NASA studies inflatable heat shield for Mars landing

cbc.ca ^

[BenLurkin]

Such an inflatable heat shield could help a spacecraft reach the high-altitude southern plains of Mars and other areas that would otherwise be inaccessible with existing technology. The experts note that rockets alone can't be used to land a large craft on Mars as can be done on the moon....

Parachutes also won't work for a large spacecraft needed to send humans to Mars, they add.

Hence the inflatable rings, known as the Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator, which would be filled with nitrogen and covered with a thermal blanket. Once deployed for landing, the rings would sit atop the spacecraft, somewhat resembling a giant mushroom.

[driftdiver]

How many things would have to go right for those people to survive the landing?

[molson209]

They got the idea from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) ,LOL

[Rebel_Ace]

Actually, you can see the EXACT technique (called "Aerobraking") in the movie 2010:The Year We Make Contact. Here is a pic of the "balloon" heat shield deployed, skimming the upper-upper atmosphere of Jupiter:

[XEHRpa]

Here’s the original reentry heat shield story from the 1st object recovered from orbit: Discoverer XIII (aka CORONA) in 1960:

http://drexel.edu/mem/news/archive/2012-07-19%20It%20was%20a%20Great%20Time%20to%20be%20an%20Engineer/

http://www.berksmontnews.com/article/BM/20120509/NEWS01/305099999

http://www.nro.gov/history/csnr/corona/Intel_Revolution_Web.pdf

[CodeToad]

Nothing new, really. Such technologies were in use 30 years ago.

[equaviator]

I don’t know how “EXACT” it could be if the depiction was created in 2010.

[Rebel_Ace]

From the article:
"Hence the inflatable rings, known as the Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator, which would be filled with nitrogen and covered with a thermal blanket. Once deployed for landing, the rings would sit atop the spacecraft, somewhat resembling a giant mushroom."

From the Movie 2010 (which was released in 1984), the Russian ship "Leonov" deploys a "mushroom shaped" inflatable shroud at the forward end of the spacecraft, which looked like this:

(I could not find a still frame from the movie where the ship was not engulfed in fire, like the one I posted before).

So, my point was that the movie used a technique that effectively identical to the one described in the article, and as others have pointed out with additional examples, it is hardly a new idea.

[corkoman]

Thanks for the links! The Corona project is fascinating.

[equaviator]

It’s hard to believe that something that big and hollow could make it through.

[Inyo-Mono]

Yeah I think it would just pop like a kids baloon.

[Rebel_Ace]

The goal is not to "make it thru", the goal is only to slow the spacecraft down, so IT can "make it thru".

Think of this thing as a "reverse parachute", which is deployed forward of motion, as opposed to the rear. It is intended to add boatloads of drag while adding little in the way of mass.

So, in the very upper wisps of atmosphere, this starts radically slowing down the spacecraft, without the need for it to expend fuel to change speed.

When it gets to the point where the air is so dense that the forces threaten to rip it off, it is jettisoned anyway, because by that time, the spaceship has slowed to a much more manageable speed for re-entering the rest of the way.

(where they are likely to deploy conventional parachutes, or use jet thrusters)

[blueunicorn6]

“Resembling a giant mushroom”

The Martians love pizza. They’ll get really excited about this.

[equaviator]

10-4.1