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Radical suggestion. Don't make your lander taller than wide. I'm the first to assume that the science nerds have thought of everything and that my uneducated se

Radical suggestion. Don't make your lander taller than wide. I'm the first to assume that the science nerds have thought of everything and that my uneducated self has nothing to say about it. But then I saw the lander. It looks very tippable. So then here's my luddite take. Can't they just unfurl wider stabilizers from the legs that increase their footprint? At slow speeds in low gravity it seems like they wouldn't need to be heavy or strong.

stavros 3y ago
In general, when it seems to my uneducated opinion that a bunch of experts have missed something obvious to me, it's almost always the case that the one who has missed something is me.
- foobarian 3y ago
  I feel exactly the same and this is the reason why I would absolutely love to read an expert article titled "Why super-wide Moon landing gear is not a good idea"
  - tekla 3y ago
    It needs to fit into a fairing. Otherwise you need to build a deployment mechanism.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  If there isn't an obvious answer to the obvious question, then it's up to the experts to communicate that information more effectively.
  - stavros 3y ago
    The experts' job is to land on the moon, not to teach you.
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      Don't sulk. Communicating with the public is a necessary aspect of publicly funded science.
db48x 3y ago
Stabilizers are made of matter, and matter has mass. Lifting mass off of the Earth and on to the Moon takes fuel. Fuel is made of matter too, and has mass. Lifting the fuel to lift the fuel to lift the mass is expensive. So much cheaper just to have an altimeter and no extra stabilizers. Sadly, their altimeter didn’t work. They forgot to turn it on correctly. Honestly, they’re lucky that it got so close to landing correctly; if it had been going faster the damage would have been even worse than just a crumpled landing leg.
wolfendin 3y ago
If you have legs that unfurl, now you have minimum three more more systems that fail and cause the same problem

stavros 3y ago

In general, when it seems to my uneducated opinion that a bunch of experts have missed something obvious to me, it's almost always the case that the one who has missed something is me.

foobarian 3y ago
I feel exactly the same and this is the reason why I would absolutely love to read an expert article titled "Why super-wide Moon landing gear is not a good idea"
- tekla 3y ago
  It needs to fit into a fairing. Otherwise you need to build a deployment mechanism.
anigbrowl 3y ago
If there isn't an obvious answer to the obvious question, then it's up to the experts to communicate that information more effectively.
- stavros 3y ago
  The experts' job is to land on the moon, not to teach you.
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    Don't sulk. Communicating with the public is a necessary aspect of publicly funded science.

db48x 3y ago

Stabilizers are made of matter, and matter has mass. Lifting mass off of the Earth and on to the Moon takes fuel. Fuel is made of matter too, and has mass. Lifting the fuel to lift the fuel to lift the mass is expensive. So much cheaper just to have an altimeter and no extra stabilizers. Sadly, their altimeter didn’t work. They forgot to turn it on correctly. Honestly, they’re lucky that it got so close to landing correctly; if it had been going faster the damage would have been even worse than just a crumpled landing leg.

wolfendin 3y ago

If you have legs that unfurl, now you have minimum three more more systems that fail and cause the same problem