Posted on 04/18/2018 7:42:50 AM PDT by ETL
NASA has two teams of researchers working to design a robotic bee that can fly on Mars.
The space agency announced the project on March 30. It's in its early stages, but the idea is to replace modern rovers — which are slow, bulky and very expensive — with swarms of sensor-studded, fast-moving micro-bots that can cover much more ground at a relatively low cost.
Literally called Marsbees, the little bots are "flapping wing flyers of a bumblebee size with cicada-sized wings," NASA officials wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“We figured that our interdisciplinary backgrounds in fluid mechanics, structural dynamics and control would be particularly useful to study insect-like flying robots. All of the design parameters, such as the size and the shape of the wing, the flapping frequency, the mission design, should be optimized for the Mars environment,” said Taeyoung Lee, aerospace engineering professor of the research team.
The bees will be able to read the atmosphere under the low gravity of Mars, claimed Kang, a scientist. The bees would run on batteries and proper scheduling will be done on when to charge the batteries.
Providing aerial-sensing and information-gathering capabilities will greatly help the existing and future Mars exploration missions. That combination is intended to give it the ability to generate sufficient lift for hovering in the ultra-low-density Martian atmosphere,” added Diana LaChance, admissions communications director and the spokeswoman of the project.”
https://www.microcapobserver.com/science/robot-bees-ready-to-fly-over-mars-atmosphere
They should take a page from the X-Files and use cockroaches instead.
War of the Coprophages is a pretty good episode.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.