Tornado Intercept Vehicle - GIF

[rgsparber]

I think there is useful data to be gathered from inside a tornado using sensors, not people. This vehicle is a joke. Those little posts driven into the ground are no match for a tornado. A tornado can lift a freight train.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOtable_Tornado_Observatory

[mklotz]

I think there is useful data to be gathered from inside a tornado using sensors, not people. This vehicle is a joke. Those little posts driven into the ground are no match for a tornado. A tornado can lift a freight train....

I agree about using sensors rather than people. (A main reason for foregoing a manned mission to Mars. (Unless only politicians and lawyers are sent.)) The problem is that we can't accurately predict the path of the storm so deploying and nailing down the sensors is problematic.

But what is the real use of that data ? Tornadoes are basically random in the sense that knowing in detail the path/pressure distribution/temperature/etc. doesn't tell you much of anything to predict the path of the next one. Our government has already collected mountains of data from space probes that sits, mostly uninspected, in vaults until someone really needs to calculate the average size of pebbles on Mars. I think a lot of the tornado data already collected is in the same category.