Astronomy Cast Full Raw Feed · Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela L. Gay

Ep. 739: Drones!

·57 min·5 clips

Pamela shares how drones now fly through forests like Star Wars speeders, revolutionizing environmental monitoring.

This episode of Astronomy Cast features hosts Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela Gay discussing the use of drones in space exploration and science. Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today, and Dr. Pamela Gay is a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute and director of CosmoQuest. The conversation begins with the hosts sharing frustrations about AI-generated search summaries impacting their website traffic and revenue, framing the episode within their broader reliance on direct audience support via Patreon. They detail the Mars Ingenuity helicopter, which completed 72 flights instead of the expected five before a rotor snapped. Ingenuity served as a scout for the Perseverance rover, capturing imagery of hazardous terrain like sand dunes and dry riverbeds. NASA is now developing a larger, six-rotor "Mars Chopper" concept capable of carrying a five-kilogram science payload. The hosts explain that China is considering a helicopter for its Mars sample return mission to collect distant rocks. The episode covers the upcoming Dragonfly mission to Saturn's moon Titan, a car-sized drone powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Dragonfly, launching in 2028, will use Titan's thick atmosphere and low gravity to fly up to eight kilometers per hop over a planned ten-year mission. The hosts note the mission will not explore Titan's methane lakes to avoid landing risks. They also describe how China includes small "selfie drones" with spacecraft to capture images of the vehicles in space. On the International Space Station, NASA uses free-floating autonomous drones called Astro Bees, which assist astronauts with tasks and monitoring. Researchers are employing drones in Australia to autonomously locate and collect meteorite samples more efficiently than human searchers. Pamela Gay shares an anecdote from a conference about drones that can autonomously navigate through forests to monitor tree health, avoiding branches without human guidance. A surprising claim is that AI-generated search summaries have caused a 90% drop in traffic and ad revenue for the hosts' websites, which they call an "existential" threat for many content creators. The hosts express a nuanced view, praising AI for editing and image tasks but criticizing its use for summarizing complex information. They reveal that Ingenuity continued communicating and collecting weather data after its rotor damage, left behind by Perseverance. An interesting insight is that redundancy in drone design, like Dragonfly's eight rotors, allows missions to continue even if one fails. The hosts speculate that future human Mars explorers might use drones as scouts. They also discuss how drones could revolutionize meteorite hunting in places like Antarctica by identifying rocks on ice efficiently. Pamela Gay describes conference posters as an "all-you-can-eat buffet" for finding articulate scientists to interview. The tone is conversational and educational, blending personal anecdotes with detailed explanations of space technology. The hosts maintain a casual, sometimes humorous rapport while discussing serious topics like funding threats to science. Listeners interested in the practical applications of space robotics and current mission updates would enjoy this episode. Those seeking a tightly focused, purely technical discussion without the hosts' personal commentary on AI or funding might prefer to skip it.

As heard by us

A practical tour of flying hardware on Mars, with a brief look at Venus.

Astronomy Cast turns a practical lens on flying hardware for hostile worlds, moving from Ingenuity's thin-air success on Mars to the larger idea of a six-rotor Mars Chopper and, briefly, balloon work for Venus.

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Why you'd press play

You get the case for why Ingenuity mattered on Mars, plus a look at what comes next.

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