42 ms·
Odysseus has less than a day left on the Moon before it freezes to death
- andirk 3y agoOdysseus is acting out the fictional short story "A Walk in the Sun" [0] where a girl crash lands on the moon and has to keep walking west to stay in the sunlight so she doesn't freeze to death. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Walk_in_the_Sun_(short_story) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Walk_in_the_Sun_(short_story...
- nytesky 3y agoFuturama writers must have read that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Series_Has_Landed?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Series_Has_Landed?wprov=sf...
- kvemkon 3y ago> has to keep walking west to stay in the sunlight so she doesn't freeze to death. Reminds me of the opposite problem we can see in "The Chronicles of Riddick" (2004). Keep running to stay in the night side of the planet to survive the sunrise. With great music "The Chronicles of Riddick | Outrunning the Sun" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGihB0gxgko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGihB0gxgko
- decafninja 3y agoOne of the earliest Star Wars novels (now part of the noncanonical “extended universe”) featured a walking mining colony that walked across a planet to stay in its night side.
- ericbarrett 3y agoThe story: https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0671878522/0671878522___1.htm https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0671878522/0671878522___1.htm
- angiosperm 3y agoA slightly smarter protagonist would have headed slantwise for the nearest pole. 200 miles/day is a pretty hard slog, but close enough to a pole, you might get along on just one. Being at the crash site so rescuers can find you, besides, would be hard to calibrate.
- tivert 3y agoSo both recent landers tipped over?
- TMWNN 3y agoYes.
- aidenn0 3y agoYeah, that confused me for a bit too; real-life deja vu.
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoMaybe a Knex-style mesh ball design would be a good way to construct landers where it could land, roll to a somewhat upright position, flatten out or eliminate the ball mesh, and then deploy upright with solar ready to go. Having 2 entire missions that got us to the surface without a hitch and losing the lander just due to positioning is so unfortunate.
- perilunar 3y agoLike this, but rockets instead of rotors: https://www.wired.com/2015/02/drone-bounces-around-disaster-sites-like-beach-ball/ https://www.wired.com/2015/02/drone-bounces-around-disaster-...
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoI googled quite a bit to find a picture of what I meant and this is exactly spot on
- tivert 3y ago> Maybe a Knex-style mesh ball design would be a good way to construct landers where it could land, roll to a somewhat upright position, flatten out or eliminate the ball mesh, and then deploy upright with solar ready to go. Kind of like the Mars Pathfinder-style landing system? They were tetrahedrons that could land on any face, then right themselves while unfolding.
- kayo_20211030 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- scarygliders 3y agoWhilst I realise that it would eat into the weight budget of such landers, I reckon adding a fuel cell with enough fuel to last through the lunar night, which keeps the lander and its batteries alive, should be a standard and integral part of such craft. Of course, that would mean taking less science with it, and increase the cost of the lander, and quite possibly if I can think of such a thing, engineers more clever than I am have already considered such. Still, congrats to the team for managing to at least soft land on the moon. No doubt they'll be learning a lot of lessons from this mission.
- LorenPechtel 3y agoFuel cells aren't some magic solution, they need fuel and it wouldn't be recovered. The normal operating procedure for lunar craft is to expect them to die on their first night. There's not a lot of advantage to sitting around in the same spot, equipping a probe to survive the night isn't worth it. It's just this one landed badly and "night" for it's panels is going to come sooner than expected.
- fnordpiglet 3y agoI’m surprised the battery doesn’t just recharge after one or more cycles.
- two_handfuls 3y agoIt’s too cold for too long, the electronics get damaged. Note that the lunar night lasts about 14 earth days.
- fnordpiglet 3y agoSounds like a problem a small pellet of nuclear fuel could resolve even without a reactor.
- two_handfuls 3y agoSure. That comes with some paperwork, but Mars rovers have nuclear fuel for example. This may be harder for a commercial lander like this one though.
- ProjectArcturis 3y agoWhat was the mission for Odysseus, anyway? Was it just supposed to land there, pretty much?
- btgeekboy 3y agoLanding there is part of it, yes, as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. It brought along a bunch of NASA and commercial payloads as well. https://www.space.com/intuitive-machines-odysseus-moon-lander-payloads https://www.space.com/intuitive-machines-odysseus-moon-lande...
- taejavu 3y agoDid we get any footage from this mission?
- russfink 3y agoI’m sorry, but the thing even looks top heavy.