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To soften a landing on Mars, one could (in theory) harvest some of the spacecraft's kinetic energy, store it briefly, then use it to power thrusters to slow its descent.
About the only way to do this, is to use wind-turbines to collect the energy for conversion into a form which can provide the needed
deceleration. Obviously, the force of air resistance would be too much even with Mar's thin atmosphere, so the craft would need to take its time and skim along through the atmosphere at a dynamically adjusted altitude to maintain an approximately optimal wind resistance.
The energy could be stored as carbon and oxygen, produced from atmospheric CO2, for example.
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like a helicopter's auto-rotation mode. |
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@FlyingToaster
A helicopter uses autorotation to slow its descent, but does not collect any of the energy for later use as a craft using this landing-softener concept would. The kinetic energy of a descending craft is typically converted to heat and lost. This idea is about making use of that energy that's normally wasted.
If the energy conversions were efficient enough (which they most certainly wouldn't be), a craft could even produce enough fuel during its landing to power a launch from Mars back into space. |
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How about using a ram pump during re-entry to fill a compressed air container? |
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Fill a light gas balloon that is lighter than Mars'
atmosphere? |
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Use piezoelectricity and long streamers? |
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Fill a balloon with atmosphere, and have it end up lighter
than the atmosphere? |
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That's not actually that crazy. Hot air balloons do that. The
compression of the air going into the balloon might heat it
sufficiently, or you could use the heat of compression
produced in front of your entry vehicle perhaps. |
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