Update: Here's another fun version that NASA has put together that includes their animation of the Curiosity landings along with an edit of the live call from JPL.