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[LordBaal]

I went to the Moon, what have you done?

[martinuzz]

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost moon lander landed safely at Mare Crisium

[Starver]

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost moon lander landed safely at Mare Crisium

I must remember to add that one to the map. (It would have been added, even if it had crashed, but debris fields (and, especially, ill-defined debris fields!) are so messy... Always nice to have a known nice point landing, whether ending as upright or not.)

[Naturegirl1999]

Some new exoplanets we’re discovered

[Ziusudra]

SpaceX Starship spirals out of control in second straight test flight failure

[Starver]

SpaceX Starship spirals out of control in second straight test flight failure

Block 2 seems to be having problems. Makes you wonder if they regret cutting up some of the fully built Block 1 hardware that never got to be launched. But I've yet to review the experts' analyses, was saving that up for the weekend.

(Also, as of last night, it seemed that trying to land a lunar lander "the size of a giraffe" is two-for-two on tipping over. Perhaps they need to send one "the size of a hippo", i.e. less likely to topple.)

[martinuzz]

I now wonder if it's really easier to topple a giraffe than it is to topple a hippo. I sincerely doubt it. I can the hippo being quite easily rolled like a barrel, while the giraffe is using it's legs as anchors and it's neck as counterweight in weird angles.

[Eric Blank]

The hippo also has four points of contact, larger ones in fact, and immense muscle strength. Female hippos tend to be more massive than the largest male giraffes, too, so they will take more force to overcome at minimum. The neck giving them leverage (if you attempted to secure the rope to the top of the neck, not the bottom) is a problem but there's less force needed to overcome the entire obstacle than with a hippo, and its more top heavy, and a higher center of mass really does make a load less balanced. Since you're talking about overcoming the strength and inertia of the animal in either scenario, the lower mass, higher center of mass load really will be more easy to move.

[King Zultan]

Seems like the only way to solve this problem would be to drop a hippo and a giraffe on the moon and see how they react.

[Duuvian]

SpaceX Starship spirals out of control in second straight test flight failure

Block 2 seems to be having problems. Makes you wonder if they regret cutting up some of the fully built Block 1 hardware that never got to be launched. But I've yet to review the experts' analyses, was saving that up for the weekend.

(Also, as of last night, it seemed that trying to land a lunar lander "the size of a giraffe" is two-for-two on tipping over. Perhaps they need to send one "the size of a hippo", i.e. less likely to topple.)

How is the contract structured? I think I remember reading one of the Biden era contracts was one of those Dick Cheney KBR contracts where the company is paid some amount over a dollar for every dollar spent. During the Bush years I saw a documentary that had footage of KBR contractors piling up computers with bulldozers and setting them on fire.

[martinuzz]

Seems like the only way to solve this problem would be to drop a hippo and a giraffe on the moon and see how they react.

For !!SCIENCE!!