Posted by tourdemars to Mars Science Laboratory at November 28, 2011 03:36 PM

NASA's Curiosity rover — a car-sized robot mounted on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket — successfully blasted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Saturday morning at 10:02 a.m. Its task: To determine if microbial alien life could, or ever did, exist on the Red Planet. Here's a look at Curiosity's ambitious and costly "long cruise to Mars," by the numbers: