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Robert Zubrin's Mars Gashopper Airplane
Fraser Cain writes "Universe Today has a story about Robert Zubrin's (Mars Society President) Martian Gashopper Aircraft proposal to NASA. It uses solar power to liquefy carbon dioxide and then use it as a propellant to take off, fly hundreds of km above the surface of Mars like an airplane, and then land vertically again."
The limiting feature of the gashopper is the electricity required to pressurize and heat the carbon dioxide propellant. This process consumes a lot of power, and the gashopper would need more than a month using its solar cells to refuel and recharge its batteries before it could take off again.
I guess if you only travelled a few hundred yards a month, it might work.
I'm pretty sure gravity is an issue, though. Gravity's a real bitch. Newton should never have invented it. Or he should have at least patented it so noone could use it.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This guy is Out There.
Or maybe I'm a Luddite. It just seems like an unusual focus for one's life's work.
Oh yeah, and I have to make an obligatory "global warming" mention, just like everyone else.
sigs, as if you care.
I love that diagram on the website. Future press conference transcript excerpt:
Reporter: "Yes Mr. Zubrin, it's certainly an impressive design. What will be in the nose of the craft?"
Mr. Zurbin: "As you can see from this diagram, the nose of the craft will contain "science". Next question."
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
Grasshoppers can't live on Mars! There's no AIR! Read a science book before you make up crap like this.
This thing is equipped with a warhead of PURE SCIENCE!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
When you snatch the CO2 from the air, then it will be time for you to leave.
confucious
Them martians have been scaring people on this planet for years with their UFOs. Now it's our turn.
Look, your "logic" has no place here. This is the land of knee jerk, uninformed, karma whoring comments. Please, take your "understanding of concepts" elsewhere.
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Crudely Drawn Games
...You aren't using gas from Uranus.
HAahhahahah get it!?
Oh, fuck off you aren't funny either.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Who thinks the guy looks like a prototype of a hung-over russian mad scientist?
(No offence to any russian mad scientist having hang-over mind you....)
Bot Assisted Blogging
Your objection to "ruining" is undermined when the planet is already ruined. It's a long-held theory that solar wind blew the atmosphere right off the planet, making it totally uninhabitable. As an added bonus, there's no more geothermal energy to gain from the planet and it's too far away from the sun to farm a significant amount of solar energy, so one could say definitively that mars is here and forevermore useless.
On a more general note, it frustrates me whenever I hear people comment that we shouldn't pollute the moon, or throw nuclear waste in to the sun -- as if these places had a delicate ecosystem that some human-defined "pollution" would upset. There is so much room in the universe; in the end, only loony environmentalists care whether a hundred thousand tons of used beanie babies end up "recycled" on earth, or dumped on the moon.
karma: ouch!
Okay... ummm.... why don't you share your tinfoil hat with Mars to protect it from the space probes?
Sorry but this probe does not damage mars in anyway. it adds no CO2 to the atmosphere. We should not worry about it because there is nothing to worry about.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Gravity's a real bitch.
The physics club at the local university used to sell buttons that read "Friction is a drag", and "Gravity is a downer".
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
On behalf of the pedants, I must make two observations. First, it's GNU/areology--the capitals are important.
Second, it's only appropriate to use the GNU prefix if the Magratheans have provided full blueprints for Mars along with the distributed, completed planet. Said plans must be under the GNU GPL (General Planet License).
Glad I could help out.
~Idarubicin