Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison uncovered a critical flaw in how lunar and Martian rovers are tested on Earth. Simulations revealed that test results have been misleading for decades because researchers only adjusted rover weight to simulate low gravity—but ignored how Earth’s gravity affects the terrain itself. Using a powerful simulation tool called Chrono, the team showed that sandy surfaces behave very differently on the Moon, where they’re fluffier and less supportive.
Was it a critical flaw or was it simply ignored despite being well known?
I remember watching footage of the LRV’s they used on the Apollo missions and thinking that the “sand” looked really lightweight. I also remember reading that one of the complaints from those missions was that the moon dust was really fine and seemed to get into everything.
I have a feeling someone who worked at NASA proposed this as an issue and leadership ignored their concerns.
So basically astronauts hate the moon dust. It’s lightweight and fine and it gets everywhere.
Yeah I’ve also thought about this before and I’m pretty sure it was even covered in that recent movie about faking the moon landing. It could just have been missed though, everyone else assumed it was covered years ago and so no one thought to recheck.