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Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

theguardian.com

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Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#81

Post by celsius1414 »

gtirloni wrote: post #71

Not a native English speaker here, my focus stopped at the subtitle "Robotic private spacecraft touched down about 250 miles from its intended landing site on Thursday". It feels odd to read "robotic private spacecraft" instead of "private robotic spacecraft" but I can't explain why.

You are likely aware of the English language's feature of multiple adjectives (that are modifying the same noun) needing to appear in a certain order to sound "correct". So for example "yellow big balloon" sounds wrong but "big yellow balloon" sounds right. This is because SIZE is supposed to come before COLOR in standard English phrases.

In this case, "robotic" and "private" could be similar enough in category to be confusing. In the Order of Adjectives[0], "robotic" is in the TYPE category, near the bottom of the list, and "private" seems to fit in that same category at first glance. By that interpretation, either "robotic private" or "private robotic" works.

What if instead of "private" it said "Californian"? That would make it an ORIGIN, and "Californian robotic spacecraft" becomes the obvious choice — otherwise, you'd think they were talking about a spacecraft belonging to robots from California. ;)

So if we interpret "private" as an ORIGIN, your "private robotic spacecraft" sounds better. That would have been my choice as well.

[0]: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/adj...

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#82

Post by bombcar »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #77
gtirloni wrote: post #71

Not a native English speaker here, my focus stopped at the subtitle "Robotic private spacecraft touched down about 250 miles from its intended landing site on Thursday". It feels odd to read "robotic private spacecraft" instead of "private robotic spacecraft" but I can't explain why.

The order of adjectives in English is usually: opinion, size, age or shape, colour, origin, material, purpose It is sometimes difficult to classify adjectives this way, but "private" is probably opinion and "robotic" is probably purpose, so you are correct, "private robotic spacecraft" is probably correct. The problem with English, of course, is that you can figure out what someone means, even if they jumble all thei…

Private large old round blue American metallic robotic spaceship.

Sounds a bit wrong, I want to put American first.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#83

Post by nick486 »

sho_hn wrote: post #24
nine_k wrote: post #2

One similarly structured craft (thin and tall) reached the Moon a year ago, and also eventually toppled. Maybe next missions will feature less tower-shaped designs and more crab-shaped designs, at least during the landing phase.

Which gives me great amusement about the current human spaceflight plan to land upright Starship on the moon, and lower astronauts from the top of what is effectively a tower-like 13-story building (52.1m without landing legs, at 9m tube width) using some kind of elevator solution. To put things into perspective, this is roughly the same height as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and with landing legs extended probably abo…

with enough energy(like starship would have), i suppose you could get out of an irrecoverable tipping over motion by just lighting the engines and trying again. Before you fall, obviously. "works in KSP"^TM

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#84

Post by simne »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #11
nine_k wrote: post #2

One similarly structured craft (thin and tall) reached the Moon a year ago, and also eventually toppled. Maybe next missions will feature less tower-shaped designs and more crab-shaped designs, at least during the landing phase.

The craft that tipped over last year (Odysseus) was also made by Intuitive Machines (IM). Firefly's Blue Ghost landed on the moon last week without tipping over, proving that a modern commercial company can do it. Kind of embarrassing for IM which is 0 for 2. I'm sure there are all kinds of reasons/excuses for why IM's landers fell over and I'm sure their mission profiles are different from Firefly's, but from a high…

> Firefly's Blue Ghost landed on the moon last week without tipping over

> from a high level perspective I'm sure senior leaders at NASA are reconsidering giving any new contracts to IM.

Truth is, all contractors rely on NASA data about Moon surface, and this data is not 100% reliable.

But some people trust NASA and others much more cautious and include bigger possible error margins in their models.

I mean, FF could just include much larger design margins, with less payload, so next time FF will optimize design and could also tip over.

But good news, IM next time could make larger margins and will also achieve 100% success.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#85

Post by rrr_oh_man »

celsius1414 wrote: post #81
gtirloni wrote: post #71

Not a native English speaker here, my focus stopped at the subtitle "Robotic private spacecraft touched down about 250 miles from its intended landing site on Thursday". It feels odd to read "robotic private spacecraft" instead of "private robotic spacecraft" but I can't explain why.

You are likely aware of the English language's feature of multiple adjectives (that are modifying the same noun) needing to appear in a certain order to sound "correct". So for example "yellow big balloon" sounds wrong but "big yellow balloon" sounds right. This is because SIZE is supposed to come before COLOR in standard English phrases. In this case, "robotic" and "private" could be similar enough in category to be…

Upvoted, but just wanted to say it explicitly:

What an in-depth and thoughtful answer. Thank you for this!

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#86

Post by rrr_oh_man »

jchw wrote: post #72
gtirloni wrote: post #71

Not a native English speaker here, my focus stopped at the subtitle "Robotic private spacecraft touched down about 250 miles from its intended landing site on Thursday". It feels odd to read "robotic private spacecraft" instead of "private robotic spacecraft" but I can't explain why.

I agree, as a native speaker. It's a known phenomena[1], though I'm not sure in this case what type of adjective you'd classify "private" as. [1]: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/adj...

Nit:

Phenomena is plural. The singular form is phenomenon.

(Other similar words with a Greek root: lexicon/lexica, criterion/criteria, automaton/automata)

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#87

Post by spelunker »

nine_k wrote: post #2

One similarly structured craft (thin and tall) reached the Moon a year ago, and also eventually toppled. Maybe next missions will feature less tower-shaped designs and more crab-shaped designs, at least during the landing phase.

I mean, eventually everything is crab right?

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#88

Post by asah »

bombcar wrote: post #82
LeoPanthera wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The order of adjectives in English is usually: opinion, size, age or shape, colour, origin, material, purpose It is sometimes difficult to classify adjectives this way, but "private" is probably opinion and "robotic" is probably purpose, so you are correct, "private robotic spacecraft" is probably correct. The problem with English, of course, is that you can figure out what someone means, even if they jumble all thei…

Private large old round blue American metallic robotic spaceship. Sounds a bit wrong, I want to put American first.

That's your American opinion !! :-)

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#89

Post by dothack »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #57
rqtwteye wrote: post #53

It shows the old that getting to 90% is easy and fast but the last 10% are very tedious and slow.

> shows the old that getting to 90% is easy and fast but the last 10% are very tedious and slow And maybe don’t bet on a SPAC to deliver advanced engineering?

Counterexample: Rocket Lab's tech [1] landed Blue Ghost on the Moon.

[1]: https://www.rocketlabusa.com/updates/rocket-lab-space-softwa...

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#90

Post by mhink »

jchw wrote: post #72
gtirloni wrote: post #71

Not a native English speaker here, my focus stopped at the subtitle "Robotic private spacecraft touched down about 250 miles from its intended landing site on Thursday". It feels odd to read "robotic private spacecraft" instead of "private robotic spacecraft" but I can't explain why.

I agree, as a native speaker. It's a known phenomena[1], though I'm not sure in this case what type of adjective you'd classify "private" as. [1]: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/adj...

I'll grant that it definitely sounds ambiguous, but I actually think the phrasing "robotic private spacecraft" is more correct in the end.

I think this is a fair analogy: suppose we were talking about a "private detective". If we were writing a sci-fi book, we might talk about a "robotic private detective", but "private robotic detective" would sound odd.

Now, I'll grant that "private detective" has a lot more cultural weight than "private spacecraft", but I think it's fair to say that at least the word "private" is playing a nearly identical role in both phrases. With that in mind, I think "robotic private spacecraft" makes sense.

I suppose you could take this argument one step further and resolve the ambiguity by asking which distinction (robotic/non-robotic, private/public) the article writer thinks is more notable and placing that first.

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