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Space Blimps

Posted by michael on from the proudly-sponsored-by-Budweiser dept.

EccentricAnomaly writes: "JPL has a press release about an aerorover blimp for exploring Saturn's moon Titan. There's also a group that has been working on inflatable rovers for Mars and Titan. And there's a group working on flying robots, or aerobots for space exploration. With a 2.5 to 3 hour round-trip light time between Earth and Saturn, flying anything on Titan has got to be a little dicey."

14 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. Not really important by Have+Blue · · Score: 3

    It's all nice and geeky and all that, but it would be better to go for depth of exploration than breadth- Know all there is to know about a small subset of the possibilities than try to get a little of everything.

    Instead of trying to explore every planet in the solar system at once, we should be returning men to the moon, or heading out to Mars. The latter, while far more expensive and complex, would gain us far more knowledge than these probes ever would

    (I would propose establishing a permanent presence on the Moon or Mars, but I'm trying to be at least slightly realistic :) )

    1. Re:Not really important by rde · · Score: 3

      but it would be better to go for depth of exploration than breaKnow all there is to know about a small subset of the possibilities than try to get a little of everything.
      Eventually, yes; but first you've got to know where the best place to look is.

      Consider mars: when Viking found nothing of profound interest, everyone said 'we looked in the wrong place'. Ditto pathfinder. Now that MGS has done a GS of M, we've a much better idea of good places to look. Sure the flood plain for pathfinder was a good idea, but we've much better data now about where water and/or life is/was likely to survive.

    2. Re:Not really important by Zac+Thompson · · Score: 4
      Actually, Titan is one of the few places in the solar system that is a really good candidate for supporting life natively. It has a nitrogen and hydrocarbon atmosphere, with plenty of the required building blocks for amino acids. It's bigger than Mercury or Pluto; the atmosphere is only about 60% higher pressure than Earth's ... I think there's a Clarke novel about Titan. Anyone? http://www.to-scorpio.com/titanfacts.htm

      Unfortunately, it's damn cold, but a human presence should start creating some global lunar warming right away ;)

  2. Serious LAG by Sabalon · · Score: 4

    With a 2.5 to 3 hour round-trip light time between Earth and Saturn, flying anything on Titan has got to be a little dicey."

    And I thought lag on my cable modem was bad.

    I would assume some system would be incorporated to have it auto-navigate.
    if(mountain) turn left;

    1. Re:Serious LAG by seanmeister · · Score: 3

      I think it's safe to say that you could fly through the mountains, or just about any other surface feature, on Saturn.

      --

  3. What we need is by Scutter · · Score: 4

    What we need is a good inflatable technology scientist. Paging Dr. Schlock...

    --

    "Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
    1. Re:What we need is by loki*J · · Score: 3

      For those who didn't get this, www.sluggy.com

  4. funny by joq · · Score: 3


    Maybe NASA's JPL could team with DoubleClick or something to sell ad space, and raise money for NASA or even a charity. Sure it sounds stupid at first but wouldn't you like to think of yourself to have been the first to have your banner floating in space with the possibility of E.T.'s seeing it ;)

    --

    Want Root?
  5. Don't forget near-space blimps here on earth ... by taniwha · · Score: 3
    J P Aerospace are researching high altitude blimp platforms (20 miles up) for launch to LEO - basicly you blimp/balloon up to a floating launch platform, hop on a rocket and launch from there (thus avoiding the bulk of the atmosphere).

    JP are and interesting crowd - basicly a small-scale amateur space program

  6. Aberystwyth Uni doing same by illtud · · Score: 3
    Aberystwyth (Wales, UK) have a research project into 'aerobots' designed for planetary exploration. See introduction:

    http://users.aber.ac.uk/ajs99/Altairhtml/Altair.sh tml

    and photos:

    http://users.aber.ac.uk/ajs99/Altairhtml/presspics .shtml

    I'm not connected with them, I just work down the road.

  7. What's sad.... by Anthony+Boyd · · Score: 5

    ...is that, depite going to these pages and seeing the technology, I really feel in my gut that much of this is decades away. These agencies (NASA, JPL) seem so slow-moving. It seems crazy, but more and more I find I am pinning my dreams of space onto civilians like "Rocketguy" and Dennis Tito. It is frustrating to look at the new technologies and be so jaded about them, but what normal people are doing to get into space soon excites me in ways that NASA can't match.

    --
    My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
  8. This is just a NASA smokescreen by typical+geek · · Score: 5

    covering up their real interest in inflatables in space.

    I can't say much more (NDA, you know), but think about normal, red blooded American men in space for 3 1/2 years on the round trip to Mars, and the cost to get one of these into orbit (at $10,000 a pound) for each astronaut.

    Yes, inflatables are the answer.

  9. Oh no... by g0thm0g · · Score: 4

    Sir, we calculated the pressure in stones per square inch, not pounds! There goes another $4 million.

    --
    Elbereth Gilthoniel!
  10. Correction by sllort · · Score: 3

    This article is not about space blimps. It is about extra-planetary blimps. The distinction, of course, is that an extra-planetary blimp is inflated on a remote planet, and used for exploration. A true space blimp would be inflated in space. This would, of course, cause massive pressure on the hull, and provide no levitation since there is no gravity to push against and no differential air pressure to provide a lifting force.

    Space blimps do exist, however. The article just doesn't mention them.

    This is the part of the post where I would whine about how the /. editors don't read the stories, if I were that kind of guy.