Replies

i just looked it up and you can get a little over 3 Joules of energy out of a Rat Trap Spring at the lever end. . . hmmmm that's almost 10 Joules from three of them. Although I was posting facetiously there just might be enough there to get something accomplished. . . Perhaps bigger rat traps would have been enough. LOL!

It is a very low-g environment, and your rat traps are definitely not out of consideration.

If we take 10 joules at face value, this translates to v = sqrt( 2E/m ) = sqrt( 20/100 ) m/sec = .44 m/sec, and the height attained would be 1/2 X .44²/10^-3 m = 96.8 m

Correct me if I'm wrong! I mean that seriously.

Correct me if I'm wrong! I mean that seriously.

Thanks, Doc. . . looks good to me. I like it.

I think they should have included some spring devices, not necessarily rat traps, in the legs for just such an eventuality to allow moving the lander. But then I am a belt AND suspenders type of guy. With an achieved altitude (distance?) of ~100 meters or so, they should have been able to move the lander away from the shadowed cliffs some fraction of that distance. With some judicious timing of when the springs were triggered (moused?) they could grossly direct on which vector the lander heads.