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Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C

arstechnica.com

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Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C

#141

Post by PhasmaFelis »

jacobgkau wrote: post #133
PantaloonFlames wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya the wording was not quite … satisfactory. I think they meant , it could tell X and Y, but not Z. But all three are important. Related - I’m not clear how the article can describe that landing as “not crashing”. If that was not a crash, what was it? Will they call it a crash only if there are Hollywood-style explosions?

Bringing "Hollywood-style explosions" into it is a little much. If you slam the breaks on in your car, your tires hit some debris in the road, and you spin around and end up somewhere you didn't intend to be, but the car wasn't meaningfully damaged (i.e. you didn't hit other cars or manmade structures), you made a dangerous uncontrolled maneuver, but you didn't crash. That seems more like how they're describing this…

If you do something with your car that ends up with it skidding on its side, that's a crash by any possible definition.

Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C

#142

Post by yieldcrv »

> this mission was largely a success. What can he possibly mean by that?

> Compared to the company's first spacecraft, Athena flew smoothly.

Reminds me of the comedian opining on the flipped over airplane.

“Did you know the pilot was a woman? [hecklers] Woah woah, I’m not saying women cant be pilots, thats not even accurate. She flew perfectly….. what I am saying is that she can’t drive”

Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C

#143

Post by TylerE »

Seanambers wrote: post #99
MegaButts wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has SpaceX ever landed their rocket on a surface that isn't purposefully engineered to be flat?

Multiple sea landings, but I guess you'd argue those don't count since the vehicles tip over in water and explode. Moving barges in the sea should qualify though.

They also have the atmosphere, with drag that will make all velocities trend towards zero. Don’t have that on the moon, gotta do it all with fuel. More than half of the energy she’s by the returning falcon is aerobraking.

Yes, the moon has substantially less gravity but it’s also exponentially harder to get the fuel there.

Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C

#144

Post by ohgr »

Seanambers wrote: post #99
MegaButts wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has SpaceX ever landed their rocket on a surface that isn't purposefully engineered to be flat?

Multiple sea landings, but I guess you'd argue those don't count since the vehicles tip over in water and explode. Moving barges in the sea should qualify though.

So what you're saying is we need to blast some barges into space and land them on the moon so we have a flat surface for starship to land on?

Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C

#145

Post by rdiddly »

jacobgkau wrote: post #133
PantaloonFlames wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya the wording was not quite … satisfactory. I think they meant , it could tell X and Y, but not Z. But all three are important. Related - I’m not clear how the article can describe that landing as “not crashing”. If that was not a crash, what was it? Will they call it a crash only if there are Hollywood-style explosions?

Bringing "Hollywood-style explosions" into it is a little much. If you slam the breaks on in your car, your tires hit some debris in the road, and you spin around and end up somewhere you didn't intend to be, but the car wasn't meaningfully damaged (i.e. you didn't hit other cars or manmade structures), you made a dangerous uncontrolled maneuver, but you didn't crash. That seems more like how they're describing this…

"The only reason?" One reason for prematurely losing most of the investment is enough. The car analogy is inadequate but let's say my car skids gently into a position from which it won't start and I can't get out and I slowly die of starvation and/or hypothermia. Am I glad that I didn't "crash?"

Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C

#146

Post by Waterluvian »

ghostly_s wrote: post #139

This company's PR team is doing incredible work getting all this type of coverage out of a 0/2 track record with a design everyone else seems to think is obviously flawed.

What’s the prevailing criticism? High COG?

Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C

#147

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

driggs wrote: post #137
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there's a natural barrier to entry, i.e. it costs millions on dollars and years of time to be able to "crash" your "junk" onto the surface. So it's not like a bunch of hobby rocketeers are throwing away their McDonald's garbage. By the way, in comparison to the cost and complexity of said "junk", everything you own is cluttering up the Earth. You should really do something about that.

Are you making the argument that anyone with enough money should be able to do whatever they want on the moon? Giant neon McDonalds billboards visible from everywhere on Earth? Mining with zero restriction on impacts to the surface of the Moon or its atmosphere? Apparently the HN crowd doesn't stand anyone criticizing a "startup", but I'm asking a legitimate question. So far most of the junk we've launched onto the M…

> Are you making the argument that anyone with enough money should be able to do whatever they want on the moon?

No, I'm making the argument that anyone who invests the time and money into landing on the moon isn't doing it for giggles and the joy of littering.

And let's be real, if we found "space junk" on the moon of an alien planet, we'd be thrilled as heck, so perhaps we're just seeding the moon with artifacts for alien races.

Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C

#148

Post by pdf2calguy »

ghostly_s wrote: post #139

This company's PR team is doing incredible work getting all this type of coverage out of a 0/2 track record with a design everyone else seems to think is obviously flawed.

hey man we made it on the rock and checked the weather thats cool right

Re: Athena landed in a dark crater where the temperature was -280° F / -173° C

#150

Post by echoangle »

ceejayoz wrote: post #33
1970-01-01 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If navigation was fine, why was touchdown on a plateau?

Because "where am I" and "how high am I over that position" are very different things. Visual demonstration of being at the wrong altitude in the right spot: https://www.f-16.net/f-16-news-article968.html

If you don’t know your altitude, navigation isn’t fine though. Navigation should give you a position in all axes.
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