A Little Tipsy

Let me start by admitting that I am by no means an expert on aerospace engineering and could most certainly not land anything on the moon or Mars or anywhere else in our solar system. I don't think I ever even succeeded at that egg drop challenge everyone did in elementary school (not even sure I participated). The point is that my opinion on the Odysseus Lander is only that, one of 10,000 opinions by someone with no expertise on the subject. 

Remember that email chain letter from a few years ago about how the booster rockets on the space shuttle are based on the width of a horse's ass? It's got to do with train tracks being based on old wagon trails, which in turn owe their dimensions to Roman chariots, and you see where this is going. The credibility of the story is debatable, but the point is that for anything we construct, eventually some part of the process is going to be arbitrary or born of a necessity that's no longer a problem to overcome. 

I was thinking about this when I saw the Odysseus lander. I wondered if it had to be designed the way it is to properly fit in the payload space of the rocket, hence it effectively being taller than it is wide. 

From what I can find, the Falcon 9 rocket is about 3.66m (12 feet) wide. I don't know what that is in horse asses, but let's leave that rabbit hole be. I don't feel like researching what other landing craft it housed or exactly how much of that diameter is usable cargo space and not insulation or whatever else it takes to get that phone booth into space. All I want to know is why it was designed that way when so many other craft understand the importance of placing your center of gravity as low as possible. 

This is the Philae Lander, part of the Rosetta mission to Comet 67 P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko back in 2014 (launched in 2004, by the way). It had a rough landing of its own. One missed harpoon and a failed thruster caused it to bounce twice before finally landing and resuming its mission. You'll notice it only has 3 legs and is overall fairly low to the ground.

This is the Viking lander. It landed on Mars in 1976. It also only has 3 legs and is overall wider than it is tall. Are you noticing a pattern yet?

The Odysseus lander has six legs, but according to reports, one leg may have snapped, sending it on its side and possibly leaning against a rock. I don't want to diminish their accomplishment, but ignoring decades of sensible design doesn't endear me to their cause.

This is a tensegrity robot, designed by the Creative Machines Lab out of New York City. It uses tensioning rods to maintain its shape and can even roll by telescoping and expanding its legs in a sequence. Theoretically, a science payload could be suspended in the center of this "skeletal ball" and with no obvious up or down could land in any orientation and be able to correct itself. Also, depending on where we drop it, it may not even need a chute or booster to slow it down. As stated, though, this is all theoretical as only various field tests have been conducted to prove the concept of rolling as a viable means of locomotion on uneven terrain. 

It makes me wonder if Intuitive Machines, creators of the Odysseus lander, maybe had to answer to some higher-ups who weren't too keen on any unproven technologies, instead opting for something that at least resembled a more conventional design.