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Robert Zubrin's Mars Gashopper Airplane

Posted by michael on from the boing-boing dept.

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."

4 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Kinda small by MyIS · · Score: 1, Offtopic
    I know it's OT but it reminded me of an obscure reference...

    - ...but Mr Burns...
    - *click* Hop in.

    --
    http://zero-to-enterprise.blogspot.com/
  2. AWESOMBE fP.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    BSD sux0rs. What progress. Any enginnering project moans and groans If you do not you down. It was appeared...saying Of the above

  3. where are teh pikmins? by apostrophesemicolon · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    this guy apparently is friends with the pikmin..
    white pikmins.. look at the picture

  4. Misleading tenses by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
    It uses solar power to liquefy carbon dioxide and then use it as a propellant to take off

    No, it would use solar power. The vehicle does not physically exist yet, so we do not know if it will work in practice. Using the same tense to refer to what has been achieved and what has merely been modelled conveys less information and insults the substantial additional technical effort needed to go from initial plans to something that actually works.

    If I advertised a planned product that way, it would be called false advertising, and rightly so. Space advocates who use such misleading terminology, like anyone else who would use such misleading terminology, are untrustworthy in my estimation. Engineering projects are very complicated. If think the project's management are lying too much, I won't support them in any political input that I make to the system (voting or writing to members of congress, for example).