The Bangor Daily News and WABI (Channel 5) reported engineers with University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center are working with NASA to perfect the Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD). The HIAD is a spacecraft nose-mounted “giant cone of inner tubes” stacked like a ring toy that slows a spacecraft as it enters a read more BDN, WABI Report on UMaine Testing of Materials for Possible Mars Mission