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Old 2nd November 2024 | 19:56
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tdracer
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From: Everett, WA
Originally Posted by DuncanDoenitz
Obviously, greater intelligence than my feeble brain is inventing this stuff, but we see three actual/potential landers standing upright on an unprepared, lunar, brownfield site.

Am I alone in looking at the height-to-base relationship of Starship's perceived CofG, then comparing it to the Apollo LEM, and feeling a certain unease?
It would be reasonably easy to put a 'self leveling' system on the landing gear to insure that - after landing - the Starship is (and remains) perfectly vertical. Heck, at least on this side of the pond, large motorhome type vehicles have such a system.
Remember, the LEM was done in a very minimalistic fashion - both due to technology of the day and the need to absolutely minimize the vehicle weight (the drive to minimize the LEM weight was why the astronauts stood during descent and landing - not only did it get rid of the weight of the chairs, it allowed the (heavy) windows to be much smaller while allowing the needed field of view while landing.
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