Sure, we have a few crawlers combing the landscape, as well as a few satellites in orbit. And since Mars doesn't have any oceans, the next place to conquer would be the air. That's the thinking behind a new DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) project aiming to bring unmanned aircraft to survey Mars. The idea is essentially a rocket propelled craft that is capable of deploying into plane mode when it re-enters atmosphere. The current plan calls first for the craft to be developed for reconnaissance of natural disasters and military hotspots here on Earth, with a NASA based mission to Mars to follow. The planes would fly relatively low, between 5,000 and 10,000 feet, which means our maps of Mars could become an order of magnitude more detailed. The airplane could also follow weather patterns and gain further understanding of weather on Mars. Unfortunately, this airplane would not be able to explore the underground areas of Mars which hold the current fascination of explorers. What if, in the future, we developed an airplane that was able to land and explore the globe in crawler mode. Then we could have rapid movement between areas of interest on the Martian surface.
Source: Space.com.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment