Yes yes, I know, it’s trite to point out that boondoggle of a project.
Except…NASA apparently spent all of $80 million on a helicopter that will work on Mars. One has to wonder what the military-industrial complex could accomplish with a bit of financial discipline and oversight.
The whole get 10+ prototypes from various places, stick them in a big ass vacuum chamber, and try to make them fly was interesting. Turns out a torque rotor doesn't work there.
With $80m, the military industrial complex would figure out that pink and yellow don't work well for urban camouflage.
The NASA helicopter had to work at all on Mars. It's amazing that they succeeded. But it didn't have to survive in an environment with Martian SAM sites, or even rifle fire from the ground.
That is, the military requirements are much more intense than we often realize.
Surviving rifle fire has been a solved problem since like, the bronze age. Add more metal. Getting to and landing on another planet (intact and functional) on the other hand, is probably like 3 orders of magnitude higher in difficulty.
Inquiring minds would love to know about a practical solution. You can add more material, but that's extra bulk and weight. I think we can agree that a mountain is bullet proof, but that's not really practical.
Also, rifles are really good at shooting through shit. We're talking rifles from 1890s. People don't realize that a bullet from a rifle punches through steel plate (and then buy steel body armour like the plebs they are). Modern ar15/ak rifles are wusses by comparison- we traded big badass bullets for smaller ones that are lighter and easier to carry.
More awesome weapons like the rpg-7 basically create a stream of molten metal that goes right through armored vehicles. Or you use depleted uranium or tungsten, which get more dense as they heat up from friction of punching through things.
In the near future we'll have even more badass things like railguns that will go through meters of steel/ceramic/admantium.
So yeah, that mountain may not save you. Meanwhile, mars will be the same.
great: i'm thrilled that the RPG-7, a weapon that is over half a century old, is so awesome. let's cancel all US variants of this tried and true beast and send the money directly to NASA: win-win all around, except by those developing unneeded RPG-7 improvements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_2020
In government terms? That is nothing. We’ll burn that much on defective F-35 fighters in a year.
And we are not “just” assessing the mineral content of the soil—not even close.
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/science/
(If you’re that offended by the cost, I will Venmo you the 0.1 cents per year this is taking out of your tax bill.)