Driving on other planets

[lpetrich]

Watch What It's Like To Drive With Other Planets' Gravity
noting
What It's Like to Drive on Other Planets - YouTube

Using this game with its detailed physics of vehicles and how they behave when they collide and get smashed up: BeamNG.drive | BeamNG

The demonstrator used a pickup truck. Under the Earth's gravity, it behaved pretty much as one would expect. Under the Moon's gravity, it did not have much traction and it skidded a lot. But when it drove over a hill, it stayed in the air a long time. Under Jupiter's gravity, it could barely get off the ground. Under the Sun's gravity, it got smashed to the ground. Under Pluto's gravity, it went airborne and bounced a few times before settling down.

When I look at that, I think of the Philae lander on Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It bounced a sizable distance on that comet nucleus's surface.

 

[lpetrich]

I'll collect surface-gravity values here, as multiples of the Earth's -- 9.81 m/s^2, 32.2 ft/s^2

• Sun: 27.9
• Mercury: 0.378
• Venus: 0.907
• Earth: 1
• - Moon: 0.166
• Mars: 0.377
• - Phobos: 0.000581, Deimos: 0.000308
• Ceres: 0.029
• Vesta: 0.025
• 23238 Ocasio-Cortez: 0.00012
• 153289 Rebeccawatson: 0.00041
• Jupiter: 2.36
• - Io: 0.183, Europa: 0.134, Ganymede: 0.146, Callisto: 0.126
• Saturn: 0.916
• - Mimas: 0.00648, Enceladus: 0.0113, Tethys: 0.0149, Dione: 0.0236, Rhea: 0.0269, Titan: 0.138, Iapetus: 0.0228
• Uranus: 0.889
• - Miranda: 0.0081, Ariel: 0.027, Umbriel: 0.020, Titania: 0.039, Oberon: 0.035
• Neptune: 1.12
• - Triton: 0.0794
• Pluto: 0.071
• - Charon: 0.029
• Eris: 0.083

I assumed that the mean density of asteroids 23238 OC and 153289 RW was a typical stony-meteorite value: 3.5 g/cm^3.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Watch What It's Like To Drive With Other Planets' Gravity
noting
What It's Like to Drive on Other Planets - YouTube

Using this game with its detailed physics of vehicles and how they behave when they collide and get smashed up: BeamNG.drive | BeamNG

The demonstrator used a pickup truck. Under the Earth's gravity, it behaved pretty much as one would expect. Under the Moon's gravity, it did not have much traction and it skidded a lot. But when it drove over a hill, it stayed in the air a long time. Under Jupiter's gravity, it could barely get off the ground. Under the Sun's gravity, it got smashed to the ground. Under Pluto's gravity, it went airborne and bounced a few times before settling down.

When I look at that, I think of the Philae lander on Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It bounced a sizable distance on that comet nucleus's surface.

Yeah. If you want to do much with a rover on Minmus you need a very low center of gravity and reaction wheels besides. (Although I think a real rover would fare better because the terrain wouldn't have abrupt slope changes. Go over a ridgeline where it changes maybe 20 degrees, your front wheels go over first and start to fall--this imparts a rotation to your rover. Too much hang time and you don't land on your wheels anymore.) I've never tried a rover on Gilly, with it's extreme slopes and low gravity it's for masochists.

 

[Tigers!]

Which side of the road?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Which side of the road?

You realize Minmus is the lesser moon of Kerbin? In other words, Kerbal Space Program. There are a few roads around the Kerbin Space Center but none are lane marked.