Discussion Which base to make next?

[Urwumpe]

EDIT: re - cratering or , in newspeak, bearing capacity failure. This is too large an unknown to rely on Mi-26 or V-12 data, neither of which blow hot gases under their bellies. We can't simply scale up Spirit or Opportunity or Viking.

Temperature is irrelevant. what counts is volume flow. Total Pressure and mass. Temperature becomes important when you start to ignite grass (low risk on Mars), melt ice or turn sand into glass.

What decides how much soil you blow away, and how you blow it away, is just the dynamic pressure and airflow at the surface. You maybe eject the exhaust at up to 4500 m/s, but when you have about 90° angle to the soil, this is turned mostly into additional heat and dynamic pressure.

And that can all actually be well simulated and calculated. A rocket engine isn't really different to a helicopter rotor for the soil below. Even if you would have the rocket engines really close to the soil during landing, you will not only have options to lower the ground pressure (eg by spacing the engines further apart, which has also other advantages for your design), but also a very short exposure of the soil to the maximum pressure.

If you plan to reuse the engines for ascent, it is even better to have the engines as high on the spacecraft as possible, so they are not corroded by dust impinging on the hot engines.

 

[Wishbone]

Mummph... back to the drawing board ... It is a pity my lunar landings have seen me spend a bit too much time at 1 to 10 meters alt.

 

[Urwumpe]

Mummph... back to the drawing board ... It is a pity my lunar landings have seen me spend a bit too much time at 1 to 10 meters alt.

That is a piloting error. If you can't spot your landing site already well from 50m decision altitude, you should maybe think about better windows.

I usually do most of the correction work in 500m altitude, relatively far away from the base, and then aim for a steep drop, always keeping the landing zone/pad in sight until shortly before landing. The last 50m of the landing are usually without any big corrections for me, since I have to do it by instruments in most spacecraft, and a few centimeters of error aren't really bad. as long as you land on the pad, with less than 3 meter variation, you are good enough for government work.

Important is just to have the big corrections done as early as possible, so you only have small errors left.

A good placement of VOR beacons along the main landing routes for a base is helping you there a lot. If you for example spend a bit of extra fuel for not going the shortest route, but aiming for an approach VOR about 20 km away from the landing pad and then turn towards the pad in a defined corridor, so you can use the VOR as waypoint for the final approach (I prefer about 10 km altitude at this point, gives you a good 30° approach to the pad)

Of course, it isn't needed - but a VOR has a bigger range than the LPAD VTOL navaids and a VOR in the center of the base is usually not a good help for getting lined up with a landing pad.

 

[fsci123]

I actualy am working on a civilian base on the moon based on nasa projects...
But i have one question:
What inspired the orbiters creators to name brighton beach brighton beach... Because coincidentally i live one mile from brighton beach and its actualy a slum...

 

[orbitingpluto]

I actualy am working on a civilian base on the moon based on nasa projects...
But i have one question:
What inspired the orbiters creators to name brighton beach brighton beach... Because coincidentally i live one mile from brighton beach and its actualy a slum...

Brighton is the name of a coastal city in England famous for... drum roll please.. its beaches.

Wikipedia link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brighton,_England

 

[Wishbone]

Martian bases in some regions may make use of lava caves for shelters...