Page 18 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - June 2015 Edition

18 NASA Goes To Mars In Flying Saucer

NASA Wants To Send
Humans To Mars A Giant

Flying Saucer

NASA has big plans to land the first humans on
Mars by 2035, but getting there is going to take
spacecraft of giant proportions — and larger
than anything the agency has ever sent to the red
planet before.

Enter NASA’s low-density supersonic
decelerator (LDSD) project, which includes a
genuine, bonafide flying saucer that could be
what astronauts ride down to the surface of Mars
for the first time in the not-too-distant future.
T o make sure the spacecraft is up to this
very important task, NASA is scheduled to
launch and test fly the project off the coast of the
U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility in
Kauai, Hawaii on Tuesday, June 2 between 1:30
pm and 3:00 pm ET.

Live coverage of the event will begin at
1 pm ET. The live feed is provided at the end of
this post.
T he test flight involves the use of a
balloon to transport the spacecraft high above
Earth’s atmosphere. That means the wind can’t
be too strong during the test flight, which is why
the launch window is fairly long. If weather
conditions don’t permit a test on Tuesday, the
LDSD team will have other opportunities up
through June 12.

The technology NASA used to land its
Curiosity rover on the red planet in 2012 won’t
cut it when it comes to heavier payloads like
manned missions.

So, NASA is pushing the boundaries of
spacecraft technology with their LDSD project
to design the safest, most cost-effective way of
slowing a spacecraft down once it has entered
the red planet’s atmosphere.

How to slow down a giant flying saucer speed from 2,600 miles per hour to 1,500 miles Diagram C
moving at supersonic speeds per hour — two times the speed of sound.
THE ‘X’ ZONE RADIO SHOW
This ambitious new technology includes (Continued on Page 20) with ROB McCONNELL
two major components: a body that is shaped
like a flying saucer and a giant blow-up tube — *** LIVE *** M-F, 8 PM - Midnight EDT
called the Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic www.starcomradionetwork.com
Decelerator (SIAD) — wrapped around the
body.

NASA’s flight scheduled for June 2 will
be the second time that the LDSD team will
have put this flying saucer to the test. The first
flight test took place about a year ago on Jun 28,
2014, and this year’s test flight will be very
similar.

During the 2014 test flight, the
spacecraft was transported to over 120,000 feet
above Earth’s surface by a giant balloon. Up
there, Earth’s atmosphere is very thin, and,
therefore, more similar to the atmosphere on
Mars.

After it’s reached soaring heights, the
balloon breaks and the flying saucer fires its
monster engine, located at the bottom, to climb
even higher (See Diagram C)

Then, when the spacecraft is 180,000
feet above the ground, SIAD, which is the giant
inflatable dough-nut-shaped tube, inflates.
Similar to how a puffer fish expands by filling
itself with air, this makes the spacecraft larger.

By simply increasing the overall size of
the spacecraft, SIAD can reduce its overall