Space - the new rock and roll
The reaction from the Nasa control room as the robot landed
"I hope to do something as great in my life in the future, but if I don't - this will have been enough."
Adam Steltzner has had a little time to reflect on the historic touchdown of the Curiosity rover on Mars, although he confesses the adrenaline of the past few days means he hasn't himself yet landed back on Earth.
The man who led the Nasa team that devised the "crazy" system to get Curiosity on the ground is still buzzing.
"It is a triumph. It is a triumph of ingenuity and engineering, and it's something the team should be very, very proud of," he says.
For a few days, Steltzner became the face of this mission.
His engaging personality and presentation, allied to his rock and roll looks, meant he was a natural magnet to the news cameras.
In those remarkable pictures from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory control room, he was the one pacing around and pointing.
Steltzner and the Curiosity landing system now go their separate ways
And all eyes were on him - the master of ceremonies.
The worst part, he says, was waiting for the rover in its descent capsule to touch the top of the atmosphere.
About nine minutes out, the capsule detached from the spacecraft that had shepherded it from Earth.
There was then a hiatus before the real action began. "Those nine minutes were horrid."
If you haven't watched the moment of touchdown, you can see it in the video at the top of this page.
"I wanted three confirmations that we were safe on the ground," Steltzner told me.
"I had three different people looking at three different pieces of data. The first thing you heard was 'Tango Delta Nominal', which was touchdown nominal coded up so the world would not erupt into applause.
"Then Dave Way said 'RIMU stable', which meant the inertial measurement unit on the rover indicated that it was not moving - so, that told us we weren't dragging the rover with the skycrane.
"And then I looked over at Brian Schratz who was sitting in the EDL comm. His orders were to count to 10 and then tell me if he was still getting persistent clean UHF signal, which meant the descent stage wouldn't have fallen back on the rover. He said 'UHF persistent'.
"I pointed at Al Chen who called out 'touchdown confirmed'. The room erupted and the world learned we'd just made it to the surface of Mars."
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