Apart from the suitability of the landing surface (firmness/levelness), it shouldnβt tip over. ~95% of a rocket shipβs weight is liquid propellant. By the time the lunar lander version of Starship touches down, a fair amount of its propellants would be depleted, so the end-total mass of the upper tankβs propellant has moved downward, and then thereβs the weight of the engines, propellant in the lower tank, gimbal mechanisms, and sundry hardware located at the lowest part of the ship. So, the shipβs center-of gravity is very low while touching down. Also, I think there was talk awhile back about the splayed landing struts being self-leveling. Me? Self-leveling struts may not be the cure-all. I think they should consider an automatic fast-abort based on conditions experienced at touchdown (not firm enough; not level enough), especially if theyβre greeted by these guys
Self levelling struts were satisfactory on five out of six lunar landings. On Apollo 15 the struts fully compressed from the hard landing and the engine nozzle was crushed. Thankfully the ascent stage used a different engine.
He can spell Mars without autocorrect, maybe. Thatβs progress, right?
Honestly I donβt understand how he gets away with this. Heβll still say he is 10 years from a manned landing, and people will report it as if it has any chance of being true, instead of giving the obviously relevant context that heβs been saying it for more than a decade. Likewise self-driving or robots or anything he offers that isnβt the worldβs worst mobile dumpster.
Itβs all just stenography as if he werenβt bullshit wrapped in vaguely human form, because he has money, because investors are incompetent enough to believe the stenography. Instead of any kind of sinister but competent conspiracy we just have a giant tower of obvious stupid so big it blocks out the sun.
Re the video at 10:37: One of the main components of the Space Shuttle Main Engine also was manipulated in order to help remove objects created and introduced during its manufacturing, that component being the Powerhead shell. The shell supported and contained the engineβs main injector, hot gas manifold, combustion chambers, and fuel and oxidizer turbopumps. The entire assembly (with the shell) was called the Powerhead, that being the heart of the SSME. So, the shell was pretty important and needed to be free of all contamination (particulate and otherwise) before any other components were installed into it. The aforesaid βmanipulationβ took place inside and outside of Rocketdyneβs Building 001 facility at the north-west corner of Victory Blvd and Canoga Avenue in Canoga Park, California. Inside (as the second and final step at Canoga Park), the shell would be flushed with filtered water at a few hundred gallons per minute while occasionally being manually rotated about its horizontal axis while still on its custom-built travel cartβbutβthat travel cart allowed the Powerhead to be pre-decontaminated before it ever reached the final flush operation. How? Before the shell left Manufacturing, all of its openings were covered with clear plastic bags and taped into place, but with the bags hanging very loosely in order to catch any objects shaken free. The cartβs wheels were small metal affairs that, as the cart was schlepped from Manufacturing then back and forth outside open areas within Rocketdyneβs B001 property, caused the shell to bounce and shake violently and in such a way that stuff would be caught. Filled lower bags were removed then replaced with new bags and with the same process applied to other openings and with the shell occasionally spun to a new orientation for the next βround-the-lotβ trip. Several iterations and quality controlβs satisfaction then led to the water flush. This had all been going on before I began work at Rocketdyne as a newbie engineer. It was then that I learned that the shaking-cart process (discovered by accident while being transported) was better than using one of B001βs large shaker tables in the Vibration facility there. Even passersby on Canoga Avenue would have seen the shaker-cart operation and yet would have never guessed its double-duty.
BTW: The shellβs βtripβ was called the βBuggy Rideβ by all parties, and w/o any hint of humor or concern.
ULA fighting for market share.
ETA:
Yup, thatβs about the size of it.
Yeah, this article touches on it a bit but it canβt be overstated that throughout all of human history thereβs never been any large, long-lasting human colonies in physically isolated locations unless those locations had abundant resources to make them self-sustaining or else produced some valuable commodity for trading. As far as we know so far Mars has got nothing that we want, and the travel time alone makes it pretty unlikely to ever become a popular tourist destination. Building a small research station on par with what we do in Antarctica is the very most that I can imagine humans doing in the foreseeable future, and even then itβs not clear to me what the advantage is for sending humans rather than robots, which are getting more capable all the time.