A helicopter on Mars!

[Carl Sagan]

In today's "awesome things happening in space" thread I want y'all to know NASA is landing a helicopter on Mars around 20:55 tonight. Yes you read that right. Ingenuity will be the first attempt at powered flight on another planet. Which is difficult because the Martian atmosphere is very very thin, so obtaining enough lift means the rotors need to rotate very fast indeed (I think 2600 rpm).

It's travelling alongside the Perseverance rover which is very similar to Curiosity, already on the surface in the Gale Crater. As it happens, @Rampagehas his name etched onto a chip on Perseverance. The claim is that this is going to actually hunt for life on Mars, whereas Curiosity has deliberately avoided sites of possible life or surface water because its handlers hadn't expected to find them and don't believe they sterilized it sufficiently before launch to avoid contamination.

Perseverance and Ingenuity will touch down in the Jezero Crater. The landing is extremely complicated, using the same "Sky Crane" that Curiosity did. Half the probes that attempt to land on Mars fail, so let's hope this isn't one of them.

For a video of Ingenuity flying:

https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter/

Then, for a high-res simulation of the "7 minutes of terror" of the landing, here's another video. Because we're 11 light minutes from Mars at the moment, all the processes are fully autonomous.

 

[David]

When you say hunt for life on Mars, we talking plants or aliens here? 

You see, I’m a bit worried, last thing we need is to start triggering some inter galactic war with aliens by alerting them to our presence over here. 

What with Covid and everything, imagine if we end up infecting those on Mars but rather than put them in hospital, the virus mutates in such a way that gives them more strength and power to come over here and abduct our dogs and cats for food. 

Enough go missing with the local Chinese restaurant as it is without losing more to some goggly eyes super strength alien.

[Rampage]

Should be exciting to see it gets a safe landing. It will be storing rock samples for later retrieval. We already have one or two Mars rocks which made their own way here. It has pretty much all new sensing devices. These trips tend to lead to new inventions and technologies that finally end up in everyday life. My name and eleven million others were etched with an electron beam. Not quite neon lights in the West End but not bad. I will be looking out for further exploits so keep me informed. Carl

[Carl Sagan]

20 minutes ago, David said:

When you say hunt for life on Mars, we talking plants or aliens here? 

You see, I’m a bit worried, last thing we need is to start triggering some inter galactic war with aliens by alerting them to our presence over here. 

What with Covid and everything, imagine if we end up infecting those on Mars but rather than put them in hospital, the virus mutates in such a way that gives them more strength and power to come over here and abduct our dogs and cats for food. 

Enough go missing with the local Chinese restaurant as it is without losing more to some goggly eyes super strength alien.

It's a really good point (kind of!).  Most of the community that thinks about the risk of Human extinction wants to avoid alerting extraterrestrials to our presence at this moment in time. We need to become a much more robust interstellar civilization before we could be more confident of surviving such an encounter, given the history of civilizations encountering others here on Earth with just a small technological headstart. So METI (messaging extraterrestrial intelligence) is officially banned but it's hard to enforce.

On the surface of Mars we're only talking microbes and potential evidence of former complex plants animals, from the time earlier in Martian history when it had a thicker atmosphere and seems to have been warmer and with significant surface water (rivers/lakes/seas). If there are plants  or more complex life there now, it will be underground where there are sealed lakes for instance (these form very interesting ecosystems on earth). But we're not going there this mission. So our dogs and cats are likely safe for now.

When he was younger, Elon Musk had a plan to send a greenhouse to Mars to see how well the plants survived, and put a crew of mice in a space capsule spinning to replicate Martian gravity. Nowadays his plans are more ambitious but longer term.

But as @Rampagepoints out, this mission is collecting samples to return to Earth. It seems a little bit of a gimmick because it's not able to bring them back itself, so is waiting for future rockets. And surely those will be more advanced and able to bring their own samples back? For instance, I'd expect uncrewed SpaceX Starships to land by 2025.

[David]

2 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

It's a really good point (kind of!).  Most of the community that thinks about the risk of Human extinction wants to avoid alerting extraterrestrials to our presence at this moment in time. We need to become a much more robust interstellar civilization before we could be more confident of surviving such an encounter, given the history of civilizations encountering others here on Earth with just a small technological headstart. So METI (messaging extraterrestrial intelligence) is officially banned but it's hard to enforce.

On the surface of Mars we're only talking microbes and potential evidence of former complex plants animals, from the time earlier in Martian history when it had a thicker atmosphere and seems to have been warmer and with significant surface water (rivers/lakes/seas). If there are plants  or more complex life there now, it will be underground where there are sealed lakes for instance (these form very interesting ecosystems on earth). But we're not going there this mission. So our dogs and cats are likely safe for now.

When he was younger, Elon Musk had a plan to send a greenhouse to Mars to see how well the plants survived, and put a crew of mice in a space capsule spinning to replicate Martian gravity. Nowadays his plans are more ambitious but longer term.

But as @Rampagepoints out, this mission is collecting samples to return to Earth. It seems a little bit of a gimmick because it's not able to bring them back itself, so is waiting for future rockets. And surely those will be more advanced and able to bring their own samples back? For instance, I'd expect uncrewed SpaceX Starships to land by 2025.

What are they hoping to take from this mission, is it just to analyse and see what we discover, or is this with an eye on populating Mars in X number of years?

[Carl Sagan]

4 minutes ago, David said:

What are they hoping to take from this mission, is it just to analyse and see what we discover, or is this with an eye on populating Mars in X number of years?

This is a NASA mission so it's only about science and analysis and discovery. Except there is one experiment on board that is a nod towards future settlement, which is an "in-situ resource utilization" experiment to see if we can easily make and store oxygen from out of the thin carbon dioxide atmosphere. Useful for breathing and rocket fuel.

There is an era of tension coming when NASA will want to treat Mars as a scientific research outpost, a little like Antarctica. But SpaceX will want to build a proper city and have hundreds of thousands of Humans live there. But we've not quite reached that point.

[Carl Sagan]

There are three missions to Mars in this launch window and all have gone well so far. A United Arab Emirates probe (in DCFC colours?) successfully went into orbit a few days ago. A more ambitious Chinese probe has arrived which is the first time anyone's attempted to orbit first and then land. Here's some video of it entering orbit last week. It won't land for a while yet. Amazing footage:

 

[TimRam]

Too much chocolate in space. Go where there is space dust instead...much more interesting.

[Rampage]

43 minutes ago, David said:

What are they hoping to take from this mission, is it just to analyse and see what we discover, or is this with an eye on populating Mars in X number of years?

Seriously, Elon wants a colony of one million people up there. He talks very big but he certainly gets things moving along. There will be a manned base up there at the very least. 

[David]

8 minutes ago, Rampage said:

Seriously, Elon wants a colony of one million people up there. He talks very big but he certainly gets things moving along. There will be a manned base up there at the very least. 

I talk about going on dates with Cheryl Cole, doubt it will ever happen though and I doubt we’ll get there in Elon’s time on earth or mine.

Is it really going to happen at all though? Maybe, maybe not. Long way to travel between each planet if you want to go to the shops 

[Mucker1884]

1 hour ago, David said:

When you say hunt for life on Mars, we talking plants or aliens here? 

You see, I’m a bit worried, last thing we need is to start triggering some inter galactic war with aliens by alerting them to our presence over here. 

What with Covid and everything, imagine if we end up infecting those on Mars but rather than put them in hospital, the virus mutates in such a way that gives them more strength and power to come over here and abduct our dogs and cats for food. 

Enough go missing with the local Chinese restaurant as it is without losing more to some goggly eyes super strength alien.

"eyes"?  Plural?

That spoils an otherwise intelligent, reasoned, and well written post.  

More than one eye?  You're weird!  

 

 

 

 

 

*Damn... should have put "mars" instead of "spoils"!  Missed a damn fine trick there, diddle I.  

[Rampage]

7 minutes ago, David said:

I talk about going on dates with Cheryl Cole, doubt it will ever happen though and I doubt we’ll get there in Elon’s time on earth or mine.

Is it really going to happen at all though? Maybe, maybe not. Long way to travel between each planet if you want to go to the shops 

A guy wanted by the police gave himself up in London saying that there was more peace and quiet in prison than where he was living. Some people may feel the same about Mars. As long as you can get the internet and dcfcfans online, SkyTV and Ramstv, what is not to like. Ha ha.

[Rampage]

6 minutes ago, Mucker1884 said:

"eyes"?  Plural?

That spoils an otherwise intelligent, reasoned, and well written post.  

More than one eye?  You're weird!  

 

 

 

 

 

*Damn... should have put "mars" instead of "spoils"!  Missed a damn fine trick there, diddle I.  

Mars Attacks. A great film. We know how to beat them, home or away.

[David]

Just now, Rampage said:

A guy wanted by the police gave himself up in London saying that there was more peace and quiet in prison than where he was living. Some people may feel the same about Mars. As long as you can get the internet and dcfcfans online, SkyTV and Ramstv, what is not to like. Ha ha.

I don’t know, would it be life as we know it, or would we be permanently indoors with artificial lighting with some kind of capsule moving around?

It’s not something I have or probably will put a lot of thought into, as I say I don’t see there being any kind of choice for myself in my time here. 

[Rampage]

Just now, David said:

I don’t know, would it be life as we know it, or would we be permanently indoors with artificial lighting with some kind of capsule moving around?

It’s not something I have or probably will put a lot of thought into, as I say I don’t see there being any kind of choice for myself in my time here. 

Stage 6 lockdown. Going out for a run on a rover. Collect a few rocks. Hit a few golf balls about a Km. Break the high jump record, chat to Cheryl should she opt for some peace and quiet. What is not to like. Okay, watch reruns of Rams games.

[1of4]

With travelling abroad for a holiday being ban. My first thought the title was referring to a virtual holiday, that people could take  in place of an actual holiday. Similar to the Blue skies on Mars vacation that Douglas Quaid was planning to take.

[Carl Sagan]

23 minutes ago, David said:

I don’t know, would it be life as we know it, or would we be permanently indoors with artificial lighting with some kind of capsule moving around?

It’s not something I have or probably will put a lot of thought into, as I say I don’t see there being any kind of choice for myself in my time here. 

For the first hundred/thousand/more years it means living indoors, some of it underground. Not for the faint hearted. The advantage of Mars is there's a lot of space (as much land as on Earth) and resources so Human civilization is sustainable there, even if hard. There's plenty of water.

The long-term goal is terraforming, to create sufficient atmosphere to be able to go outside and one day even breathe it. Part of me thinks we should do this before Humans go to live there, as then it's less risky. We'd want to heat up the poles but really we should sling as many asteroids and comets as possible at Mars to supply some of the other chemicals it needs. 

I think about going, but I would miss weather. Feeling the breeze on your face and the Sun on your skin. But what an adventure! However, after living in one-third gravity it would be tricky physically to ever return to Earth. 

[David]

5 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

For the first hundred/thousand/more years it means living indoors, some of it underground. Not for the faint hearted. The advantage of Mars is there's a lot of space (as much land as on Earth) and resources so Human civilization is sustainable there, even if hard. There's plenty of water.

The long-term goal is terraforming, to create sufficient atmosphere to be able to go outside and one day even breathe it. Part of me thinks we should do this before Humans go to live there, as then it's less risky. We'd want to heat up the poles but really we should sling as many asteroids and comets as possible at Mars to supply some of the other chemicals it needs. 

I think about going, but I would miss weather. Feeling the breeze on your face and the Sun on your skin. But what an adventure! However, after living in one-third gravity it would be tricky physically to ever return to Earth. 

Yeah it’s not for me, lockdown now is effecting me mentally and I can go outside, walk the dog. 

I would be giving my life up for an experiment that I would never know if it ever worked out, my name would be in the history books alongside hundreds and thousands of others.

If they could figure out how we could live forever without looking like a prune, I would be tempted to do my bit, but looking at how long it’s taking them to figure out a way of curing cancer I don’t hold out much hope for that either. 

[DarkFruitsRam7]

35 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

For the first hundred/thousand/more years it means living indoors, some of it underground. Not for the faint hearted. The advantage of Mars is there's a lot of space (as much land as on Earth) and resources so Human civilization is sustainable there, even if hard. There's plenty of water.

The long-term goal is terraforming, to create sufficient atmosphere to be able to go outside and one day even breathe it. Part of me thinks we should do this before Humans go to live there, as then it's less risky. We'd want to heat up the poles but really we should sling as many asteroids and comets as possible at Mars to supply some of the other chemicals it needs. 

I think about going, but I would miss weather. Feeling the breeze on your face and the Sun on your skin. But what an adventure! However, after living in one-third gravity it would be tricky physically to ever return to Earth. 

Here’s something I’ve never thought about before.

What about the offspring of the first colonisers? They’re not going to be amazed about the fact that they’re living on Mars, as it will be all they’ve ever known. Surely they’ll be pissed off once they see the quality of life Earth has, and all that they’re missing out on?

Edited February 18, 2021 by DarkFruitsRam7

[David]

25 minutes ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

Here’s something I’ve never thought about before.

What about the offspring of the first colonisers? They’re not going to be amazed about the fact that they’re living on Mars, as it will be all they’ve ever known. Surely they’ll be pissed off once they see the quality of life Earth has, and all that they’re missing out on?

You don’t tell them. Have you seen The Truman Show?