| General > General Technical Chat |
| Mars copter vs Mars plane |
| (1/2) > >> |
| msuffidy:
Since helicopters or drone are essentially energy inefficient, perhaps it would have been easier to make a really wide winged RC plane for Mars? It could legitimately fly around for a while. |
| igendel:
But takeoff and landing on a "runway" of sand and rocks might be harder. Perhaps a mars VTOL :) |
| cdev:
i think that was discussed in the Mars helicopter video from JPL. And indeed, you are right, despite the thinness of the atmosphere it is more efficient that way. |
| MikeK:
Energy inefficient, where? On Earth? Maybe not on Mars? I would guess that a helicopter on Mars is much more efficient than a plane given that it's relatively easy to get some small rotors spinning fast but not so easy to get a large plane going fast enough to generate lift. I would even bet that we never get planes on Mars. |
| msuffidy:
I guess I could have read this first but I just assumed the problem with copters is that they use constant energy to fight gravity and mostly just stay stationary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_aircraft |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |