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Six Minutes of Terror - Landing Humans on Mars
OriginalArlen writes "Universe Today has a fascinating article discussing the difficulty of executing EDL (entry, descent, landing) on Mars for vehicles bigger than MER, Viking and Pathfinder, and the challenges for manned craft in particular. Airbags can't be used for obvious reasons, but the atmosphere is too thin to be used for parachutes or aerobraking by large heavy vehicles. The stronger gravity (compared to the moon) makes an Apollo-style powered descent impossible. The best current idea is a huge inflatable torus called a hypercone: 'Imagine a huge donut with a skin across its surface that girdles the vehicle and inflates very quickly with gas rockets (like air bags) to create a conical shape. This would inflate about 10 kilometers above the ground while the vehicle is traveling at Mach 4 or 5, after peak heating. The Hypercone would act as an aerodynamic anchor to slow the vehicle to Mach 1.'"
We don't really have to land the large vehicle. Getting within transporter range should be enough.
Oh, wait...
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Landing at mach one still sounds pretty fast -- better aim for water! Oh, wait ...
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Dunno about the rest of you, but the Hypercone immediately reminded me of a rolled-up condom.
I wonder when that idea...uh...arose?
Actually the difference is that a parachute would instantly shred at the supersonic speeds they are talking about. It needs a clever shape and tougher materials. They will probably need to make it out of unobtainium.
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