TED talk on Mars plane

[shy4x4]

Hi there,

I love TED and I found this very interesting talk on Mars. Life, Water Ice and the first plane to fly in the atmosphere on Mars.

http://www.ted.com/talks/joel_levine.html

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Thanks,

Jase

[duncan]

I found that very interesting.Some i had heard before and some i had not.
Thanks for sharing
Cheers,
Duncan:thumbsup:

[Ritchie-l]

I enjoyed that very much, will be interesting to see what
they find if it goes ahead.
Ritchie

[Nesti]

That's a great clip and a nice looking plane. :thumbsup:

For an initial trip I think the concept is great however, for any follow up trips, my personal opinion of the over all design philosophy of ARES isn't right.

To conduct a reconnaissance mission on Mars - and that's exactly what this is; a reconnaissance flight aimed to bring back as much and as wide a range of data as possible - the aim is to loiter for as long as possible so as to increase the chance of picking up something which was not anticipated, as well as higher/larger degrees of anticipated data. A rocket powered UAV traveling at 450mph with a duration of only 1 hour is fine for sampling and picking up anticipated data from the atmosphere and pictures of the ground, and then follow up by sending ground missions to key areas - which makes sense- but what about loitering on target for days, weeks, possibly even months before deciding whether to send a ground mission to that particular target???

What about the ability to intervene the mission at short notice, so as to go back for a closer look at something not anticipated, something which has all the hallmarks of why the mission was sent in the first place? It could be something like a gas vent in the ice/rock where the Methane is actually escaping from! Once the mission objectives have been completed you could always risk the vehicle by flying back to designated targets, and get low and conduct an extra close reconn of the target and possible landing sites.

ARES is essentially a pre-programmed flying sensor...it cannot deviate; a long duration cross country recon plane can! Even if a vehicle can only remain aloft for a few days because of night cycles draining batteries, that still offering great mission flexibility.

Mars has a pretty active atmosphere, and from my understanding, great thermik activity. A vehicle with thermal sniffing flight hardware/software and electric/solar assist would go much, much further by thermalling up and gliding down in a repeated fashion. Total Energy Compensation (TEK) technology has been around for years on gliders, but barely come of age. Dryden have been testing autonomous systems which can detect thermals and take advantage of them, but more than likely just for UVAs here on earth.

Mix some long duration low flying concepts into a single design philosophy;
They've been doing testing on cross country gliders here (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/NewsReleases/2005/05-63.html)
Pictures here (http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/Autonomous_Soaring/index.html)
Taking advantage of TEK in RC here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaAg_cFfewE)
High Alt long duration here (http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.skycontrol.net/UserFiles/Image/UAV_img/200808/200808-qinetiq-Zephyr-2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.skycontrol.net/uav/qinetiqs-zephyr-uav-exceeds-official-world-record-for-longest-duration-unmanned-flight-2/&usg=__uOYwgWAvj4MbYnU-TTiZTGxtKtI=&h=425&w=625&sz=37&hl=en&start=3&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=BhFQXiLN7XmY-M:&tbnh=92&tbnw=136&prev=/images%3Fq%3DQinetiQ%2527s%2BZephyr %26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfire fox-a%26sa%3DG%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26channel%3Ds%26tbs%3Di sch:1)

I just feel more bang for your buck would come from getting down low (below 3000ft: ARES will be 5000-6000ft) and loiter around hundreds of target areas using all manner cameras and sensors to acquire a wider range of data, and to do this before sending a ground mission.

I am well aware that NASA and its associated suppliers and affiliated universities have large numbers of PhD's specializing in every facet of projects like this...but if you're gonna spend so much money getting a plane there, why not keep it in the air for as long as possible and give it some mission flexibility?!

Just my opinion. :)