Helicopter Physics: From the Mars Helicopter to the Human Powered Helicopter

Rhett Allain
10 min readAug 2, 2021
Image: NASA. Illustration of the Mars Helicopter.

It’s the end of the introductory physics course. That means that the students have seen some of the very fundamental ideas in physics such as:

  • The momentum principle.
  • The work-energy principle.

Really, that’s all you need to explore some really cool physics. In this case, it’s time to…

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Rhett Allain

Physics faculty, science blogger of all things geek. Technical Consultant for CBS MacGyver and MythBusters. WIRED blogger.