Mars Helicopter
 

Just watched the live telemetry of the first flight of the Mars helicopter. I find all this just amazing.

Question ??
 

If there is no atmosphere on Mars, how does this thing get air to move ??

Mars does have an atmosphere

Who said there is no atmosphere on Mars?

It's there, primarily Carbon Dioxide and really thin. 7 millibars at the surface.

Mount Everest is about 300 millibars at the top.

7 millibars would equate to something like 115,000 feet from the surface of the earth.

Big waste of Money. What does all this prove?

Wow.

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...glad Christopher Columbus didn't come to YOU for his trip approval....
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It's not about proof.

It's about discovery. It's about exploration. It's about expansion of knowledge. It's about our desire to expand out world. It's about having a mind that is open to all these things and more (not everyone has that).

Sounds good. But, the cost for the mission was $2.9 billion. Apparently all of it was funded by U.S. taxpayers. Why didn't the rest of the world, who also benefit from all that knowledge, share in the cost? Couldn't countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and others, who aren't $30 trillion in debt, kick in a billion or so?

My guess is the conclusion will be that there is no life on Mars

NASA projects have helped create thousands of new ideas generating products and jobs producing many billions of incremental revenue annually.

A project I worked on in 1976 resulted in medical diagnostics products saving many thousands of lives a year, over 8,000 jobs and three billion in revenue annually globally.

The taxes on all that has repaid the NASA investment thousands times over.

"U.S. Assistance to Africa: Objectives and Delivery
State Department- and USAID-administered assistance for Africa totaled roughly $7.1 billion in FY2019, not including funding allocated to Africa via global accounts and programs." Link: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R46368.pdf
Maybe we should take care of our own programs and stop giving U.S. taxpayers money away to countries that expect it every year with NOTHING in return.

Amazing yes... but
 

What a waste of money when so much needs to be spent on "earthly things" that need fixing now

No
 

It does have a thinner atmosphere than earth, but the copter has much faster blades to account for it, but we do not need HAHAL. It is inhumane for the slaughter of animals.

I saw that the project manager for this flight is a thirty year old woman from Burma whose mother was the first person from Burma to attend school in the U.S. on a Math scholarship.

I am a champion for both genders. That is not to say at all that a man couldn't have done it, to be fair. She was so exited and thrilled in the video of her watching it happen on the news last night.

I wondered too how a helicopter could fly in such thin air. It flew for 39 seconds. The news clip said it will pave the way for drones to further explore Mars. I hate to say this, but it looks to me it will find endless clay colored soil and some rocks. That is why I have never been hired for anything scientific. I was pretty good at teaching small children and I loved every second of it.

It was truly an amazing engineering accomplishment. Having worked at Sikorsky Aircraft for 38 years I have and understanding of Vertical flight. My only issue is in placing the Wright brothers aircraft fabric on board. Igor Sikorsky is the father of Vertical flying and several of his fabric covered helicopters still exist and should have been used to supply the small sample.

It was truly an amazing engineering accomplishment. Having worked at Sikorsky Aircraft for 38 years I have and understanding of Vertical flight. My only issue is in placing the Wright brothers aircraft fabric on board. Igor Sikorsky is the father of Vertical flying and several of his fabric covered helicopters still exist and should have been used to supply the small sample.

An amazing feat when one thinks about what it takes to get there, millions of miles away and months to get there.....and then have devices operate there as intended/programmed.

Truly amazing.

The technologies and people who exploit them bring benefit to us all eventually.

Take it out of the stimulus package. $3B is chump change.

Migration of the human race
 

the only word i would change in this op is " desire". I would replace it with " necessity"
if anyone really wants to comprehend the magnificence and the necessity to find other worlds to guarantee the survival of the human race start with the topic of terraforming.

Postscript
 

I'm sure that when cc sailed off to prove the 🌎 was round & make $ there were those on the shoreline who thought it a fool's errand.
We are all in one camp or the other, are we not?

Like What?
You mean like this:
Over $390.6 million to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
Link: Kennedy Center Received $270 Million From Congress And Paid Their President $5+ Million Since 2016
Maybe give more cell phones to the homeless or more food stamps to the lazy.
Yes there are plenty of costly government programs that seem to take care of the same lazy nonproductive or noncontributing types.
So let's give it all away and stay in the Stone Age! :coolsmiley: