While NASA rovers regularly surpass expectations (eg oppy), it’s still a massive achievement.
I was watching AGDQ last week, and they had a segment sponsored to talk about science tengentially related to the game played in which they put in perspective the fact that the videogame being ran had heavy troop transport quadcopters on an exoplanet, and how considerably more advanced than current tech it was as we only ever had a single vehicle do powered flight on another planet as of yet.
Yeah, JPL is especially good at managing expectations. Everything they do lasts years longer than advertised, and clearly that’s not accidental.
Still, this one really did feel like an experiment, and it’s pretty cool that they got so much out of it. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next Martian helicopter looks like.
While NASA rovers regularly surpass expectations (eg oppy), it’s still a massive achievement.
I was watching AGDQ last week, and they had a segment sponsored to talk about science tengentially related to the game played in which they put in perspective the fact that the videogame being ran had heavy troop transport quadcopters on an exoplanet, and how considerably more advanced than current tech it was as we only ever had a single vehicle do powered flight on another planet as of yet.
Yeah, JPL is especially good at managing expectations. Everything they do lasts years longer than advertised, and clearly that’s not accidental.
Still, this one really did feel like an experiment, and it’s pretty cool that they got so much out of it. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next Martian helicopter looks like.