Almost watched the press conference but turned it off when it turned out to be too obnoxious with the rowdy crowd and the political hijacking.
Was it really that bad? Yeah, there was some purple prose about the United States being a force for good and leading the world again, but that sort of stuff is par for the course. I just tune it out and wait for the techies to give some real information.
In past missions a lot of people have commented on the big cultural difference between JPL and JSC (Johnson Space Center for manned flight). The JSC guys wear conservative clothes and never, ever stand up and cheer some success in the mission with the singular exception of the earth landing at the end. They run it like a military operation. When Apollo 11 landed, you hear one clipped, understated "Whooop!" on the flight director loop, and that's it. Kranz said he'd fire anybody who cheered at a point like that.
The JPL guys cheer just about every major milestone in a Mars entry and landing sequence and they go wild when touchdown is confirmed.
I think the difference is easily explained by the fact that the Apollo 11 controllers were only 1.5 light-seconds away so they remained very tightly involved in the landing. They can't afford to lose focus. But the JPL guys were 14 light-minutes from Mars, and that made them totally passive spectators. They could not react to anything in less than 28 minutes, and that basically means they can't react at all. So there's no harm in having the whole team go wild if they want.
