I really wish there was a push in the US government to create and stockpile plutonium-238 and ensure it's readily available, subsidized, and offered for all US probes/rovers/other scientific instruments in space (whether it be for NASA's use who currently has to ration because of how little they have left, or for private use after approval).
Like, why aren't all of space scientific instruments RTG powered like voyager 1 which is still providing useful scientific data 47+ years later. Think about all of the lost scientific insights over the past few decades because either NASA (because of a low stockpile) or private companies like intuitive (from their 2 failures) end up choosing solar panels for their source of power with no other alternative.
Besides the fact that solar panels can fail if they aren't pointed a certain way, they usually offer far less power, and are subject to radiation, micro meteor, or dust damage. All of these are the main reason why these instruments tend to have a far shorter lifespan than voyager 1.
1. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-juno-spacecraft-breaks-s...
2. https://www.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/nasas-europa-cl...
There are always tradeoffs, it is almost never "why don't they just" case in spacecraft development.
I used to conduct said risk analysis.
The UK has around 140t of trans-uranics in its civilian stockpile, of which an estimated 5.6 tonnes of this is Am-241 per https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/627b4440-37c9-4e....
All they had to do was just...
But if you "just" want to put a probe on the moon, solar panels weigh less than plutonium.
You are one internet search away from finding the specific power of RTGs and of solar panels on the moon.
The need for Pu-238 was recognized years ago as the stockpile of consumed by various space probes and I believe Oak Ridge now products Pu-238 fuel pellets. I'm not sure if this production could be ramped up.
But Plutonium use has various risks associated with it. Aside from the obvious security risks, you're strapped it to a rocket that may explode while launch and come back to Earth. This is effectively a dirty bomb if the RTG containment is breached.
Solar panels are really the right choice for anything out to at least mars. Here we had a probe fall over. Would that be recoverable with RTG? Maybe. Maybe not.
1. Never invade Russia in winter.
2. Make sure your robotic lunar lander has a low center of gravity.
With the lack of atmosphere is that there is no 'natural' attitude/orientation correction. If you're tilted 5 degrees then you'll stay that way. With an atmosphere drag and aerodynamic forces can be used to ensure a proper orientation.
'Just make sure you come down straight' isn't so easy because when you enter the Moon's 'orbit' (not necessary, speaking colloquially) you're traveling extremely fast. And so to land you need to zero out your horizontal and vertical velocities. You do this by literally turning around the opposite direction and thrusting. And then you need to simultaneously also ensure your vertical velocity stays near zero as you approach the surface.
And then finally you need to come down with your vertical velocity at near zero, your horizontal velocity at zero, and perfectly orientated. This is really friggin hard. If you have even a hair of velocity you're going to bounce, skid, and otherwise do nasty things - which is why so many landers end up on their side, if not upside down. And then there's the Moon's surface itself. Come in on an even slightly unlevel terrain and again you're in for a wild ride.
Even just designing a craft that will not topple once landed is punishing.
I thought it was never get involved in a land war in Asia.
Never get involved in a war is good advice, but sometimes impossible to keep.
Historically that doesn't take much. Having almost no men or resources didn't stop Nurhaci.
What was going wrong with the occupation?
It's a book about how Japan decided to go to war with the united states. It details how China was a quagmire for Japan that was sucking up all the empire's resources. They could conquer land but they couldn't hold it. They could achieve tactical victories against Chiang but could not erode his ability to stay in the field and fight.
The story of how the leaders in Tokyo decided to double down on a war they were slowly losing in China, by starting a war they would more quickly and apocalypticly lose against the United States is a fascinating one.
Hmm.
Fuel, engines, and water will be at the bottom.
(For practical examples, look at the F9 first stage, or the Starship prototypes they've already tested.)
Also you'll need to assume for at least the foreseeable future that any Starship HLS landing will require sufficient fuel to return to orbit.
With enough margin left you can very reasonably adjust the center of balance by using multiple tanks and pumping all the fuel into rear tanks.
That should be enough given that the Starship HLS is estimated to have around 1.5 million kg of fuel at max capacity and only 100k kg of payload to the lunar surface (200k kg payload max for non-landing starship). That makes the payload mass to lunar surface only 6-7% of the total fuel capacity.
So outside of an extremely risky "attempt landing with no fuel left for an abort or return to orbit", you'll have at least double to quadruple the weight of the payload in just fuel alone.
Now for an earth landing of course the calculus here is different, especially since Starship's earth landing strategy explicitly requires throwing the vessel on it's side during the "bellyflop" and only pulling out of that fall with a powered landing at the last possible second.
TLDR No. Where center of mass will be able to make a difference fuel will make up significantly more mass than the payload.
Oh, wait, hrm...
Fₜ = (m × g × cos(θ) × b) / (a + b)
Also, make sure your robotic private spacecraft doesn't land on the edge of a crater. Or partly on a big rock. Or where a rock or ledge is high enough between the legs to reach the rest of the craft.
> HOUSTON, TX – March 7, 2025 – Intuitive Machines, Inc. (Nasdaq: LUNR, LUNRW) (“Intuitive Machines”) (“Company”), a leading space exploration, infrastructure, and services company, has announced the IM-2 mission lunar lander, Athena, landed 250 meters from its intended landing site in the Mons Mouton region of the lunar south pole, inside of a crater.
It's also somewhat funny that this mission update is written in the style of a press releases, mentioning that stock ticker and an obligatory paragraph about forward-looking statements, whereas others are just a normal update.
Apollo 14 and 12 achieved 30 meters and 163 meters with human piloting, respectively, and that's after the program made precision landing a high-effort mission goal. The automated missions of the 60s-70s were often off target by a kilometre or more, but Surveyor 3 came in within 200 meters as well in '67.
Japan did a mission in 2024 with the express purpose of achieving automated precision landing - SLIM, nicknamed "Moon Sniper" - and hit 55 meters off center of a 100-by-100 elipse despite losing a main engine nozzle during descent (but also landed on its side, bummer). 50-150 meters is what the Chinese missions in the 2010s generally managed to do at times as well. I think Chang'e 5 (2020) holds the present record at within 10 meters.
> “the most southernmost lunar landing and surface operations ever achieved”.
> “This area has been avoided due to its rugged terrain and Intuitive Machines believes the insights and achievements from IM-2 will open this region for further space exploration.”
I wonder if this 250 mile error is why they ended so far south in the first place.
David's book spends a lot of time dwelling on the tension between highly automated systems and the role of the human in them, and the HCI factors of the Apollo missions. They also recap each landing through that lens, including the major changes done to the Lunar Module UI (physical + software) and the landing script/programs for each mission and how things worked out in practice and how it was debriefed after. If you want the insight look at the decision to go for precision landing, how (and how well) it was achieved and how everyone involved felt about it, this is probably your best one-stop go-to.
And for anyone working in embedded UI, or around automation, etc. it's a wondeful mind-sharpener with many lessons in an inspiring applied context.
The Apollo user interface and computer were so state of the art that many of the problems and solutions remain quite similar today. I work in a similar area (cars, with ever-increasing amounts of automation, driver assistance and connectivity) and some of the debates and on-the-job exchanges and meeting notes cited in the book could be straight out of my day job 60 years later with only minute differences. Some of the "Lessons on Software Development"-type docs penned by Apollo engineers in the aftermath of the program (trade-offs of platform approaches and HW abstractions vs. optimization, how to get a handle on quality and testing, etc.) also still read absolutely modern to this day, almost with greater summarizing clarity than what decades of paradigms and jargon have slathered on top.
Of course his interactions with the Apollo engineers is priceless. I worked for one such engineer, and the strain of perfection was great discipline.
At one point during its transit the spacecraft will have been going about 23,000 miles per hour, suddenly 250 miles doesn't seem like much. Though obviously that's in the middle of the trip and plenty of things happen between the transit between the earth and moon and landing.
I know it's taken for granted, but it really shouldn't be.
In both cases there are references along the way and at the destination. With no atmosphere landing on the moon seems rather trivia for today's technology?
Maybe next missions will feature less tower-shaped designs and more crab-shaped designs, at least during the landing phase.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_HLS#/media/File:HLS_S...
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-astronauts-test-spac...
Sure, there's lots of details to consider, e.g. center of gravity, overall weight, maximum possible duration to hover and ability to accurately steer and pick your landing spot. But the inherent difficulty in "how do you not topple over" is definitely there, and it's clear the proposed Starship lander will have to outperform these IM landers significantly.
That said, if you want to scale out payload to the surface I guess you have to (which however eats into your center of gravity advantages from having lots of engines at the bottom, too).
I understand that the recently successful Blue Ghost has sensors to detect suitability of the landing spot, and used it to re-position twice while landing. Starship would probably need something like that, too.
Projectile grappling-hooks to embed into nearby ground then winch the line taught? Just have to make sure all are launched at the same time with force vectors that cancel out. Maybe even launch them before touchdown so it doesn't topple over during landing if one of the feet land on a random rock.
That’s based on impact speed.
To learn more about the strategy for landing on the moon, listen to this audiobook. Extremely good.
The Man Who Knew the Way to the Moon
Firefly's Blue Ghost landed on the moon last week without tipping over, proving that a modern commercial company can do it.
Kind of embarrassing for IM which is 0 for 2. I'm sure there are all kinds of reasons/excuses for why IM's landers fell over and I'm sure their mission profiles are different from Firefly's, but from a high level perspective I'm sure senior leaders at NASA are reconsidering giving any new contracts to IM.
Have they published a root-cause analysis?
This time they remembered to turn it on, but it didn’t work very well.
The lack of credible comments strikes me as someone socking the answer: they’ve committed to a stacked format that is inherently unstable. If they can’t get an answer out before the next budget is passed, their contracts should be cancelled.
> from a high level perspective I'm sure senior leaders at NASA are reconsidering giving any new contracts to IM.
Truth is, all contractors rely on NASA data about Moon surface, and this data is not 100% reliable.
But some people trust NASA and others much more cautious and include bigger possible error margins in their models.
I mean, FF could just include much larger design margins, with less payload, so next time FF will optimize design and could also tip over.
But good news, IM next time could make larger margins and will also achieve 100% success.
at NASA, and DOGE, when they catch wind of it
bagholders on reddit trying to understand the 50% drop have not been open to anything rational that explains the 50% drop
so far I've gotten "You are blinded by dumb hate." for pointing out that $LUNR's unintuitive machines getting contracts from Nasa are their only business plan, as if this is a partisan thing
I can't believe people think they're going to "make america great again" by cutting funding for all the stuff that makes America an economic, cultural, and academic powerhouse.
But...specifically on funding for Intuitive Machines I don't understand how NASA also gave then an IDIQ contract for up to $4.8 billion for lunar communications and PNT services [0] based on the experience of one lunar lander that didn't actually work.
[0] https://spacenews.com/nasa-selects-intuitive-machines-for-lu...
Space is hard. There's nothing "embarrassing" in controlled landing on the freakin Moon with a shoestring budget, even if the landers fell over. Reddit's r/technology is leaking in this thread.
Once upon a time most planes crashed. Then the state of the art advanced.
If IM can’t publish a convincing root-cause analysis for why their landers keep tipping over while their competitors’ don’t, they shouldn’t get new contracts and existing ones should be revisited.
1) private companies landing on the moon is a brand new thing in a very difficult technology. If we want to encourage it, maybe we should minimize risk.
2) what were their mission goals? Maybe it was just to stick the landing, test landing gear, etc. (There is a bunch of equipment on there for other things, so they must have had some other plans.)
3) what is the difference between a private company and NASA doing it? That is, why is it so hard to do what NASA did over 50 years ago, without things falling over, etc.? Is it budget? Time for testing and retesting (investors want returns)? Talent? Is NASA witholding its secret ingredients like a self-centered chef? (At least some national space agencies also have had problems, like JAXA, but I'm not sure how widespread that is.)
Edit: I would make it competitive, though. That's the point of private business - it can fail and disappear. Compete for the next contract.
I’ve seen many occasions in my career when some manager had flown across the country with a business class ticket, stayed in a fancy hotel, rented a luxury car, and turned up to an all-hands-on-deck meeting to announce in a grave tone that the minimum wage workers are just going to have to make some sacrifices.
This is almost precisely what’s going on with DOGE except you can substitute private jet and secret service motorcade. And instead of minimum wage, it’s… less than minimum wage.
The richest are complaining about being too poor to help the needy, and fixing the issue by cutting every program that helps those under the poverty line.
The reason the manager flying around spending money to attend a downsizing meeting is gross is that the manager is spending company money (that could go to prevent downsizing).
To complete the analogy, you would need to be implying that Elon's personal money should be paid to fund federal services.
https://www.inc.com/bruce-crumley/why-elon-musks-faa-contrac...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/11/us/politics/elon-musk-com...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/03/01/elon-musk...
https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/minority/as-elon-mus...
https://apnews.com/article/house-democrats-musk-doge-oversig...
I am. These payments are called taxes.
Taxes he's successfully evaded paying using the the same tricks as every other billionaire, such as taking out loans against his shares that will be repaid after his death by his estate, which has negligible tax rates compared to the kind of income taxes paid by mere mortals.
All joking aside, if Elon -- just him, no other billionaire -- had simply paid the same marginal tax rates as any random upper-middle-class citizen, it would be 10x the amount DOGE had cut so far from the federal budget.
An entire federal agency was deleted and thousands of non profits and other organizations were using the funding source as their only client and are also deleted now
Just because this one is publicly traded we should expect a different outcome?
I love prediction markets because now there is another outlet for perceiving politics than just debating. I take your money in a zero sum game if my worldview is more accurate, love that. I would almost say it rewards having a contrarian view of the world, but there are some psychology studies that show even ideologues like you will make accurate predictions if there is a payout of basically any amount. So I doubt it’s actually a contrarian view given that you have the same information.
So what is your thought on the rest of the comment
In any case, I don't know if IM needs to lose a contract or not, I should have been more specific and probably done more research, but I was more interested in NASA retaining funding for their missions, and if they think IM is a good company then by golly I'm not one to second guess rocket scientists.
Overall, I don't agree with the fact that any of the other stuff was cut the way it was. R's hold both legislative bodies, the executive branch, and the judicial branch (kinda). If they wanted to cut funding the proper way, with a budget and all that jazz about how a bill becomes a law, that's fine. However simply cutting the funding at the exec level with no regard for anything is fucking stupid and illegal.
As far as betting markets being accurate goes, I have no opinion or experience for that as I don't play those types of betting games. It could be very useful, but I don't really care if I am right or wrong overall, I will and do change my views if I am wrong (sidebar: would an ideologue do that I wonder?). I used to be a much different person, politically, and as I learn new things I change my view of the world over time. My bet with my worldviews is that I go out and do things that align with those views, the prize is that the things I do make a positive difference.
I was completely off.
“This profound opportunity to make history isn’t solely built on technology – it’s established through the relentless dedication of our people, who have turned the Company’s words about a reliable cadence of lunar missions into action.”
Looks like the company is in alignment with NASA. I am actually impressed.
I would now look for a failure in one of the leg compressors.
Imagine a truck with a jet engine that lands on the rear end, then falls onto its wheels, because it's designed to operate when positioned horizontally.
Presumably it's that shape to fit in the fairing of a Falcon 9?
I found dimensions and a picture of IM-1 here:
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id...
The IM-1 lander was 1.57 meters wide and 4m tall, but based on the picture I think the width doesn't include the legs.
The Blue Ghost lander also launched on an F9; it's 2m high and 3.5m wide, and it landed without falling over. (dimensions from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ghost_Mission_1)
The F9 payload envelope dimensions can be found on page 79 of:
https://www.spacex.com/media/falcon-users-guide-2021-09.pdf
Dimensions shown appear to be <inches> [ <millimeters> ] - the bulk of the space is a cylinder with a radius of "180.020 [ 4572.5011 ]" which I read as just over 4.5 meters in diameter; the cylindrical part is just over 6.6 meters high (and then you get into the conical section at the nose).
The space inside the fairing is bigger than this but there is empty space between it and the payload to ensure they don't come into contact due to vibrations, etc., during launch.
So IM-1 could well have been wider and shorter and still fit on the F9.
edit: just realized my own stupidity, a ball would be very hard to land..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover#Airbags
See also the section "uprighting", further down the page - they used a tetrahedral shell with a sensor so it knew which side was down and could lever itself upright.
Look at the lander. Pray tell, if you want it shorter, where is everything supposed to go?
Here's exactly that:
https://x.com/SERobinsonJr/status/1879361461002371351
Nova-C (Intuitive Machine's platform) is 3x2x2 meters, and fits in a Falcon 9. Blue Ghost is 2x3x3 meters, and fits in the same fairing.
Here's a comparison (note that the Blue Ghost platform is currently the only one to succeed at it's intended mission, though IM1 did technically land safely but sideways):
EDIT: or a horizontal lander, packed on it's side for takeoff.
I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but landing something this tall seems quite complicated too in the first place.
This is probe #2 from the company - NASA did not get there until Apollo 11 they are not the same... Computers are almost a billion times faster.
Seriously read digital apollo
not "eventually toppled" but broke a leg and landed on its side right away.
Definitely the next mission will be the same craft - they have 2 more in the works.
With the landing probe encased in airbags ejecting from the main body a couple meter above ground. The probe the rolled for a bit, once it stopped it then opened up and started doing science.
Unfortunately, at the moment I could not suggest what is small and what is big for Moon.
And for about IM, things could be even worse, as they are limited as commercial company (NASA lander could use government money to achieve much higher budget and have much more possibilities to do same thing).
If their lander is indeed top-heavy then they have some design issues to overcome. Perhaps adding a set of outriggers that deploy just before touchdown and detach or fold up on command once the lander is deemed to be in a stable orientation. Even landing it as a ball with air cushions that deflate once it comes to rest has to be preferred to simply keeping it the same and hoping for a nice flat spot to land.
And then publishes it. The fact that they have precise renders still published of their next lander [1] is a bit telling about their engineering approach.
The first two landers have different backgrounds. The third and fourth re-use the first lander background in the same orientation and mirrored. I would think that since the third lander has a model displayed and the fourth is just a proposed outline that they may be open to structural changes by the fourth if they get that opportunity.
Hopefully they take the bait and pursue modifications that give their lander a lower center of gravity or a wider footprint. If I were at NASA I would be hesitant about allowing them to launch that third model with no mods. Even if all they do is hit the free section on craigslist in Houston and grab all the free-weights and a lightly used tarp to swing, testicle-style, underneath the lander as it tries to find the moon.
Or design it assuming it will tip over on landing.
More seriously outside the box. This one is going to scratch my head for a couple of days. It's gonna fall - make use of that fall. Not useful if you need light for solar panels and you are stuck in a crater.
I am going to hunt down pictures of Surveyer III.
If you were writing software and it had a bug, you wouldn't throw out the whole thing and replace it with a spreadsheet, you'd fix the bug.
Because $150M was/is at stake and "bouncy ball that rolls to a stop and then unfurls" has been proven repeatedly to work?
I do agree.
NASA did it right, but that surface looks like a no-joke bed of razors. Thank you NASA.
When do we launch the lunar tow truck? Cash or charge?
And maybe don’t bet on a SPAC to deliver advanced engineering?
[1]: https://www.rocketlabusa.com/updates/rocket-lab-space-softwa...
A lot of discussion is happening around the aspect ratio of the Noca-C landers. Part of the reason they're so tall and skinny looking is that the lander is built around two linerless composite fuel tanks. Two big tanks are more efficient than four smaller ones. The legs should definitely be wider on the next two landers.
If your tanks are empty, they are now dead weight. Use them as pads.
If you had 30 empty tanks on spikes you could bounce, roll onto the surface.
Again tanks as landing gear.
A delivery craft that crashes somewhere else, or flies over the rights the other two. ( Three for one)
It can always correct itself after landing and then “unpack” itself.
Someone tell me why we’re not doing this.
What if spherical comes up against a rock or crater wall as big as it is? Splat.
IMO, it’s probably just easier to have a few long pole extend so your base is absolutely enormous, no? Then again, I’m just some internet nerd lol.
Drop a Tesla tow truck...( A joke... But you would be able to see the explosion from Earth)
Does this mean delays for Artemis, or do we not know yet?
Artemis II is entirely delayed by Lockheed’s Orion spacecraft. Not SpaceX’s Starship.
III is scheduled for mid 2027, and will be delayed further as time passes [2].
Edit: Yeah, I'm crazy. SLS might be ready now, but it was delayed about 6 years. Starship and Orion both have a bit to catch up.
So entirely.
Artemis III is being delayed by Artemis II. We expect Starship to delay III. But so far, 100% of the delays have been caused by Orion.
Interesting philosophical questions though :)
I know it's actually quite dry, thin, and dusty, but half the density of common Earth rock (~1.6 v. ~2.7g/cm³) should still conduct some sound. If you put your ear (or more likely, a microphone) on the ground...
What if we had sticky landing pads? And literally glued the probe to the surface? ( No. You would either have to find a rock or you would simply collect dust. )
There are many brilliant ideas here.
> "The failure of Athena....was almost identical to IM’s first moon landing in February 2024"
> "Athena had the same tall, thin design that some experts had feared could lead to a repeat of the accident."
Good grief
> On Friday, however, IM declared Athena dead.
250 miles off-course, and their second flop in a row. I'd certainly cross them off the Approved Vendor list.
About that "gotta be tall & tippy to fit inside the Falcon's payload fairing" idea. No, it does not. The payload fairing was jettisoned ~1/4M miles before Athena got to the moon. So plenty of time for the lander to deploy some folded-up "spider legs" landing gear, making "land and fall over" virtually impossible.
This is a hardware rich, inexpensive program, and they could fly probably 100 missions for the cost of one NASA old style mission.
We can do hard things,and we do them because they are hard. Listen to JFKs Rrice U speech.
A ball design too, rolls over and stands up
There are lots of robots like this now, where if they get upside down, the wheels are on 'arms' that can just swing to the other side to make it right-side-up again. Admittedly I'm a mechanical engineer myself, but this design doesn't seem like "Rocket Science" to me. haha. (nice pun amirite)
My thoughts about it is that.. 'hey we got tech to stream live the whole thing... from lift off to landing, with 10 cameras to each direction. I remember watching live the "Red Bull Stratos" and it was soooooooooo cool!!!!!! Why not to the moon???
How come we went to the moon 40-50 years ago, and then silence for decades? If anything technology is better/faster/safer. We should be going to the moon every year just to validate the parking ticket. And now you see we went from "flew there, landed, played golf, came back" to "oops we can't remote control land an box".
The US and Russia were at war, though they did not directly engage with each other due to the threat of mutual nuclear destruction. Along with various proxy wars, technological dominance in space was a key factor in this war. If one side gained enough advantage, they could potentially leverage it into using it to win a direct war. Another factor is that Kennedy's assassination protected the program from political pressure within the US.
Since then, other factors have turned the attention of the space program: The USSR fell apart and didn't pose much of a threat, reducing the budget to a fraction of the size. The Space Shuttle was designed to be the next big thing in space, as a reusable launch vehicle; it could only do low earth orbit and fell short of its goals. Focus shifted to science, and a lot of good science could be performed in low earth orbit; This has lead to, for example, the significant achievement of a continuous human presence in space since the year 2000. Finally, the accepted risk for Apollo was several times what is acceptable today. Even if we had all of the old hardware on the launchpad ready to go for another mission, NASA would never put an astronaut on it.
The IM-1 mission was about 100 million dollars, a single Saturn V launch was more than a billion. Total Apollo budget for Apollo (6 crewed landings and a few manned missions for testing, and some uncrewed test flights) was 260 billion in todays money.
Thus, the IM-1 was cheap.
In this case, "robotic" and "private" could be similar enough in category to be confusing. In the Order of Adjectives[0], "robotic" is in the TYPE category, near the bottom of the list, and "private" seems to fit in that same category at first glance. By that interpretation, either "robotic private" or "private robotic" works.
What if instead of "private" it said "Californian"? That would make it an ORIGIN, and "Californian robotic spacecraft" becomes the obvious choice — otherwise, you'd think they were talking about a spacecraft belonging to robots from California. ;)
So if we interpret "private" as an ORIGIN, your "private robotic spacecraft" sounds better. That would have been my choice as well.
[0]: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/adj...
[0] “Privately owned”, while on its own an adverb and verb, is functioning as a singular adjective in the larger phrase.
Edit: Previously said “funded”, not “owned”
What an in-depth and thoughtful answer. Thank you for this!
I'm a native English speaker and wasn't even aware of this adjective ordering rule, until I read about it recently. I had internalised it, but wasn't consciously aware of it. I feel so sorry for anyone trying to learn English as a foreign language!
there's lots of articles on it. like this one https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/597981/adjective-order-g... and it's true that most of the time it just sounds odd or is confusing if you get the order "wrong".
In brief, then, English does have some similarities with con-langs.
I think it is a weird phrase to say 'robotic private spacecraft' as well. It would be much better to say 'privately funded unmanned spacecraft' or 'robotic spacecraft launched by a private company'. Much less chance of confusion.
As a non-native speaker who was never taught it, for some reason I pick the difference naturally. English native speaker sounds like as e.g. opposed to American or maybe Irish to me, and it actually adds vagueness to what language we’re talking about. Cause there are English native speakers of French.
While native English speaker sounds like exactly native speakers of English regardless of origin.
I think it’s a feature of languages in general, and there’s not as much of an official ordering, but rather an ordering that performs default binding of meanings. In hard cases you fallback to prepositions, in light cases you just employ order.
Even crazier is that we intuitively mix this rule with another implicit rule, where “I” sounds go before “A” sounds go before “O” sounds in similar words, so “big, bad wolf” violates the normal adjective ordering rule but would sound weird any other way because of… reasons.
Language is insane.
As you say, language is insane.
Now, adjective ordering. I think there is an "official" order but native speakers are not formally taught it because it is largely innate for us. It is likely something taught as a very advanced language feature because you can mix up the order and it still works.
I think a few experiments are in order:
Dark satanic mills. Jolly green giant. Large blue marble. Long winding road. Darling buds of May. Big fat Greek wedding. OK it looks like:
* Emotive (jolly, happy, sad)
* Quantitative (big, small, fat, tall, short)
* Colour
* Shape (winding)
* Other adjectives - needs some work
* Noun
I wonder if this is a regional difference. The OED claims that intuit as a verb has been in continuous use since the 1860s (at least) and I've heard it used as a verb my entire life (various areas in the US).
That's a fair source but I went to a pretty posh school in Oxfordshire! Oxford was about 90p return away by bus from Abingdon in the mid to late 1980s. I studied English to O (Ordinary) level (both language and literature) and bagged a pair of Bs.
I might also point out that I also attended schools in Devon, Manchester and multiple places in West Germany (UK Army brat).
Obviously, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and I have only my own recollections to go by but I have never knowingly heard intuit as a verb. I have only ever seen it written by Americans (for a given value of America)!
I do like it and will fall in line forthwith!
Mr T invented an "Elvish" script and language and I think he also did so for Dwarves too. I'm pretty sure he was a prof at Oxbridge with a focus in languages, mostly English.
Most English native speakers never notice adjective order as being a thing.
It is a thing and I suspect Prof Tolkien learned that dimension comes first and colour second. I don't know why we insist on this but it is pretty deep!
Not unique to English, either: Wikipedia has examples in Tagalog where the order is almost the same (apart from a clause inserted in the middle of the second sequence).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagalog_grammar#Sequence_of_mo...
private, robotic spacecraft (with comma) -> private and robotic are attributes to spacecraft, the order could be changed but as in english you have an order that is more likely used
private robotic spacecraft (without comma) -> the attribute private refers to a robotic spacecraft
If you would like to emphasize that this is a private (and not public) robotic spacecraft you would use the version without comma.
I believe even though this trait does not feel proper in written English, it's somewhat common in spoken English, if you interpret the comma as a stulting of rhythym and tone.
Perhaps more importantly, in well written English superfluous words are removed - thus 'private robotic spacecraft' becomes 'private spacecraft', since all spacecraft are by definition at least partly autonomous.
“Private spacecraft tips over on moon” would mean something rather different if a modern-day Neil Armstrong were inside at the time.
If anything, the fact that it’s just a machine matters more to me than who paid for it.
opinion, size, age or shape, colour, origin, material, purpose
It is sometimes difficult to classify adjectives this way, but "private" is probably opinion and "robotic" is probably purpose, so you are correct, "private robotic spacecraft" is probably correct.
The problem with English, of course, is that you can figure out what someone means, even if they jumble all their words up, most of the time.
I wonder if the standard of English composition has been reducing in journalism, over the past few years.
You can order a large quantity of fries or a small quantity of fries, giving 4 possible orders: large large fries, large small fries, small large fries, and small small fries.
If an order of large small fries asking for a large quantity of the shoestring fries or a small quantity of the steak fries?
I think I'd expect it to mean a large quantity of the shoestring fries.
Perhaps something like “jumbo fries” or “mini fries” or something more creative.
Sounds a bit wrong, I want to put American first.
That would require labelling the spacecraft transgender, then cutting its budget.
I don't know. It's weird that there's obviously some kind of ruleset here, but it's difficult to nail it down.
Evaluative > general property > age > color > provenance > manufacture > type
[There's plenty of elaboration on what kinds of descriptors fit into each category. For example, artisanally handcrafted goes in the "manufacture" category, and the label "manufacture" makes sense for it, but the label "material" doesn't.]
CGEL also correctly notes that this order only applies when all descriptors are being coordinated in parallel; if that isn't the case, the innermost descriptors must appear on the right, joining the head of the phrase.
> In the absence of special factors, a modifier of size precedes one of colour: a large black sofa represents the preferred order while a black large sofa is very unnatural. But this constraint can be overridden, as in [ii]: the context here is one where it has already been established that I want a large sofa, so that now only the colour is at issue. Black is thus interpreted restrictively, picking out a subset of the large sofas, and in this context in can precede large.
> while a new cotton shirt, say, is normally preferred over a cotton new shirt, the latter is not ungrammatical. It is admissible, for example, in a context where there has been talk of new shirts, and the concern is with different kinds of new shirt.
[Returning to that earlier example, you'd always expect an artisanally handcrafted Belgian waffle and not a Belgian artisanally handcrafted waffle because "Belgian waffle" is its own idea. "Belgian" and "handcrafted" are not parallel; this is a Belgian waffle that is handcrafted, not a waffle that is handcrafted and also Belgian.]
I was surprised to learn that ESL classes emphasize descriptor order so heavily. It is a real rule of fluent English usage. But the only thing that can happen if you get it wrong is that other people notice you're foreign, so in almost all cases learning the ordering has zero value to the student. Almost all students are obviously foreign by many, many different tells, and aren't hoping to pass for native.
Is probably either Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language from 1985 or The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language from 2002.
I have no idea which.
I don't know a lot about language stuff like this, but the conversation here interested me. Your comment gave me an in on more reading, so I googled your acronym, because it was unfamiliar to me. I got 2 prominent results. Wikipedia gave me a disambiguation page.
>Does it matter to you?
It matters to me because I wanted to know what you were talking about... Maybe follow up with some more learning myself. Sorry.
I'll try to learn the acronyms for fields I'm not familiar with prior to getting interested in them next time.
I love reading from it, but you might want to know that it's an 1842-page reference work, so reading the whole thing for fun might take a while. Mostly I use it if I want to look up how it treats some phenomenon that's caught my interest.
So far I've always been able to find a discussion of whatever it was that I wanted to look up, which is a testament to both the quality of the treatment and the quality of the index.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective#Order
Arguably "private" is origin and "robotic" is purpose.
[1]: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/adj...
I think this is a fair analogy: suppose we were talking about a "private detective". If we were writing a sci-fi book, we might talk about a "robotic private detective", but "private robotic detective" would sound odd.
Now, I'll grant that "private detective" has a lot more cultural weight than "private spacecraft", but I think it's fair to say that at least the word "private" is playing a nearly identical role in both phrases. With that in mind, I think "robotic private spacecraft" makes sense.
I suppose you could take this argument one step further and resolve the ambiguity by asking which distinction (robotic/non-robotic, private/public) the article writer thinks is more notable and placing that first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_(linguistics)
At least I think that's the right term (I hunted around for one that fits). So, is private spacecraft also a compound? Is it idiomatic? Maybe. Another example is little black dress, where "my new little black dress" sounds right and "my little new black dress" seems to refer to a different kind of garment.
Phenomena is plural. The singular form is phenomenon.
(Other similar words with a Greek root: lexicon/lexica, criterion/criteria, automaton/automata)
(Thanks. I was aware of this, but I still mess it up from time to time. Same for media/medium, though not nearly as much anymore.)
Etymologically, you'd expect it to apply to the physics particles named for qualities, like photon, but I don't think that's ever done.
phenomenon is the singular, phenomena is the plural, dear native speaker ;)
google: phenomenon vs phenomena
or:
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/learner-english/...
I (native english speaker) would order it as "mobile robotic probes". But if I were writing it, I'd say "robotic probe", "surface probe", or "mobile probe". In this case, robotic and mobile mean the same thing, so using both is redundant.
And although I would order it as "private robotic spacecraft", I don't think that's correct. The spacecraft is robotic, but it's not private. It might be privately-operated, privately-owned, or privately-funded (each has a slightly different connotation). But private by itself means that a private company is somehow responsible for the mission.
So if I were writing it, I'd use something like "privately-funded robotic spacecraft" or "robotic spacecraft operated by private company XYZ".
"An estimated 63,600 deaths were attributable to air pollution in the United States in 2021."
0.3% means 190 lives were lost because we prioritize moon toys over cleaning our own environment.