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It's really cool but I wonder what kind of range it could feasibly achieve. Personally I like the idea of high altitude helium balloons. You can't control the d
by davedx 7y ago
It's really cool but I wonder what kind of range it could feasibly achieve. Personally I like the idea of high altitude helium balloons. You can't control the direction but they could stay up for much longer than something that used powered flight.
- isolli 7y agoCould a helium balloon fly in the rarefied Martian atmosphere?
- ryanmercer 7y agoHere's NASA's page on the subject https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/balloons/index.html https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/balloons/index.html
- davedx 7y agoYep. I actually ran the numbers on this (in a spreadsheet) and even ordered a weather balloon to try and built a DIY survey balloon that might also work on Mars. Got bogged down by the hardware side though, and abandoned the project. :D
- jcims 7y agoThe demonstrator going to Mars on the 2020 mission can only fly for 90 seconds per day and afaik has no science objectives other than trying to fly. But if it proves viable they could presumably scale it up to something with a longer range (say 5-10km/day).
- ryanmercer 7y agoCorrect, it is going to test the technology and take photos with its 2 color cameras. This is basically a project that was "Let's try this, how much weight does the mission have to spare? Ouch, that's not a lot, let's see what we can do", that's my takeaway from this episode anyway https://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2019/0731-2019-mars-helicopter-lightsail-2-success.html https://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/20...