Re: Walking on the moon



pstanley55@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>from from the viewpoint of landing safely,

What were the aspects of the landing that may have caused safety
concerns? Roll over of the LM on touchdown? Contact with a cliff
edge during final descent?

Those would be some...if the landscape was too rough, you could run out of descent fuel before finding a suitable place to land, and have to abort the landing and ride the upper stage back into orbit.
I'd suspect the major concern was boulders that could damage the bottom of the LM or its descent stage engine bell as it prepared to land by extending higher above the surface than the landing gear.
The Soviets got so concerned about their LK lunar lander coming down on uneven ground, and toppling over after bouncing upward in the low gravity, that they mounted four upward-facing solid-fuel "nesting" rockets on it to make sure it stayed put after initial contact with the lunar surface. There's a photo of a subscale test of the concept here: http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/q/qlklndts.jpg

Pat
.

Relevant Pages

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