Visiting
the Jet Propulsion Lab in Los Angeles this past Friday was probably one of the
most rad field trips I have been on to date, and there are more coming which not
only excites but stimulates the Art & Science juices to flow for this
semester. After seeing all there was to see one of the things that caught my
attention the most was the future possibility of landing humans on Mars. I went
out and bought The Martian this past
weekend and have begun reading it, and the idea of traveling to Mars and having
research taking place there with hands-on scientists is ridiculously cool. The
LDSD (Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator), a technology for landing loads on
Mars, is being tested currently for the future of human missions to Mars. At
the Mars yard this was skimmed over and not developed too much in the short
lecture, so I took it upon myself to do some more research into the journey of
the LDSD.
Above is
the link to the article on NASA’s website documenting the testing of the new
LDSDs. As NASA continues research on these supersonic decelerators they are
testing the amount of mass it is capable of carrying, the type of landing they
can get with new design of the technology’s structure and the type of balloons
used in the landing process, as well as the building of a supersonic
decelerator that can carry humans.
In relation
to art, the people working on the LDSDs are designers, figuring out how to make
the parachute that is now being tested in the landing of these objects inflate
and not be destroyed upon atmospheric entry. There was a recent test where the
parachute failed and tore during testing.
This video
is from about a year ago but it shows the process that is taking place in
testing the LDSDs.
They are turning out varying designs, just
like artists do when brainstorming a new project, and working on making their
work sound, similar to a sculptor, painter, or installation artist. These
supersonic decelerators can be classified as pieces of art simply due to the
fact that each piece put together has been designed by a scientist to make sure
that the finished product is viable for flight and landing, creating a working
sculpture of interstellar travel.
LDSD NASA
has it’s own blog on the progress they are making in the creation of a suitable
for a human trip to the Red Planet.
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