Pingie: HTTP:: How to Land When There Is No Air Around

HTTP:: How to Land When There Is No Air Around
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The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center is currently taking on a new and difficult task, namely that of producing a lunar lander that is able to, well, land in a place where there is no air. Wings don't do too much good, and propellers are also useless. The only things that could help such a craft safely touch down are its thrusters, according to MSFC engineer Brian Mulac. “All it takes is practice, practice, practice. And of course, thrusters,” he says. “What we’ve got here is a ‘flying testbed’ to help us to learn how to hover and land on the Moon,” he adds of the robotic lunar lander currently undergoing testing at the Center. Experts from the John Hopkins University (JHU) Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Von Braun Center for Science and Innovation are also involved in the activities, as are other NASA engineers as well. In the picture, you can clearly see that the thrusters fire up what seems to be a futuristic, pale-blue jet. Mulac explains that !
this is, in fact, nothing more than average compressed air. “They look blue in this photo because the cold air coming out of the thrusters is interacting with our ‘nice’ Alabama humidity. The plumes are like miniature clouds. They contain ice crystals that scatter blue light,” he adds. One of...
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http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Land-When-There-Is-no-Air-Around-124501.shtml
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