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.'"

Comments

Hidden truths

[pr10n]

Blah blah *studio in California* blah

Good point, and using your logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck do fucktards like you need to live?

Since you stated there is no need to go to Mars then by your point fucktard we don't need fucktards like you to live so why don't you go find any way to commit suicide by also taking your entire fucktarded family with you.