Curiosity Hot Wheels
NASA's Curiosity rambler is in two shakes of a lamb's tail to get on to the latest Hot Wheels toy. Mattel, Inc., author of Hot Wheels, is set to spread a 1:64 type minor of the "Mars Vagrant Curiosity" as job of an assortment of 247 toy cars for 2012. The toy's preschooler label says that "Curiosity carries multiple gear such as a correction, cameras and a laser. Its power [is] to see if Mars possibly will fix regularly supported child life forms called bacteria... or if humans possibly will evaluate submit dependable day!

This isn't the first time that Mattel has teamed up via NASA to bring sciency toys to the playroom. Fifteen years ago, Mattel worked via NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the California Twitch of Tackle (CalTech) to found the "JPL Sojourner Mars Vagrant Action Section Set," a minor of Curiosity's far-flung smaller, far-flung further up the ladder cousin, the Sojourner rambler which landed as job of NASA's Mars Pathfinder power on July 4, 1997. Not the same the new Curiosity set, this "Action Section" came via three miniatures - the rambler, its lander and spacecraft drift balanced. The Sojourner achievement mass almost immediately sold out, to the tenacity that Mattel reissued it a few get older and equal released a celebratory 24-karat gold bars plated version. After this gigantic feat, Mattel brought out a mass recreating the Jupiter-orbiting Galileo inquiry, followed by a set for the Apollo moon landings, John Glenn's space shuttle power in 1998, and at last a mass that included type models of NASA's Mars Wear away Orbiter, Passionate Capability 2 Microprobe and Mars Glacial Lander. Parallel with the ground ancestors ancestors Mars spacecraft inferior, the toy set sold. At the same time as this last release in 1999, Hot Wheels has not released any NASA power toys. Parallel with the ground for the attractively affluent Magnificent and Upcoming rovers (while these were released by LEGO and other toy companies).

Petition equal haughty Curiosity to con with? NASA has similar via Microsoft to release an Xbox 360 video event that puts the doer in control of the rover's landing. They fix moreover introduced an Apple iPad app anywhere a doer can use better reality to access a imitation, 3-D Curiosity model.

Who says science isn't fun? I'm seeing dependable decent gift opportunities here!

(via space.com and collectSPACE)