On Apr/20/2021 at 08:06, Otto J. Makela wrote :
There is a small patch of cloth from the 1903 Wright Flyer attached to
the NASA Ingenuity helicopter.
https://astronomy.com/news/2021/04/f...flight-on-mars
In my opinion, all this comparing Ingenuity to the Wright Flyer is over
blowing it. Now I think that Ingenuity is very cool. But building a tiny
helicopter capable of flying on Mars is not a big engineering feat.
Bringing the helicopter to Mars is the real challenge, but the ability
to bring stuff on Mars has been demonstrated decades ago.
Once again, I think that Ingenuity is very cool and give a kudos to NASA
for pulling it off. But the Wright Flyer was a major milestone,
Ingenuity is a really cool toy.
Alain Fournier