Every time someone mentions flying saucers, science does its best to debunk wild ideas and conspiracies with verifiable facts, but the concept of a flying saucer can be far more useful than it appears. NASA is working on a “Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator” whose main mission will be to place heavy loads on the surface of Mars, and its general appearance is that of a saucer with a 4.7-meter diameter.
A Long History of Saucer Dreams
The world changed a bit after Kenneth Arnold announced in June 1947 that he had seen “flying saucers”. Reports from other witnesses began to accumulate, and that same year the U.S. Air Force found the famous weather balloon. Then we moved on to alien abductions and countless science fiction examples, but for different reasons, the flying saucer in real life never went beyond the classic frisbee. The Nazis worked on the Sack AS-6, the U.S. Navy made its own experiments with the Vought XF5U, and the VZ-9 Avrocar was also seen at the end of the '50s, however, all those projects were canceled. More than once the aerodynamic capability of a flying saucer in our atmosphere has been questioned, but if we move away from Earth, the story is very different.
NASA's Supersonic Saucer
As an example, let's see what NASA is doing. Last Tuesday, the space agency conducted a series of tests on its LDSD, acronym for Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator. In simple terms, it is a 4.7-meter diameter plate with an inflatable balloon around it that looks like a giant donut. The function of the LDSD is to generate aerodynamic drag, so that certain objects with considerable mass can reach the Martian surface intact. So far, the conventional parachute design (developed during the Viking program in the '70s) has allowed NASA to send probes to the Red Planet with relative safety, but any advanced exploration and/or colonization plan will require the LDSD, or something similar that may arise from its design.
In other words, NASA must create the instruments that allow it to surpass the current one-ton limit (the Curiosity rover has a mass of 899 kilograms), and the LDSD saucer is the answer. It is estimated that the system will have two additional flight tests within a few months, incorporating all the telemetry obtained in last year's test. It may not have aliens inside, but this flying saucer is no lie.
