The American space agency has successfully flown a small helicopter on Mars.
The drone, called Ingenuity, was airborne for less than a minute, but Nasa is celebrating what represents the first powered, controlled flight by an aircraft on another world.
Confirmation came via a satellite at Mars which relayed the chopper’s data back to Earth.
The space agency is promising more adventurous flights in the days ahead.
By Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent Published April 19, 2021
image copyright NASA
The American space agency has successfully flown a small helicopter on Mars.
The drone, called Ingenuity, was airborne for less than a minute, but Nasa is celebrating what represents the first powered, controlled flight by an aircraft on another world.
Confirmation came via a satellite at Mars which relayed the chopper’s data back to Earth.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56799755
I hope this embeds.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av-embeds/56799755/vpid/p09d7csg
Words to live by…
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzLoniVVgAUYboV?format=jpg&name=small
George Carlin: First rule is believe NOTHING the government tells us.
It is a good rule.
NASA uses they word “image” for a reason…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/image
I do find that interesting. I might contact my friend at JHUAPL (she claimed to have access to ALL of NASA’s copyrighted images as part of Technology Management) and ask why they copyright the “image” and not the photo.
From wikipedia;
“The highest atmospheric density on Mars is equal to the density found 35 km (22 mi) above the Earth’s surface and is ~0.020 kg/m”.
How many helicopters have flown 22 miles above the earth?
Again from wikipedia;
“The record for maximum altitude achieved by a helicopter is 40,820 feet. This record was set on June 21, 1972 by French aviator and test pilot Jean Boulet, who was piloting an Aerospatiale SA 315B Lama.”
That’s about 14 miles short of the martian feat.
Now I realise that the earthly limitation is due to the internal combustion engine but would an electric engined copter find enough air for it’s rotors to continue to climb to 22 miles or more?
Maybe someone on TBP has the math/science to educate me.
Record is 40,000 feet. To fly on Mars would take some serious power to weight ratio, and some serious rpms as well.
“ To enable Ingenuity to fly there, NASA engineers gave it ultra-light, compact parts and rotors capable of generating enough lift to carry it aloft. Ingenuity’s rotor blades spin five times faster than those of a conventional helicopter. ”
Gravity on Mars is only 38% of that of earth, also a big advantage.
Yes, but centrifugal force doesn’t.
It is more like a toy helicopter than an actual one. It has about the same performance too.
I used to fly RC heli’s and thats what the thing really looks like to me. Just a bigger version of the small Lama heli’s you can buy. Very easy to fly and super stable.
Would love to see a Martian in bib overalls pop up with a shotgun and blast it out of the sky. Oh please let it be so.
That one was a ‘laugh out loud’……..
Turns out, we introduced an epidemic that wiped out all life on Mars.
Why is this on the NASA page?
[[[Direct from America’s space program to YouTube, watch NASA TV live streaming here to get the latest from our exploration of the universe and learn how we discover our home planet.
NASA TV airs a variety of regularly scheduled, pre-recorded educational and public relations programming 24 hours a day on its various channels. The network also provides an array of live programming, such as coverage of missions, events (spacewalks, media interviews, educational broadcasts), press conferences and rocket launches.
In the United States, NASA Television’s Public and Media channels are MPEG-2 digital C-band signals carried by QPSK/DVB-S modulation on satellite AMC-3, transponder 15C, at 87 degrees west longitude. Downlink frequency is 4000 MHz, horizontal polarization, with a data rate of 38.86 Mhz, symbol rate of 28.1115 Ms/s, and ¾ FEC. A Digital Video Broadcast (DVB) compliant Integrated Receiver Decoder (IRD) is needed for reception.]]]
Seriously, is this some kind of spy versus spy message for our enemies put out by NASA?
Rednecks From Mars!!!
I think I streamed that movie one night, during the Lockdown. – – –
Head out to Utah. I would imagine that is where they did the filming.
I guess it was filmed with the first GoPro on Mars
Thank you!
you’re welcome
We never went to Mars. It’s impossible to get past that Ethan Allen belt thingy.
All those videos are being filmed at some location at some desert in some country somewhere.
Stucky, am glad you stuck a comment here for me to tell one of my stories about life in the boonies.
My almost 80 year-old-neighbor, Geneva, with whom I walk up and down the paved and unpaved roads around here to get some exercise and talk about whatever we want to talk about. The rules of our walks have not changed: Wear what you want and do not mention my odd selection of footwear.
We talk if we want and sometimes almost not at all. My big white dog has trained Geneva over the years to yield to his need to precede her and mark the way. She has one of those little yappy terriers bestowed upon her by a daughter after her husband passed away last year. Actually, they “share” the dog, with her living literally around the curve on the gravel road, a situation common here in the suburbs of the sticks.
So, to avoid talking about the demise of our once great nation, I mentioned that I’d seen this little snippet about the helicopter flight on Mars.
I don’t think the images are real. I think they are simulations presented as “copyrighted image” not as true broadcast photos, digital or some other new tech no one realizes exists yet. Remember that Tucker Carlson reported on UFOs reported by the Defense Department just last week. Could we be transmitting images with some new “interstellar” transmission ability? Those UFOs reported upon by Tucker seemed to flicker more than fly. (I’m just tossing possibilities out there. I don’t really have my own “new” conspiracy theory to peddle. ) There is just something odd about their claiming to have launched a little helicopter on Mars. The whole story reeks.
Geneva continues to insist she’s gonna be raptured out of here so I’m still planning to grab her ankle. Nick’s Catholic… he’s got that loophole of having been baptised and confirmed. All he has to do is confess on the way up and he’s good to go.
I wouldn’t be so sure if I were him.
I have calculated via Scripture — Usher’s Chronology, Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew, the number of talking animals in the Bible, and 18 other obscure verses, and multiplied by the God Constant (666) — to determine that the speed in which “we go up” is 99% the speed of light.
What I’m suggesting is …. assuming that Nick has a looooong list of sins to confess, I hope he talks real fast.
In the hot tub this morning, we counted up my surgeries by the scars.
Seventeen.
Nick is doing his penance here by being assigned to me.
(Yes, in the midst of a Pandemic, our long-ago-ordered Softub arrived and now the basement is a spa and entertainment room in addition to housing the laundry and piano bar. Now that my son has gotten himself another software engineer job and apartment, we got smart and removed the welcoming atmosphere. Now, he realizes we spend time nekkid down there. Gross.)
Just for the record, 666 is Man’s constant, 7 is God constant. You won’t get the math right unless you get the initial variables correct.
It is a crapshoot anyway as the number of talking animals will be an estimate. If by scripture analysis you determine there were no talking mammals, then the vertical velocity is 0.
Who’s running the camera?
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36013/mexican-drug-cartel-now-assassinating-its-enemies-with-improvised-explosive-toting-drones
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum <—–====
The most believable story of the day.
I thought you might like it.
I don’t know if you saw my comment regarding my visit to the Amish family/group I met a few years ago. Their community of a couple hundred people (Libertyville is nearby) was completely untouched and the elder of their community said it was because they do not watch any news.
Their market has doubled in size. The family I visit has tripled their garden, obviously with market sales in mind. Since I coerced the daughter into buying a petting rabbit (Mopsy) I offered to sell Mopsy’s fuzzy bunnies at the pet store. The young girl immediately turned to ask her mother, who said that the money would help with the feed. The mother offered to show me the rabbits and so I walked out to see the animal pens. (a real treat!)
By that time, I’d been there five to ten minutes, visiting in the house with my Jeep Laredo parked by the buggies.
I’d seen a couple of young men in a field at the beginning of the family lane (the Amish build and name their own lanes… this family lives on Valley View Lane across from Mountain View Lane on the uphill side.) but none of the other families I’d seen from time to time. It was mid-afternoon though, so I suppose I picked a very busy time of day.
Before we got to the animal pens, I heard the clippity clop of fast moving hooves and then a wagon with six to eight Amish men and boys pulled into the driveway. I saw the rabbits and sensed I needed to go.
As I drove away, the wagon load of men went back toward the home being constructed just further down the newly extended lane.
The Amish community is growing. Thriving.
And, yes, there were a couple of long guns. I’m sure my new Jeep sent some sort of alarm out. Interesting that they came to protect their women so quickly.
I wonder if they use some sort of radios?
Anyway, about the MARS landing. It’s bullshit.
Now, THAT is a Flemish! I have a young Flemish buck, but he’s not likely to get half that big!
The Amish are shrewd business men, they will use ‘modern tools’ and electricity when it furthers them making money.
Get the boiling pot Mags, that wabbit would feed a family of 12. Never seen a rabbit that large, is that normal for a Flemish?
Only the true Giants. The one I have is probably a hybrid, but he’s big. I have a big rabbit around 20 pounds… Is why I had to make a trip to where I sold that huge buck last year… the Maple Syrup Amish family. Also picked up a gallon of Misery syrup.
Beast! I remember my sister getting a pet big floppy eared rabbit with my parents doing zero research. That buck growled as well as an Rottweiler and was more aggressive. Thankfully it escaped and was never found again, but I was the only one trying to take care of it and it scared me.
NASA, best comedy writers on tv. The stupid it burns.
I saw several very clever ones indeed!
The least believable thing to me are those staged ‘mission control’ type things they do for every event or documentary. Are you really expecting me to believe an office of fags in masks and face shields and blue-haired women and niggers do anything for a space program but file HR complaints with each other?
Back in the 1960s, the Video of the Mission Control was all in
Black and White, but the employees NOT.
The Atacama/Gobi/New Mexico/Nyiri/Karapinar/Simpson/etc. desert looks great this time of year.
Ahnold celebrates the Mars helicopter flight with some inspirational lines from his classic films.