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What is surface to weight ratio needed to help slow the decent onto Mars?

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Assembled and inflated in space could a blimp be big enough to include everything needed to jump start a colony and land?

On Earth it would be buoyant where on Mars it would not but could it have enough surface area and wing shape to shed speed slowly as a high altitude glider? The skin of the blimp has heat and radiation shielding.

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Like this much larger like a pyramid. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/nasa-tests-inflatable-heat-shield-technology-for-deep-space-missions enter image description here

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    $\begingroup$ This reminds me of the Mr. Peabody and Sherman episode "Mata Hari". Entering a devastated area, Peabody said it was once a forest. Sherman said "now all the trees are gone", "That's right Sherman, this is the Argonne Forest". At the end it was revealed that the stolen plans were the British plans to load everyone in a giant blimp and fly away if they lost WWI, which Peabody said was the source for the saying "one nation, in dirigible". $\endgroup$
    – M. A. Golding
    Apr 1, 2018 at 16:32

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The blimp would have no buoyancy on Mars. Mars atmosphere would make a good attempt at a hard vacuum, at less than 1% the density of earth's. A blimp and a rock would have nearly the same flying ability.

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    $\begingroup$ Oversimplification, but useful one. $\endgroup$
    – Mołot
    Mar 31, 2018 at 21:07
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    $\begingroup$ It's also (absent LOTS of retrorockets) going to hit Mars' atmosphere at something over escape velocity: ~5 km/sec. Aerodynamic forces will tear it to shreds, which will then be heated to incandescence by air friction, producing a brief meteor shower. $\endgroup$
    – jamesqf
    Apr 1, 2018 at 4:34
  • $\begingroup$ In space, and even on Mars, the shell of the blimp would need to hold a layer of water 5m thick (in space) and @ 2m thick (on Mars) to protect the people from radiation. The mass of this water shield would be immense, and negate any possible buoyancy you might have. $\endgroup$
    – Thucydides
    Apr 1, 2018 at 6:39

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