Oust as ancient cartographers filled the uncharted edges of their seafaring maps with drawings of sea monsters and dragons, modern designers of vehicles traveling to other planets confront a legion of hazards, both imagined and real. During the earliest days of space exploration, NASA briefly worried that the Apollo landers might sink beneath lunar dust like quicksand. As we push farther out into the solar system and explore more fantastical worlds, the potential threats have likewise become more exotic, from huge icy spikes on Europa to massive ocean waves on Titan. The surfaces and atmospheres of other worlds present conditions that are not fully known and that may be difficult or impossible to replicate in the laboratory. I've spent three decades attempting to anticipate those hazards in order to build protections into the design and operations of spacecraft about to be dispatched across the solar system. Even if we knew the planetary environments perfectly (and if we did, why would we go?) and it were physically possible to test our hardware in those environments on Earth (usually we cannot-even if we get the pressure and temperature right, we can't match gravity easily), on most projects, we simply cannot afford the time or money.
展开▼
