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Apart from the suitability of the landing surface (firmness/levelness), it shouldn’t tip over. ~95% of a rocket ship’s 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 tank’s propellant has moved downward, and then there’s 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 ship’s 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 they’re greeted by these guys
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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.
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He can spell Mars without autocorrect, maybe. That’s progress, right?
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Honestly I don’t understand how he gets away with this. He’ll 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 he’s been saying it for more than a decade. Likewise self-driving or robots or anything he offers that isn’t the world’s worst mobile dumpster.
It’s all just stenography as if he weren’t 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. 
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Shock absorbers (and other components):
Ascent engine:
Contemporary oopsies:
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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 engine’s 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 “manipulation” took place inside and outside of Rocketdyne’s 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 cart—but—that 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 cart’s wheels were small metal affairs that, as the cart was schlepped from Manufacturing then back and forth outside open areas within Rocketdyne’s 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 “round-the-lot” trip. Several iterations and quality control’s 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 B001’s 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 shell’s ‘trip’ was called the “Buggy Ride” by all parties, and w/o any hint of humor or concern.
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