[HN Gopher] NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity touches down on the...
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       NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity touches down on the Red Planet
        
       Author : dgudkov
       Score  : 45 points
       Date   : 2021-04-04 20:27 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.space.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.space.com)
        
       | spaetzleesser wrote:
       | NASA needs to do way more cool stuff like this. Drilling rocks
       | and analyzing them is very useful for science but flying a drone
       | is what gets people excited and inspired. I can't wait for the
       | drone they want to fly on Titan one day or a submarine diving on
       | Europa. I think projects like this are also driving technology
       | forward.
        
       | krm01 wrote:
       | The most fascinating part is that this fragile looking drone,
       | looks in perfect shape after such a rough ride through out
       | atmosphere and then an other rough bump entering the mars
       | atmosphere.
       | 
       | A drone in a box, getting shipped from China to my place ends up
       | looking all beaten up.
        
         | BurningFrog wrote:
         | There are maybe 6 more zeroes on the cost for this drone.
         | 
         | That buys a lot of hardening.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | martyvis wrote:
       | Really loving this project. Still wondering though how you can
       | spend $85 million developing a 1.8kg drone helicopter? And how do
       | you actually come up with the estimate to get the budget
       | approved? Yes I understand all the challenges of delivery to a
       | distant planet, the thin atmosphere and lower gravity and extreme
       | temperatures, but wow.
        
         | jshmrsn wrote:
         | Veritasium has a great video on the helicopter. Early on in the
         | video they explain that Mars' atmosphere is equivalent in
         | density to Earth's atmosphere at 100,000 feet, and the record
         | altitude for helicopters on earth is 40,000 feet.
         | https://youtu.be/GhsZUZmJvaM
        
           | Shivetya wrote:
           | Since the rover has a microphone I wonder how through the
           | thin air the helicopter will sound?
        
         | TaylorAlexander wrote:
         | Testing. Gotta use a giant vacuum chamber to test to see if it
         | will fly. Gotta test to make sure the release mechanism that
         | drops it works perfectly no matter what happens to the system.
         | Gotta make sure it can't get itself stuck and damage the parent
         | robot. Gotta make sure every last detail is perfect cause you
         | only get one chance and there's no repair crews.
        
       | macintux wrote:
       | Related discussion from a few hours ago.
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26688153
        
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       (page generated 2021-04-04 23:00 UTC)