I once got a drill bit jammed in concrete and the language that followed was, let's say, colourful…and that was with the offending masonry right in front of me. That, in essence, is what happened to NASA's Curiosity rover on the 25th of April this year and the solution required some impressive problem solving from 300 million kilometres away. At least I could give mine a firm wobble and a stern look of disappointment. Curiosity's team had to think rather harder than that. Curiosity was doing what it does best and drilling into a Martian rock to collect a sample for analysis. The target was a flat disc of rock nicknamed “Atacama," it was modest enough only about 45 centimetres across, 15 centimetres thick, and weighing around 13 kilograms. It could’t even really be classed as a boulder. But when the rover retracted its arm after drilling, Atacama came with it, wedged tight against the fixed sleeve surrounding the drill bit and dangling from the end of the robotic arm.…