Vertical-horizontal landing on Mars....

At 4:30 pm PST yesterday, while going back and forth to NASA TV for
the Cassini events, I caught a clip of an animation showing landing on Mars
in a cylinder that lands horizontally -- but as if it were vertical!

Chutes at the midpoint of the cylinder's length, rockets on the opposite
side for final touchdown!

Other than shorter ladders, what does this configuration give over
conventional vertical landing?

/dps

(ummm, it is history that someone came up with this design. Isn't it?)

In article ,
dave schneider wrote:
Other than shorter ladders, what does this configuration give over
conventional vertical landing?

Good stability with relatively short landing gear, and possibly a better
view for landing.

The problem with the back-her-down-on-her-tail approach in non-LOR Apollo
concepts was always that you were landing a tall, slim, vehicle on
uncertain and possibly not level terrain, which meant very long landing
gear if you wanted reasonable stability against tipping over. A major
secondary issue was that you had a lousy view from way up there.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |

On 1 Jul 2004 15:43:26 -0700, (dave schneider)
wrote:

Other than shorter ladders, what does this configuration give over
conventional vertical landing?

....The opportunity for the estate of Chester Gould to sue NASA over
stealing the look'n'feel of Dick Tracy's Space Coupe.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

On Fri, 2 Jul 2004 00:59:52 GMT, (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

The problem with the back-her-down-on-her-tail approach in non-LOR Apollo
concepts was always that you were landing a tall, slim, vehicle on
uncertain and possibly not level terrain, which meant very long landing
gear if you wanted reasonable stability against tipping over. A major
secondary issue was that you had a lousy view from way up there.

....Or, to use the common analogy. slap some legs on an Atlas, and then
see how stable it is when it's time to cut the engines and let the
damn thing drop.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

(Henry Spencer) wrote:
[...]
A major secondary issue was that you had a lousy view from way up there.

You know, I thought of what a climb down it would be when the links to
the early LEM designs were posted.

But for the uneven landing issue...doesn't the "space coupe" design
still require a moderately even area the length of the cylinder?

/dps

P.S. OM, what do you suppose NASA will decide to hang off the sides
to make it look more like the magnets of Gould's "design"?

/dps

In article ,
dave schneider wrote:
But for the uneven landing issue...doesn't the "space coupe" design
still require a moderately even area the length of the cylinder?

For any design you need a vaguely flat area big enough for the "footprint"
of the landing gear. The horizontal cylinder is less tolerant of local
irregularities within the footprint, but on the other hand, its footprint
is smaller because its center of gravity is so much lower. I suspect it
comes out ahead, overall.
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |