NASA Dials Up the Drama With Trailer for Mars Mission

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory employs slick visuals and a bit of Hollywood hype in this movie-trailer-style clip that seeks to build excitement for the Aug. 5 landing of the $2.5 billion Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars. The video is called "Challenges of Getting to Mars: Curiosity's 7 Minutes of Terror," a reference to the lag time between when the lander reaches Mars and when NASA will learn its fate. Adding extra drama are the narrators, whose starkly shadowed features and grim scientific talk of danger turn them from mild-mannered engineers into ominous cinematic characters.