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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."

2 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. 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 &
  2. 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.