A Little Ingenuity

"A helicopter in space ?!!" Thats what crossed my young mind when I saw the Spacex card with the Helicopter P3 on it, decades ago. The fact that it seemed to be sailing blithely across the vacuum of interstellar space appalled my notions of physical logic, even at that early age and it wasn't til many years later that it dawned on me that as it was part of the Earth Base section, it wouldn't actually be flying in space, just supporting the ground vehicles. 
 

Even so, the idea still bemused me as to why we might need a helicopter in space. It was further compounded when I came across the Marx Moon Scout Copter, which was clearly intended for use on the moon!

Still, all my pre-teenage angst over these technical faux pas in the toy industry have long since dissipated and I am now firmly embracing the exciting idea of copters in space. On 18 April, the NASA JPL Perseverance rover will assist its 'moving buddy' Ingenuity in a brief flight on the Martian surface. Ingenuity is a tiny, drone sized copter that has hitched a lift under the rover and will make its maiden flight in the thin atmosphere for the first time. Carbon fibre twin rotors, designed to offer maximum lift will hopefully allow the fragile craft to lift off on the first of a series of brief forays on Mars. 

Ingenuity doesn't look even remotely like Triang or Marx ideas of full on space copters, but does mark a huge leap forward in the exploration of other worlds 

if all goes to plan on Mars, a further helicopter will be dispatched to Titan on the Dragonfly mission sometime in the near future: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasas-dragonfly-will-fly-around-titan-looking-for-origins-signs-of-life

Its amazing to see how far technological developments have leapt forward since the first tentative steps into space and all in a human lifetime. What might our children see occurring in the next century ?