Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/03/30/nasas-mars-helicopter-almost.html
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Shouldn’t they make it black, to intimidate any potential Martians?
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It’s clearly not tactical enough.
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This is a surprise to me.
I understood that the Martian atmosphere was too thin for aerodynamic breaking to be useful for soft landings, hence the whole rocket powered crane thing to cover the last hundred meters of descent for the rather famous payload recently.
Now they’re planning to launch a helicopter?
Awesome 
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Just plaster it with angry face emoji stickers. 
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Like these guys?
The martian atmosphere is too thin to carry a reasonable payload (with current technology) so rotors won’t help you land a science platform or rover. But it is possible to get a lightweight helicopter into the air for a short time.
That said, experiments like this will improve our knowledge of aerodynamics on mars and may lead to better aircraft in the future.
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