Posted on 02/29/2024 8:58:03 AM PST by Ezekiel
Ingenuity has been the first aerial vehicle on another world. NASA announced the end of the Martian helicopter’s life at the end of its 72nd flight. During the flight there had been a problem on landing and, following the incident a few photos revealed chips in one of the rotor blades but nothing too serious. New images have been revealed that show the craft is missing one of its rotor blades entirely!
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On 11 Feb, NASA used the black and white navigation camera to record a video showing the shadow of the rotors turning. It was an ingenious idea by the engineers to try and understand the extent of the damage to the 1.2m blades. To their surprise the footage revealed that one fo the blades, the upper blade seems to be absent! It looks like the blade detected near the mast.
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(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
I hope it’s still under warranty.
It is still under warranty, but you have to bring it back to the store where you got it!
If you are 7 years old and having fun with a rubber-band powered balsa wood plane, you aren’t having fun until it ends the same way.
My older brother’s meticulously crafted WWII aircraft models usually ended their life with paper clips glued to the top, stuffed with alcohol-soaked cotton balls, in a fiery slide of death down a string from a second story window.
Those were the days!
Where could it have gone.
**I hope it’s still under warranty.**
Doesn’t need a warranty. Taxpayers pay all expenses. Just ask the invaders, it’s great to live off of the taxpayers.
The blade is way over to the left about 10 O’clock
It’d be neat if they could locate it.
Maybe it’s been swallowed up by the sand.
AAA is on the way!
One thing is obvious..
Ginny is but a shadow of her former self.
We put a helicopter on Mars, took it on joyrides, captured video, and managed it by remote control millions of miles away. American exceptionalism.
It doesn’t matter that the aircraft is now damaged. This accomplishment wasn’t done by the commies, by some nut job in Kraplackistan, some self-righteous euro-weeny socialists, or whatever country is the pinnacle of DEI ‘success’.
It was done by Americans. Our imperfect but far greater country than anywhere else on Earth. And probably Mars too!
It is a technical marvel, of course, but there is only so much excitement from seeing photos of another patch of dirt.
Why didn’t the guy who took that picture put a new blade on it? Geesh, do I have to do all the thinking around NASA?
And even now, Ginny’s still alive and communicating, even able to spin what’s left of her shattered rotors.
She suffered a catastrophic fall that left with her with mobility issues, but deep down, her mind is still right!
Truly a living parable.
Your whole post reflects my tagline:
“Come fly with US”
Thank God it’s dead
Update with new imagery and an animated gif of the one-rotor action.
You need to let it go and think about getting a new puppy or something
Hear! Hear!
More Americans need to realize this and quit paying attention to the demo-commies bad-mouthing our Republic.
And to think, we are the only nation that spent $3 billion we do not have to have that much fun!
Have Amazon deliver a replacement.
Damn! I missed that one.
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