Re: Laughable
What you fail to understand is the the parachute in question is the main parachute. Deployment is 0.5 Mach.
Testing at low altitude established the flight characteristics and general inflation charateristics.
Parachute structure was verified using a tow test. This test is infinite mass, similar to the actual (low density) mission. The tow test approach is also similar to the wind tunnel test the (the much higher funded) MER program used for their main parachute.
Parachute Design Team