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Fly Over Mars... in a Robotic Balloon
Roland Piquepaille writes "A Californian company, Global Aerospace Corporation (GAR), is developing remote-controlled balloons for the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC). BBC News Online reports that their goal is to send these balloons carrying robots and cameras to explore Mars skies. But it's not for a near term future. The robotic StratoSail will have a stabilizing wing suspended several miles below it. It will be able to stay above Mars for months. It will send robotic probes to monitor the surface and minilabs to carry out experiments. This overview contains more details, references and images about the StratoSail."
...until the Martians bring out their peashooters.
The Human Cow - bringing you scrumtrelescence since 1995
Additional target practice for the (fictional?) Martian military!
Do you like German cars?
Holy early-nineties webdesign, Batman!
The interesting thing about all these new Mars races is that instead of just the US and Russia going at it, we have all manner of companies and countries going for it. A lot of this stuff seems far-fetched, mind-you, but I think that just means there's more chance for some company or country that we're not expecting to make more of a difference than we can imagine. This seemed a little odd to me, but then I realized I wasn't thinking outside the box, and decided to consider its plausibility.
I would think that the success of this would depend on our knowledge of the density of the Martian atmosphere. Do we know much about this? Since the pressure will decline with increased altitude, I guess even imperfect knowledge of the absolute pressure could still result in a successful mission, as the balloon would just sink or rise to an altitude of equilibrium. If so, then the balloon could end up with a different field of view than designed. Anyone out there with better knowledge of such atmospheric issues?
Roses are red
Violets are blue
On Soviet Mars
Balloons fly you
Current karma: Terrible (due to mods without a sense of humor)
However, I was under the impression that the less dense Martian atmosphere changed little with altitude. Is there enough variation in Martian winds with altitude for this system to work there?
mod this down, its a redirect to this . it'll probably redirect to tubgirl or goat.cx when it gets enough informative mod points
But we will be able to set up a giant balloon with a big-ass wing suspended by miles of cable flying over the Martian surface.
Color me skeptical.
I have been pwned because my
I can just see all those sufering martian citezens crying about the UFOs overhead while the neighbors who mised the "baloon" ofer to have them commited.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
...hire Richard Branson to operate the balloon!
This looks like a real possibility, and with more Mars rovers being sent over and us gaining further knowledge of the planet then this looks like a very real possibility. They would just have to factor in the nature of the wind direction, velocity, currents etc. But this sort of project, i'd assume, would go a lot further and be able to map more of Mars' terrain than a rover and give us a better view of the geological structure of Mars.
Nah, this is nothing new. My three year old has tried to send every ballon he has got is hands on straight to Mars. We have started tying little loops in the string for his wrists to stop this.
If they can get a ballon that high, I say go for it.
Magic Eight Ball: Outlook not so good., Hmmm, how about Excel and Word?
99 red ballons floating in the summer sky
Panic bells, it's red alert
There's something here from somewhere else
They war machine springs of life
Opens up one eager eye
Focusing it on the sky
As 99 red ballons go by.
Oh well, no more 80's music...
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Am I the only one that thinks this could be a useful way to keep stable a base from which to broadcast all sorts of stuff?
Tethered balloons have long annoying (and heavy?) tethers for planes to run into, but this seems to stay above that height.
Covering the gas bag with solar cells or the like could mean the thing could stay up there for ages.
... approaching Pavonis Mons by balloon.
haven't there been problems putting one rich white dude in a manned balloon and taking it around this planet, once? with the turbulent sandstorms on mars that i've seen in movies (therefore, are real), i can't imagine that this is feasable.
This is funny because I work for NASA's Balloon Program Office, and I think this was an idea that we rejected. From what I remember, the relationship between Global Aerospace and the BPO went sour, so I assume that after we rejected their proposal on this, they went around trying to sell it to different parts of NASA.
We're developing our own balloon trajectory control system that hasn't been publicised yet, and it will be what flies on mars and earth, not this pile of garbage from GAC. I beleive the model they showed us was flawed in many ways, so we decided we could design it better in-house. Not really sure why there's an article on this, but you might as well not worry about any advancements on this particular project, as it will never materialize.
StickMan
www.rageagainst.net
An object crashed into the dunes here on Mars from the sky, which among increasing reports of so-called 'alien' activity, has escalated the public's fear of an invasion.
The Martian government continues to deny any knowledge of beings from the Blue planet, and claims the object was just a weather balloon, and nothing to worry about.
"I only speak the truth"
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Now we are going to ship helium to Mars? What happened to the helium shortage that was mentioned a couple of years ago?
I seem to remember reading that the worlds reserves (which I believe are mostly if not all in the U.S.) are getting down to almost critical levels with no new reserves being found.
I guess The 5th Dimension was onto something here. Remember how their song went?
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
We could float among the stars together, you and I
All they need to do is paint it red and they've got all of the best balloon songs covered.
So does this explain Marvin Martians voice? He's been sucking on a ballon?
We could learn a great deal about the moon by floating satellites over it with gas-filled balloons. In fact, it is not impossible to imagine giant, floating space-stations floating around the moon on balloons. Maybe this is a better direction for the US space program to take than actually trying to land all the equipment on the surface?
"Is there enough variation in Martian winds with altitude for this system to work there?"
p or tunity/20040209a.html
Check this press release describing the shift in winds during Opportunity's landing. Scroll towards the bottom for some nice pictures describing the landing. The shift in winds may be too low in altitude to relate to the parent topic.
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/press/op
For news, status, updates, scientific info, images, video, and more, check out:
(AXCH) 2004 Mars Exploration Rovers - News, Status, Technical Info, History.
Good: This avoids the by far most dangerous part of current Mars missions: The landing. Since the balloon doesn't have to hit the ground, it won't break when it hits the ground.
Bad: Mars' atmosphere is about 0.5% of our. In other words, it's 99.5% vacuum. How ginormogantuan must a balloon be to carry any serious weight there?? Gravity is just 1/3, but that hardly begins to compensate.
It's my understanding that the Martian atmoshpere is a lot thinner than ours. How much helium would be needed to support several hundred pounds of equipment? Wouldn't hydrogen be a better gas?
Today's show is brought to you by the number 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0: 25
Advertiser's finally start slowing down on the internet, and now they move on to another planet.
I can just see the good old Whitmans and Goodyear blimps floating over the red planet.
They'd have to be bigger of course, so observers could see the blue object floating around Mars from a telescope on Earth.
VENI, VIDI, VICI, DIXI
Eureka! You know that whole carbon nanotube space-elevator thing? Every design I've seen uses a single platform in space to hold it up. How about a few (hundred?) balloons placed along the length of the elevator to hold the sucker up and in position? C'mon, I dare ya - tell me why that won't work. /too much coffee
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Am I the only one who is reminded of United Aerospace Corporation (UAC)? You know, from Doom?
I'm afraid those balloons will end up taking pictures of cacodemons or something...
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Check this out:
o gy /transorbital_030715.html
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technol
It appears that they have already contracted for 2 more missions beyond this one, and want to place storage space on the Moon - the ultimate in avoiding various nation's stupid laws??
We humans think we are so clever don't we? We've had (allegedly) men on the moon, and now we are remotely exploring Mars, but really there is something more sinister going on right under our noses.
You see, in the future, the question may be asked "what race of beings first made it to Mars?" and the answer? Machines.
You know the way dolphins triain people to feed them fish so they don't have to bother with all that pesky hunting? Well it looks to me suspiciously like the machines may be planning to colonize Mars first by tricking us into financing their operations. They already have made it there in the past, and in fact right now they have two mobile individuals on the surface that are imagining god knows what fate for human kind. On earth, they have managed to get a model T800 Terminator into a strong political position, which could end up making President.
Ultimately, ironically, the epitaph of the human race may be "Hasta la vista, baby."
.. the Martian Govt can explain away the crash of an alien craft on their planet as a wrecked balloon and actually be right.
space bubbles!
Rather old news perhaps, but the AMSAT organization planned to release a balloon in the martian atmosphere, in cooperation with the Mars society. Here's PDF document giving some details, and somewhere around there is an animation showing the balloon (admittedly quite boring).
You're patiently waiting for the first image to load, since the balloon has moments ago reached an altitude at Mars suitable for imagery. 4 hours after it downloads the first 1MP image, you realize that putting the wing IN BETWEEN YOU AND THE SURFACE was a bad idea.
The robotic StratoSail will have a stabilizing wing suspended several miles below it.
welcome our new balloon-lofted robot overlords!
(had to be done)
The computer science department at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK has been working on aerobot research for several years now.. There have also been similar robots sent to Venus.
You can take virtual flyovers of Mars now. A neat website hosts virtual, controlable Mars flyovers of famous sites, including the lander sites. MarsQuestOnline has several Mars virtual flyovers, and lots of other good Mars stuff. check it out.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
...But will the balloons be able to support the weight of sharks with frickin' lasers attached to their heads.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
When I was doing my PhD our department was working on autonomous robots with helium balloons which were intended for Mars. I guess the work must have started in 1997 or so. It was quite entertaining having so much helium and such large balloons in the lab.
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Remote controlled? Pah! Autonomous robots are cool.
We weren't allowed to use 'regular' helium (such as the sort you'd get in party balloons) because it has some dangerous impurities. We had to use 99% pure stuff which was much more expensive. Think about that next time you suck some of the regular stuff in to make your voice go funny - it can't be good if even our university was willing to spend a lot to avoid it.
Here is a link: http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dcswww/Research/robots/Alt
Just look at SCO's lawsuits.
A mention of prior art in balooning the other planets would be in order. Many people arent aware of the fact that Russian Venera program, what later become Vega, successfully flew two balloons in Venusian atmosphere in 1984. ....
Geoffrey Landis has a couple very thought-provoking papers on his website, regarding possible further developments of atmospheric flight on both mars and venus, and possibilities for human living in upper atmosphere
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
Majority Of Americans Thought We Already Had A Moon Base
WASHINGTON, DC--A NASA poll conducted to gauge support for President Bush's space-exploration initiative revealed that a depressing 57 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. already has a research base on the moon. "We put that international space-station thing up there in the '60s," phone-poll respondent Randy Snow said. "It might be on Mars, but I think it's the moon--wherever they have the golf course that President Kennedy played on. Remember, the Cubans tried to take it over?" NASA officials said they hope someday to make Americans' perception a reality.
Thanks The Onion
What about wind? Seems to me that air on Mars can move at above 300mph. What's that going to do to this baloon??
On Venus some theories expect life within a clouds, at the right altitude just above deadly clouds of sulphuric acid. here
We should use ballons to inveastigate there.
SHE does throw dice.
but whatever you do, dont paint it with thermite
The "myth" was sort of busted... while it IS possible to launch yourself into the air with a bunch of baloons, it is prohibitingly expensive. The helium alone that you'd need for accomplishing this will cost you $1000+
Did anybody else notice that the site design was eerily similar to that of Grocklaw? I wonder whose design they stole for the balloon? I wonder if they know about . . . (clutches tinfoil hat more tightly).
>> When will you simply focus on supporting destinations and building simple platforms, through which the rest of us can then launch/explore/build what we want?
IANA NASA Engineer, but I'm thinking it'll be when NASA's mission is defined as such by Congress.
And, the poster's comments didn't strike me as arrogant, but maybe that's just because NASA is to me what the NFL is to most Joe 6packs.
As for the thieving of IP, it doesn't make me all warm and fuzzy, it's just business. If Global Aerospace didn't have it together enough to get an NDA or patent or do other due diligence, I'm not going to cry over it. No, I wouldn't like it if my idea got used without me profitting, any more than I would go around showing people my idea without accepting the risks involved - like someone might co-opt my design. Biz ain't fair - and I know that sounds right wing, but icyc i consider myself very liberal. As in, I'd cut off my left hand if it would ensure bush's loss in 2004. Really... prove it will work and I'll start sawing.
Btw Dave, your comments are indeed insightful.
flying his sopwith doghouse to the universe and beyond!!!
I think anything to do with space is great. We should spend more money on space travel. The faster we can get out there the faster we can become just like star trek. No money problems, everyone eats, we become more focused on our goals, and don't forget the junp suits!!!
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