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Could a Mars "hopper" be built?
Topic Started: Sep 26 2013, 01:54 AM (320 Views)
CJ
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A very minor case of serious brain damage

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24213830

A UK team is developing its idea for a Mars "hopper" - a robot that can bound across the surface of the Red Planet.

At the moment, landing missions use wheels to move around, but their progress can be stymied by sand-traps, steep slopes and boulder fields.

A hopper would simply leap across these obstacles to the next safest, flat surface.

The research group is led from Leicester University and the Astrium space company.

Calculations suggest the thrust achieved could enable a one-tonne craft to leap a distance of up to 900m at a time.



This sounds complicated, but it could be good if they can get it working. After all, it'd be able to reach areas that are inaccessible to rovers - just as long as it lands on its feet!
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Candyguitar
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Considering the gravity level is much lower on Mars (38% of Earth's), this doesn't seem like a bad idea.
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CJ
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Good point. I must admit, I hadn't thought of that at all!
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Hedgehog121
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How would they be able to tell where the next most flat place is?
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CJ
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I'm not actually sure, but I expect they'd be able to construct models of the Martian terrain.

Making the legs would be an issue too. They'd need to be used for multiple landings, whereas the legs on the probes they send now are only good for one landing.
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Zero Revolution
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King Zero

Well that is a good idea, it'd probably be fairly difficult to build though, especially for the legs as CJ already said.
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CJ
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A very minor case of serious brain damage

Some of the other ideas they came up with amused me. One was a 'tumbleweed' that gets blown around the Martian landscape by the wind. I can't imagine that being very effective :P !
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lamna
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Sounds like a good idea, but there have been lots of good ideas for exploring Mars, solar powered balloons and planes etc, but they have come to nought.

With low gravity and very weak winds this sounds like a plausible way to explore large areas of Mars.

And we've mapped Mars quite well, finding places to jump shouldn't be harder than finding places for probes to land.
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