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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

#231

Post by hatthew »

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…

hey the leaning tower of pisa is still standing, clearly this precedent means that starship HLS will be stable

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#232

Post by ForOldHack »

adolph wrote: post #170
dreamcompiler wrote: post #78

Good advice: 1. Never invade Russia in winter. 2. Make sure your robotic lunar lander has a low center of gravity.

> 2. Make sure your robotic lunar lander has a low center of gravity. Also, make sure your robotic private spacecraft doesn't land on the edge of a crater. Or partly on a big rock. Or where a rock or ledge is high enough between the legs to reach the rest of the craft.

Thanks. I'll be sure to put that in the mission logs. Also do not park next to a space bar.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#233

Post by [deleted] »

mhink wrote: post #90
jchw wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cultur…

[deleted]

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#234

Post by magicalhippo »

baq wrote: post #65
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 guys designing this never played kerbal space program or something. My first mun lander looked like theirs and of course it fell over after landing. If something doesn’t work in KSP, it probably deserves a looking at in the real world.

Anyone playing KSP learns that. So the question then is, what did their tall and skinny design optimize for?

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#235

Post by wruza »

725686 wrote: post #133
celsius1414 wrote: post #81

Earlier 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…

I am not a native English speaker (or English native speaker, ;)), but I've been using it forever...but didn't know there was an official adjective ordering.

not a native English speaker (or English native speaker

As a non-native speaker who was never taught it, for some reason I pick the difference naturally. English native speaker sounds like as e.g. opposed to American or maybe Irish to me, and it actually adds vagueness to what language we’re talking about. Cause there are English native speakers of French.

While native English speaker sounds like exactly native speakers of English regardless of origin.

I think it’s a feature of languages in general, and there’s not as much of an official ordering, but rather an ordering that performs default binding of meanings. In hard cases you fallback to prepositions, in light cases you just employ order.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#236

Post by [deleted] »

LeroyRaz wrote: post #205
jiggawatts wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse, it’s richest country on earth complaining about being too poor and having to enact austerity measures — implemented by the richest person on the planet who’s personal pay is much, much higher than any of the savings he’s found so far. I’ve seen many occasions in my career when some manager had flown across the country with a business class ticket, stayed in a fancy hotel, rented a luxury car, and turned up to…

This doesn't seem a fair analogy. Elon Musk is not being paid by the government, as I understand. The reason the manager flying around spending money to attend a downsizing meeting is gross is that the manager is spending company money (that could go to prevent downsizing). To complete the analogy, you would need to be implying that Elon's personal money should be paid to fund federal services.

[deleted]

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#237

Post by xvector »

RandomBacon wrote: post #63
sho_hn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> how do you not topple over Projectile grappling-hooks to embed into nearby ground then winch the line taught? Just have to make sure all are launched at the same time with force vectors that cancel out. Maybe even launch them before touchdown so it doesn't topple over during landing if one of the feet land on a random rock.

I saw this episode of For All Mankind! It didn't seem to end well

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#238

Post by rl3 »

LeroyRaz wrote: post #205
jiggawatts wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse, it’s richest country on earth complaining about being too poor and having to enact austerity measures — implemented by the richest person on the planet who’s personal pay is much, much higher than any of the savings he’s found so far. I’ve seen many occasions in my career when some manager had flown across the country with a business class ticket, stayed in a fancy hotel, rented a luxury car, and turned up to…

This doesn't seem a fair analogy. Elon Musk is not being paid by the government, as I understand. The reason the manager flying around spending money to attend a downsizing meeting is gross is that the manager is spending company money (that could go to prevent downsizing). To complete the analogy, you would need to be implying that Elon's personal money should be paid to fund federal services.

>Elon Musk is not being paid by the government, as I understand.

https://www.inc.com/bruce-crumley/why-elon-musks-faa-contrac...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/us/politics/elon-musk-com...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/03/01/elon-musk...

https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/minority/as-elon-mus...

https://apnews.com/article/house-democrats-musk-doge-oversig...

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#239

Post by vpribish »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #228
vpribish wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

goddamn. it was 250 METERS - not miles.

Can we just remind ourselves that launching a probe from the Earth and landing it within 250m of a target on THE MOON is incredible engineering? I know it's taken for granted, but it really shouldn't be.

Yes, you have my permission to remind people of that - especially the poster I was responding to. The accuracy of the landing was excellent.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#240

Post by ForOldHack »

sho_hn wrote: post #49
hcrisp wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I recall, Apollo 11 was off by 4 miles downrange, which was considered good but not precise. More work on the guidance / navigation system allowed for a precision landing in Apollo 12 (to touch down near a Surveyor probe).

If you want to read about this in fascinating detail, I highly recommend the book "Digital Apollo" by David A. Mindell. David's book spends a lot of time dwelling on the tension between highly automated systems and the role of the human in them, and the HCI factors of the Apollo missions. They also recap each landing through that lens, including the major changes done to the Lunar Module UI (physical + software) and…

Thanks for that recommendation. Mendell's other book is not as exciting but they both are the pinnicle of historic technical writing, and yes, this is a sharepining tool for UI, enough to make it required reading.

Of course his interactions with the Apollo engineers is priceless. I worked for one such engineer, and the strain of perfection was great discipline.

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