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Spaceballs Could Invade Mars

Posted by timothy on from the honey-I-blew-up-the-grey-soccer-ball dept.

Byteme writes: "CNN reports giant tethered inflatable balls that are being developed by NASA as a potential alternative to the unsuccessful roving robots. The balls apparently will inflate and deflate to catch favorable wind directs and to stop on location. Not quite the fast, cheap and out-of-control solution... but it could be fun to watch!" I wonder if there are any MPEGs of the test this article talks about -- it sounds pretty fun to watch.

1 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. Re:NASA needs to distribute its exploration by Caid+Raspa · · Score: 4, Interesting
    drop a few dozen/hundred/whatever floaty, bouncy balls all over Mars and kick back and let the data roll in.

    That is something I would like to see. Rapid exploration of large parts of the Martian surface, and not only a few small pathces here and there every two years. Currently we are stuck with the latter.

    Cheap and vast numbers are equivalent. I think the costs of any new space equipment is mainly research and development. After it is done, you can make dozens of units with a price that is small when compared to the initial costs.

    Launch costs are still the biggest problem of space operations, and this has nothing to do with that.