this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 185 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I think the only one that can solve all of their problems is elon. He would fix it in few weeks. Include him in next launch, he will troubleshoot directly on the Moon. Please, someone, send that asshole to space.

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 57 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And he's so full of hot air he doesn't even need a suit.

[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago (3 children)

He would try to smoke the moon regolith and come up with some rad ideas. Occupy Moon! Yeeeeaah

[–] SolarMonkey@slrpnk.net 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I mean, I would too, just to see if the moon is special.

I mean look, scientists (and random bored people) for thousands of years did the same thing. Tasted things, consumed things to see what they do..

Has anyone smoked the moon yet? No. So we don’t actually know. We can speculate it does nothing, but we don’t know.

Maybe snort moon dust? Probably more practical.

[–] Thrashy@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

Elon in his Cave Johnson era and we're here for it

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

That would be awesome. It's pretty much super asbestos.

[–] marshadow@lemmy.world 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Had me in the first half, ngl

[–] kokesh@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Haha, that was the idea 🤣

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 68 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'd like to share a design concept with IM given that this is their second moon topple:

[–] HiTekRedNek@lemm.ee 3 points 6 days ago

Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down!

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

I mean, you're not wrong. A low center of mass is legitimately a good idea.

[–] Uniquitous@lemmy.one 43 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The first one fell over and sank into the ~~swamp~~ crater.

[–] makyo@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sooooo we built another one

[–] Cavemanfreak@lemm.ee 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That sank into a crater. So we built a third one. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into a crater. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest spacecraft on all of the Moon.

[–] makyo@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

- Not to leave the room... even if you come and get him.
No, no. Until I come and get him.
- Until you come and get him, we're not to enter the room.
No, no, no... etc.

[–] BestBouclettes@jlai.lu 28 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Breaking news, space is really really hard

[–] VonReposti@feddit.dk 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It's not space that's hard. It's the stuff you encounter when you run out of space that's hard.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Like when you run into me bc I'm hard 4 u bb. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago

A hard void.

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Well that's a facepalm of a faceplant 😂

You'd almost think that by now they might have learned something from the Voyager 1 and 2 power systems and not relied completely on solar power...

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/voyager-mission-anniversary-rtg-radioisotope-thermoelectric-generator/

[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The biggest problem with RTGs is the extreme cost and lack of availability. Pu-238 is very expensive and at any moment, there's only tens of KG of Pu-238 available for RTG use. They're not really a reasonable choice for private industry at this time.

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

As true as that is, they said that it cost them hundreds of millions of dollars, and the mission was only planned to last from 10 to 14 days or so. They could have used just a piece of a waste uranium rod or something as an alternate power source for such a short-lived mission.

I mean yeah, of course that would still add to the cost and complexity, and I don't even know what all that would take, but hell if you're already into the hundreds of millions of dollars range, you ought to consider redundancy and alternate power sources.

[–] Badabinski@kbin.earth 18 points 1 week ago

I imagine it's more complicated than that. For example, Pu-238 only emits alpha radiation. I doubt that reactor waste only emits alpha radiation, meaning you'd have to harden the electronics for a close and potentially extreme emitter of beta/gamma radiation. I also don't know if random high grade reactor waste gets hot enough to provide meaningful amounts of energy via thermoelectric means. Alternatively, it may be that it gets too hot.

I doubt they could have simply slapped something together. The cost of developing a new RTG capable of using reactor waste would likely be a significant fraction of the budget to develop the probe itself. It might have been worth it, but I feel that it's not clear-cut.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 8 points 1 week ago

They also used the same design of a prior craft that met the same fate. But private industry are problem solvers. 🙄

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Eh... I think they should stick to solar power. Given how much trouble they've been having, let's not give them any weapons grade isotopes...

For what it's worth, just last week, Firefly stuck the landIng on their first attempt. They're seriously killing it these days, I'm happy for them.

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Solar power? On the south pole of the moon?

That would just barely work on its own, even if the thing didn't topple over.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Would it barely work, or would it always work?

If you plan to land on the pole, at a high altitude, you could potentially have direct line of sight to the sun 24/7 all year round. From the ground, the sun would appear to travel left to right along the horizon, making a full circle over the course of a month. You just need your solar panels pointed to the sides, not up.

However, if they aren't directly on the pole, they could still plan their landing to be in a location that gets sunlight for 15 earth days straight, with 0 interruption. As that might be more than the necessary time period for their experiments, that's probably perfect. And that doesn't even require being at a high elevation.

Also, being on the pole doesn't result in dimmer sunlight than on the equator like it would on earth. No atmosphere means the poles get the same completely unfiltered sunlight.

Look, the vast majority of lunar landers (and there have been quite a few) have used solar power, it's the obvious choice in space.

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Nah, solar is the obvious choice in space near the sun, and by not borking it up by landing sideways in a crater on the south pole of the moon.

Very limited scope for solar power, it don't work after landing sideways in a crater on the south pole.

Edit: By the way, our next lunar eclipse is in 6 days, do you really think that thing would go uninterrupted, even if it did land correctly?

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[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I don't think it'd matter much. On earth the poles get less light, even in summer, because the angle of the sun is low so it has to pass through more atmosphere. This isn't true on the moon, obviously. The angle will be really low on the south pole, but as long as it's in sunlight it doesn't matter where it is. There are locations on the poles of the moon that never get sunlight, but I suspect it wasn't going there.

[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

It landed sideways like 250 meters away from the intended landing zone. Did you know the moon has way more craters than Earth?

Craters = Shadows

The thing ain't got no sunlight yo, and its laying sideways in the shade, so no power...

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[–] over_clox@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Also, our next lunar eclipse occurs in the next 6 days, how the fuck they expect that to work on solar power in the first place even if it did land correctly?

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[–] veeesix@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 week ago (3 children)

When one day we get people back on the moon, is there a chance these devices could be brought back online?

[–] gibmiser@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

More likely salvaged as part of a permanent moon base.

[–] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

This was a plot point in The Martian which was pretty neat. There was also an episode of Futurama which was also neat

[–] x00z@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Brought back*

No need for this trash on the moon, even if it works.

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Well, if we have boots on the moon, at that point we don't need probes like these. At that point you just drop a sensor, or whatever experiment you want directly on the surface.

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[–] Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io 11 points 1 week ago

Whoopsi-doodles. Well, more spare parts on the Moon, all the same.

[–] tonytins@pawb.social 9 points 1 week ago

He's dead, Jim.

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Athena (goddess of wisdom and war, strange combo).

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[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Landing a fridge on those spindly little legs did seem a bit... optimistic...

[–] Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I really don't understand the tall moon lander strategy... I mean, if you're going to design it with a high center of gravity, then design it to fall over... Just use two landing legs instead of four, to ensure it falls over the right way. Then you put the solar panels on the side, so that when it topples over they're facing up.

I've literally done this in Kerbal space program, it's a pretty reliable landing system if your probe is tall.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago

Company that topled a mooncraft... topled another mooncraft.

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This could have potentially happened to Apollo 11, had Armstrong not taken over manually to steer clear of the targeted landing site with some rough areas. Maybe it would have been just leaning and not a big deal, but at the time we had no clear idea what a real landing would end up like. And I would hazard a guess that even though we've done a lot over the decades, the polar regions of the Moon are still pretty unknown.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

…but at the time we had no clear idea what a real landing would end up like…

Surveyor - “What am I? Chopped liver???”

[–] Talaraine@fedia.io 6 points 1 week ago

Seems Firefly Aerospace has got this all sorted, though. Amazing feat for them last week to have a flawless landing.

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