The Astronomy Thread

Looks like it did tip over, but it tipped in a way so the useful stuff can still function

The angry astronaut gonna be angry.

He's been saying for months how all these tall skinny landers are screwed, especially starship.

There's a company making a really wide short lander, but I don't think they got a contract.

Kharzette said:

The angry astronaut gonna be angry.

He's been saying for months how all these tall skinny landers are screwed, especially starship.

There's a company making a really wide short lander, but I don't think they got a contract.

Click to expand...

Starship landing issues?
Wait till you hear about Falcon 9s being 180 feet tall and only 12' diameter and landing on boats all the time. Very screwed

Different scenario, though

Landing on the boats and not tipping over is a pretty impressive challenge. However, the landing surface is ultimately flat (angled orientation due to the waves notwithstanding)

The moon is covered with all sorts of shit like random rocks and boulders and mountains. Especially the south pole region - Apollo landed in a relatively "smooth" area of the moon. While you can get a general idea of whether or not a specific region has anything massive that would impede landing, much smaller stuff isn't going to be as apparent until you're literally just about to land on the surface.

Kharzette said:

The angry astronaut gonna be angry.

He's been saying for months how all these tall skinny landers are screwed, especially starship.

There's a company making a really wide short lander, but I don't think they got a contract.

Click to expand...

Haha called it

That is a relatively easy adjustment to make though to account for uneven surfaces. Slightly longer landing legs that are" self leveling" ship goes down for landing, extends legs hovers as legs touch down ,throttle engine down to "settle" and bang landed vertical.

Confirmation on the Ingenuity helicopter - looks like the rotor suffered a structural failure

I was reading more on it - the area the copter tried to land was relatively uniform in appearance. Essentially just a sand dune with virtually no rocks. It’s theorized that the landing sensors, with lack of surrounding context to better judge distance, misjudged the distance to the ground and landed harder than normal.

I mean the obvious issue here is the automation. There was no human involved in the landing, not even a remote operator. Any human could go "oh shit a rock" and steer a foot to the left.

But instead of correctly learning that lesson about the limits of unmanned space flight I am sure they'll go with ""AI"" for the next unmanned landing.

Yeah its so much more fun when we all only post about the subjects we have specific, formal training in. If only we'd all follow your example.

Scott Manley had a good vid on it. Inertial force is the same but gravity is less, so you only need about 40% of the tipover force on the moon.

Starship might work with really huge landing legs. Maybe the right thing to do is get some Constructicons up there to build a concrete pad

You need automation because of lag

Mars is like 15 minutes lag, the moon is like 1 second or so

You’ve played online games before - 1 second lag is an eternity when timing matters

TRUE TRUE. but imo having telescoping adjusting legs is MOST LIKELY the best and easiest solution.

that said how to implement it, not a clue i probably could come up with something for a terrestrial setup given enough time and the internet(i do do structural engineering and design sometimes- for buildings that is), for space applications? maybe.
how long do the legs need to be for the moon. how much wider a "base" is needed for mars (to compensate for wind) etc.
how much "wiggle room" is needed for adjustment for each leg, 4 feet? 8 feet? 1 foot? etc...
how many feet/pads would there be? 3? 4? 6? etc... the goal would be a relatively flat surface, but if not flat how much of a slope can be compensated for? inquiring minds want to know..

3 feet work extremely well as a base for stability- reason why a tripod is ubiquitous around the world. but they we have issue of weight distribution ie can the ground support the weight passed thru the pad....imo 5 or 6 would be used, but again, i have no idea of the forces required to be accounted for. 6 legs, you could lose the support of 2 or 3 legs and keep it upright -provided those legs are all not directly adjacent to each other.

Yeah I'm sure those aerospace engineers never thought of any of that.

Or maybe space is a fucking difficult and hostile environment to design for, with a lot of cost, weight, materials, and performance restrictions you can't fit on a napkin.