A Little Tipsy
I’d like to start by admitting with no shame or irony that I am not an expert in aerospace engineering, that my opinion is only that, one of ten thousand by people with no expertise in the field.
The Odysseus Lander by Intuitive Machines has landed on the moon, the first privately-funded craft to do so and the first from America in several decades. Unfortunately, it’s had a bit of a snafu. It’s fallen over and may possibly be partially propped up by a rock. This has caused some partial blocking of the antennae and greatly diminished its capabilities. Speaking of which…
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As much as I don’t want to diminish the accomplishment of landing a craft on a celestial body like the moon or anywhere else beyond our own atmosphere, there’s a lot to be said about ignoring decades of more sensible engineering, and none of it’s flattering.
In 1976, NASA landed Viking on Mars. Viking has only 3 legs and is wider than it is tall.
In 2014, Rosetta’s Philae lander nearly missed its mark thanks to a missed harpoon shot and a malfunctioning thruster, causing it to bounce twice before it finally landed and was able to resume its mission. The lander is overall box-shaped and sits atop 3 widespread legs.
Odysseus has 6 legs, and only one of them breaking is apparently enough to send it on its side. Meanwhile, the Creative Machines Lab is developing tensegrity robots, which don’t have an obvious up or down, instead going for this sort of skeletal ball structure made up of telescoping rods and wires. By expanding and contracting, the “sphere” is able to roll over almost any kind of terrain. It could easily house a science payload in its center, and depending on where we drop it, it may not even need a parachute or thruster to slow it down, the rods instead acting as shock absorbers. This is not some new technology. Some of its documentation dates back to 2005.
There’s no excuse for taking steps back when it comes to design in this field. Those 3 legs weren’t chosen by chance. Being wide and low was not some arbitrary decision.
