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Space Science

Fly Over Mars... in a Robotic Balloon 117

Posted by michael from the rather-large-balloon-needed dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "A Californian company, Global Aerospace Corporation (GAR), is developing remote-controlled balloons for the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC). BBC News Online reports that their goal is to send these balloons carrying robots and cameras to explore Mars skies. But it's not for a near term future. The robotic StratoSail will have a stabilizing wing suspended several miles below it. It will be able to stay above Mars for months. It will send robotic probes to monitor the surface and minilabs to carry out experiments. This overview contains more details, references and images about the StratoSail."
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Fly Over Mars... in a Robotic Balloon More

Fly Over Mars... in a Robotic Balloon

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  • This'll be great... (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Human Cow ( 646609 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @12:29AM (#8255647) Homepage
    ...until the Martians bring out their peashooters.

  • Ah, yes... (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Scoria ( 264473 )
    Additional target practice for the (fictional?) Martian military!

  • New Mars Innovations (Score:4, Insightful)

    by W32.Klez.A ( 656478 ) * on Thursday February 12, 2004 @12:32AM (#8255657) Homepage
    The interesting thing about all these new Mars races is that instead of just the US and Russia going at it, we have all manner of companies and countries going for it. A lot of this stuff seems far-fetched, mind-you, but I think that just means there's more chance for some company or country that we're not expecting to make more of a difference than we can imagine. This seemed a little odd to me, but then I realized I wasn't thinking outside the box, and decided to consider its plausibility.

  • Dependence on atmospheric pressure (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DirtyJ ( 576100 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @12:35AM (#8255680)
    I would think that the success of this would depend on our knowledge of the density of the Martian atmosphere. Do we know much about this? Since the pressure will decline with increased altitude, I guess even imperfect knowledge of the absolute pressure could still result in a successful mission, as the balloon would just sink or rise to an altitude of equilibrium. If so, then the balloon could end up with a different field of view than designed. Anyone out there with better knowledge of such atmospheric issues?

    • Re:Dependence on atmospheric pressure (Score:4, Informative)

      by alfredw ( 318652 ) <alf AT freealf DOT com> on Thursday February 12, 2004 @12:43AM (#8255715) Homepage
      We certainly know a bit about the Martian atmosphere... Both the Spirit and Opportunity rovers used it to aerobrake before deploying their parachutes. Certainly not detailed knowledge, but enough to make something like this (which is self-correcting if it gets too high) workable.

    • Re:Dependence on atmospheric pressure (Score:5, Informative)

      by Cyclotron_Boy ( 708254 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @01:30AM (#8255930) Homepage
      Yeah, and this is actually an old idea [nasa.gov] that was used extensively by the Soviets during their push for planetary exploration. Since the atmosphere of Venus was so hot and dense, they were able to float the balloons with extremely heavy loads. The scheme worked well during the Venusian "night," until the sun came and expanded the volume of gas in the balloon, bursting it. The idea [worldandi.com] for balloons on Mars has been "floated" before, but it looks like it just might happen this time...
    • Source: Calvin J. Hamilton, http://www.solarviews.com/eng/mars.htm [solarviews.com]:

      Atmosphere

      The atmosphere of Mars is quite different from that of Earth. It is composed primarily of carbon dioxide with small amounts of other gases. The six most common components of the atmosphere are:

      • Carbon Dioxide (CO2): 95.32%
      • Nitrogen (N2): 2.7%
      • Argon (Ar): 1.6%
      • Oxygen (O2): 0.13%
      • Water (H2O): 0.03%
      • Neon (Ne): 0.00025 %

      Martian air contains only about 1/1,000 as much water as our air, but even this small amount can cond

    • Re:Dependence on atmospheric pressure (Score:5, Informative)

      by mikerich ( 120257 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @08:58AM (#8257378)
      I would think that the success of this would depend on our knowledge of the density of the Martian atmosphere. Do we know much about this?

      We know quite a lot.

      The Soviet Mars 6 probe recorded atmospheric measurements all the way to the surface, as did the two Viking probes.

      And it is routine to use measurements of the strength of signals from orbiters to measure atmospheric density. As the probe slips behind the planet, any atmosphere will interfere with the signal strength. Measure it finely enough and you can plot the varying density with altitude.

      This isn't the first proposed balloon on Mars. the Soviet Union and France planned a mission for 1992, which was then slipped to 1994 then to 1996 and finally cancelled. The mission would have comprised of a heavy orbiter which would have acted as a communications relay and survey craft, a number of very small landers and/or penetrators and a pair of balloons.

      The balloons would have used a combination of helium and solar heating to gain lift. The helium would provide most of the lift, the warmth of the Sun would give it bouyancy during the day. As it warmed, it would rise and drift along providing an almost constant aerial survey.

      In the evening, as it cooled, the balloon would sink back to the surface - the helium would prevent the balloon snagging on the surface and keep the antennae upright. Meanwhile, instruments loaded into a long 'snake' slung below the balloon would be making surface measurements and inspecting the geology.

      The balloon was tested on Earth and proved to be highly successful, it's a tragedy that the collapse of the Soviet Union prevented it flying.

      Best wishes,
      Mike.

  • YEA- *cough cough choke* (Score:4, Funny)

    by Berrik ( 632561 ) <gundamexodes@hotmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Thursday February 12, 2004 @12:39AM (#8255695) Homepage
    Roses are red
    Violets are blue
    On Soviet Mars
    Balloons fly you

  • We can't land a big air bag on Mars (Score:4, Funny)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Thursday February 12, 2004 @12:42AM (#8255712) Homepage Journal
    But we will be able to set up a giant balloon with a big-ass wing suspended by miles of cable flying over the Martian surface.

    Color me skeptical.

  • UFOs (Score:1, Funny)

    by Forge ( 2456 )
    I can just see all those sufering martian citezens crying about the UFOs overhead while the neighbors who mised the "baloon" ofer to have them commited.

  • If the machinery fails... (Score:3, Funny)

    by romit_icarus ( 613431 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @12:44AM (#8255731) Journal
    ...hire Richard Branson to operate the balloon!

  • interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by highwaytohell ( 621667 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @12:45AM (#8255738)
    This looks like a real possibility, and with more Mars rovers being sent over and us gaining further knowledge of the planet then this looks like a very real possibility. They would just have to factor in the nature of the wind direction, velocity, currents etc. But this sort of project, i'd assume, would go a lot further and be able to map more of Mars' terrain than a rover and give us a better view of the geological structure of Mars.
    • Absolutely. It would also allow us to see up close certain areas of the globe that have interesting features (Trees on Mars? [google.com]).

      One thing I do not get from this is the structure of the balloon. It looks like a balloon with a glider hanging from it.... sure you can hang a glider from a balloon to "stabilize" it, but how would that be any more advantagous than hanging a counter weight with fins?

  • Attempted before (Score:5, Funny)

    by chamilto0516 ( 675640 ) * <conrad,hamilton&gmail,com> on Thursday February 12, 2004 @12:47AM (#8255750) Homepage Journal

    Nah, this is nothing new. My three year old has tried to send every ballon he has got is hands on straight to Mars. We have started tying little loops in the string for his wrists to stop this.

    If they can get a ballon that high, I say go for it.

    • Make sure you don't tie TOO many to his wrist. If you recall, back in 1982, a guy called "Lawnchair Larry" launched himself into the sky... From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Walters [wikipedia.org]:

      Larry Walters, nicknamed "Lawnchair Larry", was one of the few Darwin Award contenders that lived to tell the tale, nominated after he had used helium-filled balloons to make his lawnchair (dubbed "Inspiration I") fly on July 2, 1982...

      "A man can't just sit around," said Larry, immediately after his flight when asked

  • red ballons (Score:5, Funny)

    by QEDog ( 610238 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @12:48AM (#8255754)
    Great way to start a war with the Marsians!

    99 red ballons floating in the summer sky
    Panic bells, it's red alert
    There's something here from somewhere else
    They war machine springs of life
    Opens up one eager eye
    Focusing it on the sky
    As 99 red ballons go by.

    Oh well, no more 80's music...

  • Use as a Wi-Fi / Broadcasting Point (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Gurezaemon ( 663755 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @12:52AM (#8255775)
    Am I the only one that thinks this could be a useful way to keep stable a base from which to broadcast all sorts of stuff?

    Tethered balloons have long annoying (and heavy?) tethers for planes to run into, but this seems to stay above that height.

    Covering the gas bag with solar cells or the like could mean the thing could stay up there for ages.

  • But will there be pink robots... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hobbex ( 41473 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @12:53AM (#8255782)
    ... approaching Pavonis Mons by balloon.

  • Pie in the sky (Score:5, Interesting)

    by StickMang ( 568987 ) * on Thursday February 12, 2004 @01:01AM (#8255815)
    This is funny because I work for NASA's Balloon Program Office [nasa.gov], and I think this was an idea that we rejected. From what I remember, the relationship between Global Aerospace and the BPO went sour, so I assume that after we rejected their proposal on this, they went around trying to sell it to different parts of NASA.

    We're developing our own balloon trajectory control system that hasn't been publicised yet, and it will be what flies on mars and earth, not this pile of garbage from GAC. I beleive the model they showed us was flawed in many ways, so we decided we could design it better in-house. Not really sure why there's an article on this, but you might as well not worry about any advancements on this particular project, as it will never materialize.

    • Re:Pie in the sky (Score:3, Interesting)

      by davejenkins ( 99111 )
      We're developing our own balloon trajectory control system that hasn't been publicised yet, and it will be what flies on mars and earth, not this pile of garbage from GAC. I beleive the model they showed us was flawed in many ways, so we decided we could design it better in-house. Not really sure why there's an article on this, but you might as well not worry about any advancements on this particular project, as it will never materialize

      Hrmmmm... I am not sure which is worse:

      1. the inferred arrogance of
      • Well, I was being nice when I said "flawed in many ways". It was a total peice of crap.

        This idea is not new, there has been a lot of research in this area and this idea was ours first.

        Yes, we have a monopoly on scientific balloons, in this country. We supply millions of dollars in R&D money to lots of folks to advance balloon science, and if NASA were sending balloons to another planet, they'd certainly want to use the expertise of the 40+ years of experience of the BPO. We've been working on mars
        • Okay-- fair enough.

  • headline news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Joe the Lesser ( 533425 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @01:07AM (#8255834) Homepage Journal
    An object crashed into the dunes here on Mars from the sky, which among increasing reports of so-called 'alien' activity, has escalated the public's fear of an invasion.

    The Martian government continues to deny any knowledge of beings from the Blue planet, and claims the object was just a weather balloon, and nothing to worry about.
  • Now we are going to ship helium to Mars? What happened to the helium shortage that was mentioned a couple of years ago?
    I seem to remember reading that the worlds reserves (which I believe are mostly if not all in the U.S.) are getting down to almost critical levels with no new reserves being found.

  • Old bands predict the future (Score:3, Funny)

    by Roosey ( 465478 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @01:14AM (#8255862)
    I guess The 5th Dimension was onto something here. Remember how their song went?

    Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
    We could float among the stars together, you and I

    All they need to do is paint it red and they've got all of the best balloon songs covered.
    • another band I know from Calgary, The Forbidden Dimension, sings Martian Death Saucer:

      Catatonia induced by cathode rays from beyond Mars
      Infect their minds in the primetime slot, in colour they'll watch their own demise

      I watch the skies above alone, at night
      Return what's rightfully mine
      My Death Saucer will come
      Usurp the Earth from human scum, I 've been waiting

      In transmission I can see invasion imminent this day, I've been waiting
      From every corner of the globe - insects arise with jaws agape, I've been wa

  • Funny sounding martians? (Score:3, Funny)

    by slashname3 ( 739398 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @01:15AM (#8255868)
    So does this explain Marvin Martians voice? He's been sucking on a ballon?

  • Good and bad (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gorimek ( 61128 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @01:49AM (#8255999) Homepage
    Good: This avoids the by far most dangerous part of current Mars missions: The landing. Since the balloon doesn't have to hit the ground, it won't break when it hits the ground.

    Bad: Mars' atmosphere is about 0.5% of our. In other words, it's 99.5% vacuum. How ginormogantuan must a balloon be to carry any serious weight there?? Gravity is just 1/3, but that hardly begins to compensate.

    • Re:Good and bad (Score:3, Informative)

      by Capt'n Hector ( 650760 )
      As long as the pressure from the inside is the same as the pressure on the outside, we're good to go. Assuming an ideal gas, this means the number of particles on the inside of the baloon is equal to the number of particles on the outside of the baloon. What we are really concernd about is the composition of the atmosphere, not the density. The baloon's size therefore is not related to the atmospheric pressure but rather the molar mass of the atmosphere. And as you said, gravity is weaker, so if anythi

      • Re:Good and bad (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Good points, yes the pressure needs to be the same, and your point about the number of atoms/molecules is right too, but you forgot something.

        The total lifting force is equal to the absolute difference in weight between the gas inside the baloon, and the equivilant volume of gas outside. With a less dense atmosphere, that effect means much less buoyancy. Density matters a lot here.

        CO2 is about 10 times as dense as helium at the same temp and pressure, so you could approximate the upward force by the weigh

      • The baloon's size therefore is not related to the atmospheric pressure but rather the molar mass of the atmosphere. And as you said, gravity is weaker, so if anything I bet the baloon would be smaller than it has to be on earth.

        Er...no. The total buoyancy of a balloon is equal to the difference in weight between the lifting gas that fills its envelope and the atmosphere that it displaces. In lower gravity the weight of a given mass of gas goes down, but so does the weight of a given mass of payload, so

    • Bad: Mars' atmosphere is about 0.5% of our. In other words, it's 99.5% vacuum. Wait a minute, how can something be 99.5% nothing?

  • Atmoshperic Density (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Rank_Tyro ( 721935 )
    It's my understanding that the Martian atmoshpere is a lot thinner than ours. How much helium would be needed to support several hundred pounds of equipment? Wouldn't hydrogen be a better gas?
    • Hydrogen has the slight disadvantage however of being explosive. You'd hate to have the craft explode upon entry or even worse as it is leaving our atmosphere. All we need is another Hindenburg.

      As far as the amount of the gas needed, it should be about the same as we would need here on earth. While the atmosphere is less dense, Mars has a significantly lower mass (and diameter, which greatly is the cause of the lower atmospheric density).

      Mars diameter: 6,794 km
      Mars mass: 6.4219e23 kg
      Earth diameter:

      • Re:Atmoshperic Density (Score:4, Informative)

        by CComMack ( 570314 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @02:27AM (#8256127)

        For hydrogen to explode, it needs to be in the presence of oxygen.

        This is much less a concern in the Martian atmosphere, which is 95% corbon dioxide, as opposed to Earth's 80%-20% nitrogen-oxygen mix.

        As for storage and transport, hydrogen can either be well contained (rocket fuel rarely explodes prematurely these days), or generated by a chemical reaction upon arrival (anyone remember what you get from adding a metal to acid from middle school chemistry? Though I'd imagine the medium of choice would likely be something like hydrogen peroxide. IANA Chemical Engineer.)

        • Helium has the advantage over hydrogen that it seeps through solid barriers at about 25% of the rate. It is still too bloody high for it to be anything near usefull. That is the biggest problem with any light gas baloon - they deflate on their because the gas traverses the membrane at a considerable rate. As a result the gas has to be constantly replenished.

          So both the helium and the hydrogen designs are inherently flawed because they will have a time to leave on the order of a few weeks at most. It is sim

      • Hydrogen has the slight disadvantage however of being explosive. You'd hate to have the craft explode upon entry or even worse as it is leaving our atmosphere. All we need is another Hindenburg.

        Oh please, that's not even a real concern. A craft going to Mars has to carry a propellant like hydrazine or red fuming nitric acid to power mid-course correction thrusters. Compared to that a hydrogen tank is nothing. Plus, unlike hydrazine, hydrogen needs to be mixed with oxygen to combust, and crazily enough yo

      • All we need is another Hindenburg.

        Oh! The martianity!!
    • On Earth, with one standard gravity, and a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere of 1000 millibars, 1000 cubic feet of helium can lift approx. 64 lbs Where Mars has 1/3 less gravity, and a mostly CO2 atmosphere at about 10 millibars. If I am doing the math correctly, the same about of helium on Mars would only be able to lift about one pound. Can anyone verify that?
    • but whatever you do, dont paint it with thermite
  • Advertiser's finally start slowing down on the internet, and now they move on to another planet.

    I can just see the good old Whitmans and Goodyear blimps floating over the red planet.

    They'd have to be bigger of course, so observers could see the blue object floating around Mars from a telescope on Earth.

  • Global Aerospace Corporation? (Score:3, Funny)

    by BitwizeGHC ( 145393 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @02:14AM (#8256080) Homepage
    Am I the only one who is reminded of United Aerospace Corporation (UAC)? You know, from Doom?

    I'm afraid those balloons will end up taking pictures of cacodemons or something...
  • Check this out:

    http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technolo gy /transorbital_030715.html

    It appears that they have already contracted for 2 more missions beyond this one, and want to place storage space on the Moon - the ultimate in avoiding various nation's stupid laws??

  • A new conspiracy (Score:5, Funny)

    by skinfitz ( 564041 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @03:14AM (#8256274) Journal
    We humans think we are so clever don't we? We've had (allegedly) men on the moon, and now we are remotely exploring Mars, but really there is something more sinister going on right under our noses.

    You see, in the future, the question may be asked "what race of beings first made it to Mars?" and the answer? Machines.

    You know the way dolphins triain people to feed them fish so they don't have to bother with all that pesky hunting? Well it looks to me suspiciously like the machines may be planning to colonize Mars first by tricking us into financing their operations. They already have made it there in the past, and in fact right now they have two mobile individuals on the surface that are imagining god knows what fate for human kind. On earth, they have managed to get a model T800 Terminator into a strong political position, which could end up making President.

    Ultimately, ironically, the epitaph of the human race may be "Hasta la vista, baby."

  • So basically... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Channard ( 693317 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @03:27AM (#8256305) Journal
    .. the Martian Govt can explain away the crash of an alien craft on their planet as a wrecked balloon and actually be right.
  • Rather old news perhaps, but the AMSAT organization planned to release a balloon in the martian atmosphere, in cooperation with the Mars society. Here's PDF document [amsat-dl.org] giving some details, and somewhere around there is an animation showing the balloon (admittedly quite boring).
  • You're patiently waiting for the first image to load, since the balloon has moments ago reached an altitude at Mars suitable for imagery. 4 hours after it downloads the first 1MP image, you realize that putting the wing IN BETWEEN YOU AND THE SURFACE was a bad idea.

    The robotic StratoSail will have a stabilizing wing suspended several miles below it.

  • my university has being working on this for years. (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The computer science department at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, UK has been working on aerobot research for several years now. [aber.ac.uk]. There have also been similar robots sent to Venus [tripod.com].

  • Fly over now (Score:3, Informative)

    by IPFreely ( 47576 ) <mark@mwiley.org> on Thursday February 12, 2004 @07:42AM (#8256972) Homepage Journal
    You can take virtual flyovers of Mars now. A neat website hosts virtual, controlable Mars flyovers of famous sites, including the lander sites. MarsQuestOnline [marsquestonline.org] has several Mars virtual flyovers, and lots of other good Mars stuff. check it out.
  • ...But will the balloons be able to support the weight of sharks with frickin' lasers attached to their heads.
  • When I was doing my PhD our department was working on autonomous robots with helium balloons which were intended for Mars. I guess the work must have started in 1997 or so. It was quite entertaining having so much helium and such large balloons in the lab.

    Remote controlled? Pah! Autonomous robots are cool.

    We weren't allowed to use 'regular' helium (such as the sort you'd get in party balloons) because it has some dangerous impurities. We had to use 99% pure stuff which was much more expensive. Think about

  • prior art (Score:4, Informative)

    by savuporo ( 658486 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @09:09AM (#8257438)
    A mention of prior art in balooning the other planets would be in order. Many people arent aware of the fact that Russian Venera program [astronautix.com], what later become Vega, successfully flew two balloons in Venusian atmosphere in 1984.
    Geoffrey Landis has a couple very thought-provoking papers on his website [sff.net], regarding possible further developments of atmospheric flight on both mars and venus, and possibilities for human living in upper atmosphere ....
  • Majority Of Americans Thought We Already Had A Moon Base
    WASHINGTON, DC--A NASA poll conducted to gauge support for President Bush's space-exploration initiative revealed that a depressing 57 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. already has a research base on the moon. "We put that international space-station thing up there in the '60s," phone-poll respondent Randy Snow said. "It might be on Mars, but I think it's the moon--wherever they have the golf course that President Kennedy played on. Remember,
  • On Venus some theories expect life within a clouds, at the right altitude just above deadly clouds of sulphuric acid. here [chron.com]

    We should use ballons to inveastigate there.
  • Did anybody else notice that the site design was eerily similar to that of Grocklaw? I wonder whose design they stole for the balloon? I wonder if they know about . . . (clutches tinfoil hat more tightly).
  • flying his sopwith doghouse to the universe and beyond!!!
  • I think anything to do with space is great. We should spend more money on space travel. The faster we can get out there the faster we can become just like star trek. No money problems, everyone eats, we become more focused on our goals, and don't forget the junp suits!!!

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