I find it interesting that no one has considered to get away from wheels. They should try to find a way to develop an imitation to the sidewinder snake which excels at moving over even loose sand.
the extra wear and tear from constant friction from sliding would probably cause issues that a non-biological snake cannot repair I'm sure non-wheel locomotion has been tried but it's hard to beat something with so few moving parts as a wheel
@@sleeeto I stated that I find it interesting. What you won't find is anything but tracks and wheels that have been sent to the moon. The concept is still very limited. But let me elaborate my poor choice of words. It would be nice to see something fresh and new being tested. Not just actually considered, but actually implemented past wheels and tracks for use on the moon. Wheels are great, when we have roads and conditions that they are suited well for. But wheels are not good for sand. To make wheels good for sand, you make them bad for harder terrain such as rocks. Tracks have problems also, because there won't be anyone there if they have a track slip off or fails in such a way that it falls off. Yes, I'm sure you didn't expect an actual answer.
I really don't think sand is a good representation of lunar regolith. And the wheels look a little weak. The wheels on the Rover's from Apollo had some pretty impressive performance.
It’s cracking me up that the people in RU-vid comments seem to think that they have better ideas than the literal scientists who have spent their life designing and creating these rovers. The audacity blows my mind.
@@sleeeto Perhaps, but watching the rover buried to its axles and spinning its wheels in the material, those guy-wires they're using as spokes look awfully fragile and inclined to help load-up the interior of the wheel with that material. I would like to hear their reasoning for going with essentially open wheels like this, instead of wheels with sidewalls.
@@sleeeto Over-engineering and over-complexity are things to consider. Someone who has a little distance from the subject can come up with clever alternative solutions that can shorten development time. I've seen this many times in my job, and I don't see why it should be a bad thing. Judging people for having ideas is narrow-minded.
the apollo missios were manned, operating at high speeds and were designed for a use of 3 to 5h whle this rover is supposed to operator for a long duration at low speed. completely diffrent usecases with diffrent wheel design choices
Yes. there's friction between granules of sand, even granules that look smooth from a macroscopic view. Depending on the amount of friction sand may well hold its shape.
The sand and dust grains on the moon are much more jagged than the rounded ones on the Earth, because they have not been subjected to the weathering and erosion on the ones that are here. This jagged shape helps these grains to hold together and makes them more "sticky." When the astronauts returned to the spacecraft after their moonwalks, they had a lot of dust stuck to their spacesuits.
rubber is used for grip on roads at medium to high speeds . rovers move very slow and also sand gives sufficient friction to metal surface. Comparing strength/weight ratio, metal wins
