Tulsa Air and Space Museum to get Mars Curiosity rover model from NASA

TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) — A brand new piece of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum's Mars exhibit arrives today.

The museum is getting a full-scale model of the Curiosity Mars rover at 9 a.m.

For the past few days, a crew has been driving the rover model from California to here in Tulsa.

Curiosity was designed to help answer the question whether or not Mars has ever had the right environment for small life forms called microbes to exist.

So far, the rover has only found evidence of past livable environments.

The museum's executive director says it's all about inspiring the next generation of space lovers.

"We've got to keep telling the kids the stories, and we've got to get the kids excited about it, so you know 20, 30, 40 years from now, what other kind of great stories are we gonna talk about Oklahomans achieving," said Tonya Blansett, executive director with TASM.

The museum is also getting a full size model of the Mars Global Surveyor, which is a large satellite that orbits the red planet and sends back pictures.