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First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

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Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#121

Post by jryle70 »

fnord77 wrote: post #94
throwawayboise wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty low faith that all that ingenuity will save us?

it certainly could if that genius was focused on the looming problem. But instead of trying to prevent disaster, most of the world's ingenuity is squandered on trying to squeeze another buck out of the world.

The world is not as simple as you make it to be. SpaceX was founded by a guy who squeezed not one but many bucks out of the world. The same company just closed a funding round worth $1.2 billion from many investors who I'm sure are master at squeezing a buck or two. Yet they dream big and inspire a lot of young people to tackle hard problems. Turns out a squeezed buck today can go a long way to confront looming problems.

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#122

Post by elihu »

pjc50 wrote: post #29
xioxox wrote: post #21

Cool! I wonder why balloons have not been used much on other planets? Is it the weight of the gas? The USSR had the the Vega 1 and 2 balloons on Venus, but presumably further missions could be pretty useful for studying planetary atmospheres, even for gas giants.

The gas has to be lighter than the atmosphere of the target planet. For planets with very thin atmospheres or planets with mostly-hydrogen atmospheres, that is hard to achieve. That leaves basically Venus and maybe Titan?

A clarification: technically, filling a balloon with a lighter gas is actually pretty easy: the pressure inside the balloon is almost the same as that outside (if the balloon is made of a non-stretchy material like mylar that doesn't compress the air), so all you need to have the inside be lighter is to use a less dense gas. Mars atmosphere is mostly CO2, so even nitrogen could work as a lifting gas.

The problem of course is that while it's easy to use a gas that's less dense than Mars' atmosphere, it can't be very much less dense because you're starting from a very low density. So, you'd need a huge volume in order to lift anything substantial.

edit: looks like a sibling comment said the same thing first..

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#123

Post by ncmncm »

baggy_trough wrote: post #83

Wouldn't the sky crane be truthfully described as a "powered, controlled flight on another planet"?

Yesss... But they probably are only counting aerodynamic flight.

I wish there was more about what it did after it dropped its load. Did it just fly until fuel ran out? Or fly for a minute and shut off? I think they did say it crashed, which was probably unnecessary, considering how far away it got. It probably could have set down neatly 100 ft away.

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#124

Post by dang »

drummer wrote: post #105

This was painful to watch. The team can fly a drone on mars but apparently are so stupid not to realize there is zero science behind them wearing masks. https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#125

Post by dang »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #115
drummer wrote: post #105

This was painful to watch. The team can fly a drone on mars but apparently are so stupid not to realize there is zero science behind them wearing masks. https://swprs.org/face-masks-evidence/

While I believe that masks do help reduce the spread of viruses, I'll play along that there is no science to back up that statement. Humans do not only do things because they "make sense" / "scientifically proven", many times we just do it because its low effort and helps make other people feel comfortable. Its like smiling when you see a stranger, or saying good morning to someone. There is no sense to it, you don't…

"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: First Flight of the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter [video]

#126

Post by yazaddaruvala »

dang wrote: post #125
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I believe that masks do help reduce the spread of viruses, I'll play along that there is no science to back up that statement. Humans do not only do things because they "make sense" / "scientifically proven", many times we just do it because its low effort and helps make other people feel comfortable. Its like smiling when you see a stranger, or saying good morning to someone. There is no sense to it, you don't…

" Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Fair. I'll keep that in mind. Thank you for the link :)
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