Good advice: 1. Never invade Russia in winter. 2. Make sure your robotic lunar lander has a low center of gravity.
when gravity is 1/6, a lower centre of gravity might not do as much as you think
That just makes it six times as important!
Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon
121–130 of 360 posts
Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
250 meters is very respectable for a first try. Apollo 14 and 12 achieved 30 meters and 163 meters with human piloting, respectively, and that's after the program made precision landing a high-effort mission goal. The automated missions of the 60s-70s were often off target by a kilometre or more, but Surveyor 3 came in within 200 meters as well in '67. Japan did a mission in 2024 with the express purpose of achieving…
Is 50 year old technology and expertise a good standard for comparison for modern tech?
Well when I was a child I tried to land on the moon but missed by about 384,000 km. That was only about 30 years ago, so their doing a heck of a lot better then that which is something!
Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon
#123It's so easy to design vehicles that can't roll over on their backs and die like a turtle. All you need to do is use large wagon-wheels and put the cargo/payload near the axles of it, where it doesn't extend above the top of the wheel. Then the device can continue to work as well upside down as right-side-up. In other words, it has no such thing as upside down.
There are lots of robots like this now, where if they get upside down, the wheels are on 'arms' that can just swing to the other side to make it right-side-up again. Admittedly I'm a mechanical engineer myself, but this design doesn't seem like "Rocket Science" to me. haha. (nice pun amirite)
Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon
#124Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
A rational reference, but there are no hard and fast rules. Perhaps more importantly, in well written English superfluous words are removed - thus 'private robotic spacecraft' becomes 'private spacecraft', since all spacecraft are by definition at least partly autonomous.
In the domain of moon spacecraft particularly, doesn’t there remain a clear distinction to be drawn between manned and unmanned spacecraft, given the power of the “man on the moon” trope in English-speakers’ imagination?
“Private spacecraft tips over on moon” would mean something rather different if a modern-day Neil Armstrong were inside at the time.
If anything, the fact that it’s just a machine matters more to me than who paid for it.
Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon
#126Good advice: 1. Never invade Russia in winter. 2. Make sure your robotic lunar lander has a low center of gravity.
> Make sure your robotic lunar lander has a low center of gravity.
Hmm.
Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon
#127If a space probe falls on the moon, does it make a sound?
Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon
#128Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon
#129Not 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 agree, as a native speaker. It's a known phenomena[1]
phenomenon is the singular, phenomena is the plural, dear native speaker ;)
google: phenomenon vs phenomena
or:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/learner-english/...
Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon
#130This is really making me suffer from my Kerbal Space Program PTSD.