Lunar Lifeboat
Adapted from “Lunar Lifeboat” written by David Krauss and Tom Martin, Mar. 10, 1977. When I was a kid, visiting Grandpa and Grandma’s house in Houston, I would spend a couple days, keying in this little BASIC program from one of his magazines… earlier this year, some 25+ years later, he still had the magazine and scanned it for me. Now, for your Web2.0 AJAX viewing pleasure in all it’s glory…
While flying a low orbit mapping mission on the moon, your craft has hit a flying wombat! (An avian mammal native to the area.) You are safe inside your ejected survival capsule when you discover that your automatic descent computer is jammed full of wombat feathers and has failed. Your main thrust unit is faltering but may yet get you down safely.
- To save the capsule you must land at less than 2 ft/sec.
- To survive you must land at less than 5 ft/sec.
Capsule instrumentation is ok and will tell you where you are. Remember, gravity will add 5ft/sec to your descent. Good Luck!