NASA tests Flying Saucer, it’s totally a success
It seems fitting that NASA is testing a Flying Saucer in hope it can help us get to Mars. Those fucking Illuminati-Martians have been rolling up on yokels in the middle of the night for half a century, abducting them to work on their terraforming projects. So when we finally take the fight to them, it makes sense we will be doing it in a vehicle not unlike their own.
The long-awaited flying saucer test finally happened in the Hawaiian skies this weekend. The primary mission of evaluating the test vehicle was a complete success, but the bonus missions of evaluating new landing technologies were more mixed, with the parachute failing to deploy.
The saucer-shaped test vehicle being lifted aboard the Kahana recovery vessel after the first free-flight of the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator.
The Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) project has three planned test flights: the one this weekend was designed to test the launch vehicle itself, while the next two flights are designed to evaluate prototype landing technologies for future Mars missions. That means that the primary mission for the first test flight this weekend was really straightforward: to prove that the saucer-shaped test vehicle can actually fly, a key preliminary step in using it to test out new technologies for Mars landings. If it also served as a test for the landing technologies, that’s a research-bonus.
The thin atmosphere on Mars makes landing delicate equipment carefully challenging. The two new technologies being developed in the LDSD project are an inflatable disc, Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (SIAD), that increases drag on the vehicle, and an enormous parachute, Supersonic Disk Sail Parachute (SDSP). If they work, they’ll open up the possibility for bigger and bigger equipment on Mars, raising the maximum payload weight limit to over two tons! In order to test this equipment on Earth, the tests need to take place in the upper stratosphere, where the air is thinner. [io9]