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NASA regains contact with mini-helicopter on Mars

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Re: NASA regains contact with mini-helicopter on Mars

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original Elon Musk biography describes how a legacy aerospace engineer joined spacex and was tasked with a part: > He got a quote back for $120,000. “Elon laughed,” Davis said. “He said, 'That part is no more complicated than a garage door opener. Your budget is five thousand dollars. Go make it work.’”

This is a terrifying anecdote.

Consider how many governments signed 8+ figure contracts to develop apps. Why would this kind of waste be any different in other industries? It's humans all the way down ;)

Re: NASA regains contact with mini-helicopter on Mars

#92
post #81

For me, being listed as a contributor to Ingenuity is one of the highlights of my career in software development. I mean, I just fixed a bug in some python library, but that was enough to get the GitHub Ingenuity badge. And when ever I am asked for a fun fact about myself, I can answer: some of my code is flying on Mars :)

I contributed to `twbs/bootstrap` and got the badge too, lol.

Re: NASA regains contact with mini-helicopter on Mars

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surfacing a comment: Here's a paper that describes what the next gen could/should be. The lead author is the head of Mars heli, IIRC. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9843501 In short, future designs target ~30kg heli, 5kg payloads. Other designs by collaborators are closer to 20kg. It's probably possible to transport a few of these on the existing lander technology, which would be awesome. The scholar.g…

> Other designs by collaborators are closer to 20kg. It's probably possible to transport a few of these on the existing lander technology, which would be awesome. Actually it could be like 50 of them. Plus some ground robots to put together solar farm. And wooh... we get the first extra terrestrial permanent base

Well size is the limiting factor for fliers, since they like to have broad surfaces with low weight. But I think you're referring to some, ahem,

untested possible landing vehicles ...

in which case, yeah, you have a lot of robots.

For the solar farm assembly case, It's actually a lot easier to have a teleoperated robot doing the work, a few astronauts in orbit doing the operation / construction. In the case of building things, you want as much space / weight landed to be the thing being built, not the builders, per se.

Re: NASA regains contact with mini-helicopter on Mars

#94
post #81

For me, being listed as a contributor to Ingenuity is one of the highlights of my career in software development. I mean, I just fixed a bug in some python library, but that was enough to get the GitHub Ingenuity badge. And when ever I am asked for a fun fact about myself, I can answer: some of my code is flying on Mars :)

I contributed to `twbs/bootstrap` and got the badge too, lol.

This has "University: Stanford" and "Company: Apple, Role: Individual Investor" energy

(I'm kidding, the badging system is funny)

Re: NASA regains contact with mini-helicopter on Mars

#96
post #81

For me, being listed as a contributor to Ingenuity is one of the highlights of my career in software development. I mean, I just fixed a bug in some python library, but that was enough to get the GitHub Ingenuity badge. And when ever I am asked for a fun fact about myself, I can answer: some of my code is flying on Mars :)

Speaking as someone some of whose code probably helped search for the fallen Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 a decade back, I gotta say, you have me beat by a country mile and deserve to be chuffed.

Re: NASA regains contact with mini-helicopter on Mars

#97
I'm curious how long they expected it to remain in working condition. NASA has a habit of underestimating lifespans by a comical amount. It will be like "we expected the rover to operate for 10 weeks and that was 6 years ago". I think the most extreme example is Voyager 1, which was on a 5-year mission that reached nearly 50 years.

Re: NASA regains contact with mini-helicopter on Mars

#98
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ingenuity is running Python?

The vehicle itself is mostly C++ but there's lots of python in the ground station and data processing

Wow, I somehow never imagined that even NASA's technology choices would be influenced by "all the data stuff being for Python". But I guess if it's all sandboxed and any errors are reversible... then why not?

It all makes rational sense. It just feels weird to think about Python running on Mars before there's even people there.

Re: NASA regains contact with mini-helicopter on Mars

#99
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not some helium balloon type craft that could float along with low power for longer periods of times? Could cover vast distances? Descend into fertile plains looking for samples?

Helium's lifting capability is proportional to the density of the atmosphere, which is very low on Mars.

Hydrogen it is.

Re: NASA regains contact with mini-helicopter on Mars

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same if you measure in lb

is this a joke about America?

It's a joke about mass vs weight, since the imperial "pound" is unspecific as to being pound-_mass_ or pound-_force_, the latter being based on Earth's standard gravitional field.

The conversion of kilograms, mass, to pound-force, weight, relies explicitly on the given acceleration of Earth's gravity, ~9.8 m/s².

Since Mars has a gravity with acceleration ~3.7 m/s², for two things that weight the same on Earth and Mars the latter would need to be larger in mass to weigh the same in pound-force.

The biggest issue though, and something I will say even having been through multiple physics courses myself I don't recall having had literally explained, is that even though "pounds" can refer to force and not mass, they are not equivalent. 1 pound-mass ≠ 1 pound-force.

It is actually converted using the Earth's standard gravitional field's force, so 1 pound-mass ≈ 9.8 pound-force.

Thus, the amount on bench's is the pound-mass amount, say 66 kg or 145 pounds-mass, which is not 145 pounds-force but actually *1421*.

It's also true even that the gravitional force can change up to as much as 0.5% depending on where on Earth you are due to the shape of the Planet.

While the joke made _me_ laugh, but it seems as you dig further there isn't often reference to pounds as a force as much as I had thought, so I even learned something from it too!

Lots more information on Wikipedia[0] around these that is particularly useful if you for any reason want to know more:

0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pound_(force)

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