THE OFFICIAL DELUXE
PROFESSIONAL GUIDE TO
STARING AT THE SUN
VOLUME 42:

HOT TUBBING AT THE IN-LAWS!

UFO REPORT: Did NASA’s Mars Dronecopter Pick Up Alien Trash?

We recently heard news that Ingenuity, a NASA dronecopter, picked up a piece of unidentified debris while on its 33rd flight above the surface of Mars.

And we were like, WTF? So we got the scoop from Dr. Jim Bell, professor of planetary science at ASU and principal investigator for the Mastcam-Z imaging system on the NASA Mars Perseverance rover.

[REDACTED]: Dr. Bell, or may we call you Jimmy, describe Ingenuity to us please. You’re blowing our minds. 
Dr. Jim Bell: Okay, so Ingenuity is a robot drone helicopter on another planet. It’s being flown remotely by controllers 150 million miles away. 

Ingenuity just completed its 33rd mission. And it’s still working great. It’s getting dusty, a little worn. And its mission has transitioned from just demonstrating that it can be done, to demonstrating that you can drone like that to scout for another mission, like the rover. We’ve been using the helicopter to scout places where the Perseverance Rover can’t go, or places where we want it to go but we need some information in advance.

R: What does this puppy look like and how does it fly?
Jimmy: Imagine two four-foot-long helicopter blades that spin on a single axis in two different directions at 2400 rpm. Those work so hard to lift a tiny body the size of a tissue box. The air is just so thin, it takes that much blade velocity to get lift. The blades are spinning at nearly the speed of sound on Mars.

[R]: Woah. Does it cause a sonic boom?
Jimmy: Technically it’d be a shockwave. You don’t wanna do that, because it changes the fluid dynamics and would no longer work. So instead it’s designed to go right up against it, as fast as they can go without breaking the laws of physics that would make it no longer fly.

[R]: In your article about Ingenuity, you described “solar panels the craft wears like a hat.” Any style inspirations here? I’m picturing a fedora or maybe even a Kangol.
Jimmy: …No, it’s really just pure engineering. You want the panels to be catching the direct sunlight, not on the body.

[R]: Ingenuity was recently in the news because it picked up what NASA called Foreign Object Debris, or FOD. Give us the skinny: was that human-made debris, or could it have been alien? Maybe ancient Martian in origin?
Jimmy: It’s probably something that got shed off the rover or landing system. There are little pieces of that debris all over the landing site - cloth, plastic insulation, etc. The wind is blowing stuff around there. It has since blown off.

[R]: Ingenuity is on the cutting edge of Mars exploration. What is NASA’s protocol for running into signs of life, ancient alien ruins, etc?
Jimmy: For all the rovers and landers we send to Mars, we’re not expecting to see anything alive, even any fossils. The surface is incredibly harsh, insanely cold. Radiation from the sun bakes the surface because there’s no protective ozone layer. The surface of Mars makes Antarctica look like a tropical wonderland.

Anything organic like us would be fried, frozen, and suffocated on the surface. So we're not looking for alive things. We're looking for signs of life like textures, fragments of organic molecules, remains of single-celled organisms. That's what early life was like on the earth. If life formed on Mars the same way it formed on earth, then it'd probably be similar in form.

We take pictures every day with our rovers and landers. Those pictures get beamed back to earth by radio, and are uploaded online as jpegs, entirely public. There's no checking or filtering — no NASA censor is saying “no, they can’t see this one.” So IF we snapped a picture of an abandoned shopping cart up there, some kid in Poland who wakes up before we do would be the first to see it.

[R]: That rocks. So final question: Do you think there will ever be human-crewed helicopters on Mars? Or will we stick with the automated drones?
Jimmy: No, we wouldn't have human-crewed helicopters on Mars. The atmosphere is so thin, it’s impossible to lift that much mass with our current technology. More likely, we'd transport people on blimps or dirigibles. You can get lots of lift with that volume of gas. 

But, people are going to go to Mars. It’s going to happen. It might be NASA astronauts, or Chinese astronauts, or SpaceX employees. Who knows. But it’s coming in the next 15 to 20 years. Maybe more, maybe less.

I’m a fan of this happening. But for the people who go, it’ll be miserable. The cold, lack of oxygen, radiation, nothing to eat, nothing to do: trying to live on Mars is gonna make Antarctica seem like a tropical paradise. But people will go. There will be an outpost, settlements.

You know the game Oregon trail? This is gonna be like the Mars version of Oregon trail. You play for 5 minutes — oh shoot, you’re dead. OK let’s play again. Woops, dead. There are so many ways that this place is trying to kill you. And remember that when the settlers got to Oregon, there were fish in the rivers, oxygen to breathe, fruit on the trees. Nothing like that is waiting for our future, intrepid Mars settlers.

[R]: Damn man, that’s heavy. I think I’ll try to hawk my ticket to somebody else…
Jimmy: Wise choice.

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HOT TUB ETIQUETTE AT THE IN-LAWS’

Are you hot tubbing at your in-laws? Consider yourself lucky, hombre.

To dip in anyone’s private heated watering hole is not only a delight — it’s a privilege.

One must always remember that in-laws, while usually magnanimous, are like all parents: Not particularly creatures of logic. Creatures of rules.

That means that, when hot tubbing at the in-laws', a dipster must remember a few important things.

Because nobody wants to lose hot tubbing privileges.

1. Nudity is strictly a no-no. No matter how late it is or how cool “Dad” can be. Sightings of intimates in the in-law home should always be viewed as a worst-case scenario. If they’re definitely not coming home for a few hours, proceed with caution.
2. No glass on the pool patio. If you break some and it falls in the pool they will never forgive you.
3. Let the in-laws set the temperatures. You may find it ridiculous setting a hot tub to 96 because anything higher is “much too hot.” You didn’t pay for this manmade wonder of soakitude. Bump it up to 99 when they’re not looking and they’ll love it.
4. Always remember to bump the temperature back down. God forbid you forget to turn it off.
5. Turning on bubbles covers farts. That's not a rule, it’s just true.