Re:The Mars Helicopter Is Online and Getting Ready to Fly
by jefft255 on Tuesday March 02, 2021 @07:36PM
(#26323243)
It's useful (if it doesn't die) for scouting. From above, it will have a better look at the terrain, helping mission control do path planning and terrain/risk assessment. I have no information telling me that's going to happen, but this is my fairly educated guess as to how the drone could be used.
Re:The Mars Helicopter Is Online and Getting Ready to Fly
by shellfishgene on Wednesday March 03, 2021 @05:24AM
(#26326681)
Ok, that could be a use for it. They do have satellite images, but I guess those are much lower resolution and a better satellite would probably be orders of magnitude more expensive.
On your other point, I'm sure many people find it fascinating and are inspired. However a young geologist or biologist might not be inspired to start a career at NASA. Another point the author of the article above makes it that in the ~2 hours of live coverage, 6 seconds were spent discussing the rovers instruments. As for budget, this is also dangerous; after all, if the next funding round comes along, anyone who does not like NASA can have an easy argument that the $80M on the helicopter are wasted and did not produce any knowledge about Mars or the universe.