<story><title>The Mars Helicopter Is Online and Getting Ready to Fly</title><url>https://www.universetoday.com/150224/the-mars-helicopter-is-online-and-getting-ready-to-fly/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>julienchastang</author><text>Fun fact: This is not the first time a space program has flown on another planet. The Soviets launched weather balloons on Venus during the Venera missions [1]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Vega_program#Balloon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Vega_program#Balloon&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ChuckMcM</author><text>And given the density of Venus&amp;#x27; atmosphere, here is a fun thought experiment.&lt;p&gt;It may be possible to make &amp;#x27;titanium&amp;#x27; balloons for longer term operation. The would work by creating the balloon envelope on earth, have a sealing mechanism that you activated in orbit so they had vacuum inside. And then drop them into the atmosphere.&lt;p&gt;Same idea a glass floats on fishing nets[1] except with titanium (so they can withstand the compression forces given they have a vacuum inside). It might be useful&amp;#x2F;necessary to put some additional structure inside the envelope for strength but like eggs, the sphere is a pretty good shape for distributing compressive force.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, put a number of them on tethers attached to the instrument payload and drop it off into the atmosphere once you&amp;#x27;ve gone trans-sonic with parachutes or retro rockets. The platform will then fall to the point where the lifting force of the floats is equal to the weight of the platform.&lt;p&gt;Ideally the titanium would be impervious to the atmospherics&amp;#x27;s corrosive effects.&lt;p&gt;[1]&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Glass_float&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Glass_float&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>The Mars Helicopter Is Online and Getting Ready to Fly</title><url>https://www.universetoday.com/150224/the-mars-helicopter-is-online-and-getting-ready-to-fly/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>julienchastang</author><text>Fun fact: This is not the first time a space program has flown on another planet. The Soviets launched weather balloons on Venus during the Venera missions [1]&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Vega_program#Balloon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Vega_program#Balloon&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>endymi0n</author><text>This is so cool, I didn‘t know about these yet and I‘d call myself a space buff...&lt;p&gt;Speaking of flight and picking the nits here — looks like Wikipedia also isn‘t completely correct here:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It is planned to make the first powered flight on any planet beyond Earth&lt;p&gt;...arguably the first _powered_ flights were done by the sky cranes of Opportunity and Perseverance</text></comment>