To again answer your initial question, the crater is very very old, and predates any likely fluvial or biological activity. It’s just a ring of mountains now. It’s a bit like asking, “Why would anyone look for life on Hawaii? It’s a volcano!”

The landing site was chosen because it’s on an alluvial fan — i.e., a now-dry river delta. The crater came first; the river (and potential life) came later. Otherwise, the impact would’ve obliterated evidence of the river.

There aren’t so many shots of the landing because the point is getting the scientific payload on the ground to use and not so much to document the decent. The EDL team watched the stream of data and got a way more vivid picture in their mind than any live stream could tell them. Now they are taking their time to get things set up right and do, you know. science. 

But here is something you might enjoy: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcGMDXy-Y1I&feature=player_embedded

4fps thumnails from Curiosity’s POV from the heatshield separation to the touchdown. They have better quality images stored on Curiosity that will get sent back at some point when they have the bandwidth to spare, but first… SCIENCE! (and housekeeping)

I think that when hoverboards arrive it’ll finally click for everyone.

“Rocket Powered Space Crane”

This whole thing was designed to bring me back to being 12 years old.

Also, per the discussion about comparison to the moon landing, while I am too young to remember those missions, I do remember staying up to see the first pictures back from the first Mars rover during the early days of the internet.  I think I recall watching on NASA TV and downloading pictures over a dial-up and thinking how amazing it was that I was receiving pictures from Mars on my computer.  I mean, think about that – we are literally receiving transmissions from mars on our laptops.  Funny how natural that seems today.

Anyway, I agree with you, but I think it  is precisely the power of science that necessitates an awareness that the scientific method is not by itself an almighty panacea – that the human agency that wields it will always define how praise-worthy or disastrous its application is in the real world.

Christ, I’m starting to sound like a pontificating alien in an Atomic era b-movie!

It’s amazing what the scientific method allows us to accomplish.  When that method is discarded, which it frequently is, we get disastrous results such as nonsensical economic policies, links between vaccines and autism, the medicinal benefit of hexagonal water, faith healing, snake oil, etc…

I would be proudly chanting science, which implies adulation towards those who practice it well in my mind.

(Prediction – Hollywood executes a perfect landing, then spends four years transmitting flawless superHD 3D footage of the smoking crater left by Science…)

Chanting “NASA” makes a lot more sense to me than chanting “Science!” in so far I think science is always something that people do – either brilliantly, or competently, or poorly, as the case may be, and for noble, or beneficial, or deleterious, objectives, as the case my be.  I don’t think you can really think of it as a neutral, Platonic entity – it’s a human activity, however it might take larger than human things as its subject, and I’d personally prefer to celebrate the particular people that do it well and for good purposes, rather than the thing in itself, which would be pretty indifferent to the kudos anyway.

At any rate, if I’d won a gold medal or something like that, I’d be really bummed out to come home to a crowd chanting SPORT!  SPORT!  SPORT!

Still, this is all fucking awesome.

http://i.imgur.com/gGhRq.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g25G1M4EXrQ 

Don’t forget at that time, the States just barely “touched” space.

Full length:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouRbkBAOGEw 

One of my favorite speeches.