"These are very economical," said Clark Butner, who works with the command's special communications division at nearby Naval Air Station Patuxent River. "They are getting easier to fly, and require fewer people and pieces of equipment to operate." For example, Butner called the walking away price of the SnowGoose - about $250,000 - "digit dust" when compared to the overall DoD budget.
Many vendors are branching out of the purely military applications for their products. "There is a market for these platforms with the Department of Homeland Security," said Ken Zugel, director of flight operations for Aurora Flight Sciences in Manassas, Va. The vehicles can stay in the air for extended periods of time and the technology is such that now it doesn't take a huge piece of equipment as a ground base, he said. They also can operate from "austere" environments.
In fact, Zugel's company is working with NASA on one of the more far- out UAVs called the Mars Flyer. If all goes well, that UAV will give scientists a close- up view of Mars and send back test results of air samples taken in the Martian atmosphere. Zugel said the company has tested the Mars Flyer by dropping it from a balloon that brought the craft to 100,000 feet.
