What would racing be like on the moon?

"SHARPSPEED" (SHARPSPEED)
11/15/2014 at 15:14 • Filed to: None

Alright, so this is an idea that's been in my head for a while. I'm a Lego builder who specializes in scenes with either minifigs or small cars (Tiny Turbos, as we call them in the circles), and my next idea is one that's both dumb and awesome at the same time: Lunar Raceway resort.

(older example of some of my work. I have better, but this one seemed fitting)

The idea is basically a racetrack resort on the moon. The track will be enclosed and pressurized and all that so even internal combustion cars can work, but I don't think that solves the issue of the moon's more....lenient gravity. Which makes me curious just how our earth cars would handle on a lunar raceway? I don't know that much on how the moon really works per say, so that's why I'm asking. If there are smart people reading, I need you right now.

Let's take the C7 Corvette Stingray, because astronaut car. 3,298 lb, 455 HP V8, 0-60 in 3.8 seconds. But those are earth numbers. We take this to our lunar track, what would change, and hope would the C7 handle? Would the lunar 'vette be more of a handful? Would it now weigh less and move faster? And what of stuff like cornering and braking? Would lunar racing now also be more dangerous than common earth racing?

Help me out, smarter-than-me folks. Please. I'll show you my lunar raceway first once it's done if you do.

DISCUSSION (100)

Chuck 2(O=[][]=O)2 > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 15:20

This is what I'd bring. Need weight for grip and enough torque to just spin the moon beneath you.

Kinja'd!!!

Drakkon- Most Glorious and Upright Person of Genius > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 15:20

well the lander that just touched down on the comet experienced so little gravity that it 'weighs' about as much as a piece of paper. The moon had a lot more gravity, but That will certainly cause trouble. Plus you will need some special tires as the vacuum of space will be sucking heat out of your rubber at an alarming rate.

mcseanerson > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 15:21

GT6 has your answer. Terribly boring.

Shankems > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 15:33

On the moon would be bad racing. Lower gravity, and all particulate ground. There doesn't seem to be anything with solid ground in this solar system worth racing on. Though racing around on Uranus would be worth some laughs.

GhostZ > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 15:42

Honestly, it would be about spring motion, not wheeled motion. Because of the reduced gravity it would be far faster to bound over obstacles than drive over them, since any time you gained any speed on the ground, you'd hit a big fucking rock that would throw you off. Low gravity, but momentum remains the same, so a crash at 40mph is going to hurt regardless.

Either way, expect it to mostly be like a big Dakar rally, extremely dangerous and with no straight paths over a crater-marked surface.

Nevermind that the extremely dusty surface of the moon would cause most wheels to jam up and clog very quickly, and cause massive dust trails wherever you went.

GhostZ > Drakkon- Most Glorious and Upright Person of Genius
11/15/2014 at 15:44

Kinja'd!!!

This is what the moon rover tire looks like. Zinc-coated steel thread mesh with titanium chevrons overtop.

SHARPSPEED > GhostZ
11/15/2014 at 15:52

Not to sound dickish, but re-read the article. The hypothetical racetrack is enclosed and pressurized. it would basically be, say, and indoor Laguna Seca with moon gravity.

GhostZ > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 15:57

Ooooh. Derp. My bad.

Cornering would be damn near impossible at speed. In diminished gravity you have greatly reduced traction on the wheels, so even on a sticky surface the wheels would slide off and the car would roll over (or slide) extremely easy. This means that aero would probably be even more important than it is now, and you would have extremely high levels of drag in order to get the downforce necessary to keep planted. So I imagine it would be a lot like a low-level formula race, where cars have tiny wheels and weigh nothing, only reach a top speed of 100mph or less, but have plenty of power and accelerate in the straights well.

I imagine it would be mostly about maintaining speed, rather than gaining or losing it.

techinsanity2011 > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 16:14

While reading this article, the first thing to come into my head was this song, with a few lyrics changes of course.

daender > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 16:18

Moonbase Alpha has given us a pretty good idea already....

Boring but the text-to-speech chat will have you in tears.

dataPOG > Shankems
11/15/2014 at 16:19

giggity...

zhaktronz > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 16:19

Luna Seca

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 16:24

Like this:

Impossible.

Takuro Spirit > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 16:30

MOON HOON

Renault R8 Gordini from 1966 > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 16:31

==____________.____._________________________________—

athought123 > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 16:35

The gravity is 1/7 that of earth's. That means you'd have 1/7 the weight pushing down on each of the wheels - which means 1/7th the traction you'd have here on earth. Your 455HP V8 won't get you anywhere. As for cornering, since there's is less gravity and less traction, you need to depend more on downforce. Every car racing will be like F1 racing. You need to drive fast enough for there to be enough down force to give you traction. If you arent fast enough, you can't turn and you'll be shooting off the course.

SamaJama > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 16:38

First off, the car would not be any faster. Assuming the environment it is in has similar air density to earth, the top speed would be the same (assuming drag is the limiting factor in top speed, not the transmission). Next, the car would not accelerate any faster; this comes down to simple Force = mass x acceleration. The car would have the same mass on the earth and moon, and the power / torque the car is putting to the wheels would be the same. If anything, the lower gravitational force would result in a much lower threshold for the force of static friction (tire grip becomes spinning and sliding more easily). This is applicable to both speeding up and braking, and could get messy fast.

I could see this being interesting for those looking to get sideways at lower speeds, but otherwise my guess would be that driving on the moon would be somewhat disappointing compared to driving on earth.

OpenWheel > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 16:46

My only extraterrestrial racing experience is on Tatooine, where the pod racers sound like Indy Cars:

Kinja'd!!!

BigBlock440 > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 16:46

It would be like driving a 550 lb go-cart with 500 hp

Ralph Wiley burner > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 16:48

Modeling objects that are mostly compound curves with large rectilinear objects is silly.

Cars are mostly compound curves.

Legos are mostly rectilinear.

Modeling cars with Lego is silly.

That is all.

LongbowMk2 > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 16:59

a pressurized enclosed track for the sake of ICE sounds boring. Moon surface or bust.

I would pick a vehicle with 4 wheel electric drive with huge suspension travel and an adjustable ballast system to adjust the craft as it travels off the surface. Speaking of off surface you need a non wheeled propulsion system, so the obvious solution is a multi directional rocket pack for thrust in any direction. Can't forget to avoid obstacles.

Oliver Madsen > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 17:00

So, first, the moon will decrease the car's weight, yes, but we have to think about what this means. Weight is defined as the force that gravity exerts on an object. If you take that corvette around a corner here on earth, the problem keep it from going full throttle around is the momentum created by mass, which is independent of gravity. So changing directions would be harder there because you have the same amount of force pushing sideways on the car, but 2/3 less force pushing it into the track (Weight). It would actually handle like a much heavier car. Racing would probably be more like NASCAR (few corners) than f1.

The Transporter > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 17:06

A few things to take into consideration:

The maximum speed that a car can go around a corner has nothing to do with its weight. While your first reflex might be to yell at me and tell me that I'm wrong, physics is on my side. When a car is going around a corner, there are two opposing forces at work: 1) the centrifugal force which is pushing the car away from the center of rotation, and 2) the centripetal force generated by the friction of the tires, keeping the car going around the corner. The equation governing friction is F f = s mg on a flat plane, where F f is the frictional force, s is the static friction coefficient, m is the object's mass and g is the force of gravity, which is approximately 17% of Earth's gravity on the Moon. The equation governing centrifugal force is F c = (mv 2 )/r , where F c is the centrifugal force generated, m is again the object's mass, v 2 is the velocity of the object's movement squared, and r is the radius of the turn. When a car is going around a corner at its maximum velocity, these two equations are in equilibrium, such that F f = F c , or s mg = (mv 2 )/r. Since m is on both sides of the equation, simple high school algebra dictates that we can simply remove it from the equation, thus s g = v 2 /r. Mass has nothing to do with cornering speed, either on the Moon or on Earth. However, because the Moon has 17% of Earth's gravity, the left side of the equation will be lower than on Earth, which means that cornering speeds will drop across the board unless significant aerodynamic downforce is added or super sticky tires are used.

While mass may have nothing to do with cornering speed directly, it plays into cornering during acceleration. There is no deceleration in physics, only acceleration in the opposite direction, so we can use the same equations for accelerating and braking forces. The equation F f = s mg works the same way in a straight line as it does around a corner and, as you can see, mass and gravity are still in play. Because a car's mass stays the same while the force of gravity is reduced, the force generated by the tires contacting the ground is likewise reduced unless a massive amount of aerodynamic downforce is generated or significantly better tires are used. Expect a lot of wheel spin, especially at low speeds. You can even see this in videos of the lunar rovers they're constantly bouncing around with their wheels spinning all over the place. Most of the wheel spin on the rovers is due to the fine talcum powder-like Lunar regolith which doesn't provide much grip on the Earth or the Moon, but a good chunk of that is due to the wheel's inability to get any grip due to the lower Lunar gravity.

Krash-Kadillak > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 17:08

Very soft springs; wide tracks (even a small bump will cause a vehicle to go 'airborne'; high-banked turns to counteract the practically non-existent gravitational force on the tires; You could also probably engineer a very easy loop-de-loop in there.

Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 17:14

what would racing be like on the moon? Fucking awesome.

Idk about keeping the track closed... I would think it would be cooler if you have a open rally, (if you have the pieces) with the moon dirt only slightly paved (rally style). (maybe have a small-ish circuit, that looks like a rally)

The cars looking like futuristic, wingless (no atmosphere) LMP1* style electric-hydrogen hybrids. With jacked up suspension (but you don't have to show them, because tiny turbos)

For the lack of Traction, a quick google search shows that the moon rocks/dust are apparently magnetic, so maybe big super magnets basically suck the cars to the ground (But not strong enough to prevent jumps)

If you follow the LMP style cars idea, I would have teams of 3 cars, and had an enduro style rally with stops for new drivers and stuff.

Bonus points for retro liveries.

*another idea is make modern/futuristic versions of the Le Mans cars of the late 60s, early 70s. (ie. Ford GT40, Porsche 917, Ferrari 330 P4, TZ2, Chapparel 2D etc)

The Transporter > BigBlock440
11/15/2014 at 17:16

Like an Ariel Atom 500 with Prius tires and the rear spoiler removed.

boobaru > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 17:21

Instead of weight minimums, I bet there will be weight maximums (or maybe a range?). Assuming the enclosed race track is pressurized with atmosphere analogous to Earth's, aero would still be very much a factor. BUT, with the reduced gravity, in order get the same downforce on a car on the moon as on Earth, the wings will have to produce 6 times more downforce, so they would be HUGE. Unless, of course, there are ballasts consisting of solid lead to give the cars 6 times more mass to equal the same weight they would be on Earth.

Steve Brandon > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 17:23

Didn't the very first NEED FOR SPEED game on the original Playstation have a moon track as an Easter Egg or did I just dream it? (Can't seem to find any evidence of this on Youtube.)

By the way, before anyone corrects me, I said the first NEED FOR SPEED game *on the original Playstation*. I know it wasn't the very first NEED FOR SPEED overall, that would have been ROAD AND TRACK PRESENTS: THE NEED FOR SPEED on the Panasonic 3DO (also ported to DOS).

Uak42 > Takuro Spirit
11/15/2014 at 17:41

Hooning with 1 hp! Or 4x 0.25 hp electric engines.

Uak42 > Chuck 2(O=[][]=O)2
11/15/2014 at 17:44

I'd replace the engine with a Tesla Model S 85D (or better) unit for same torque but gain the advantage of having an engine that does not require oxygen to deliver full power. Now to figure out if the batteries would transfer over directly from the earth donor car as well or whether we would have to make special bat packs for the moon.

Electrical cars on the moon is not new, so we already know that works(Lunar Rover Vehicle).

Old-Busted-Hotness > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 17:48

You could bank the curves up to 90 degrees! In fact you'd just about have to.

You wouldn't gain acceleration, even if you could hook up the tires (which you couldn't because your Vette only weighs 550 lbs). While the car weighs 1/6 what it does on earth, its mass is the same.

Some radical changes would have to be made to the spring rates.

You'd also need a huge supply of fresh air. With those V8's sucking down 700 cfm, you'd run out of oxygen real soon (the amount of gas would remain constant, but you'd replace your O2 with CO2 and NOx. It would be like trying to breathe straight exhaust.). Electric would be way better in a closed system.

Baeromez > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 17:48

The moon has roughly 1/6th the gravity of Earth. This mean traction would be compromised severely. The easiest solution would be to add ballast to the cars, but would result in some really poor handling characteristics. The cars would not change velocity easily as inertia is tied to mass, not weight. The next most obvious solution would be to use extreme aerodynamics to keep the cars planted. This would require very high speeds, which would probably be impractical and dangerous on an enclosed course. A more workable solution would be to race on a very steeply banked track. This would work well, but would limit you to oval track racing.

My preferred form of moon racing would be to forego the enclosure and race on the moon's bare surface. We already have well established off road racing platforms to start with, and a little embellishment could produce some seriously entertaining racing. Imagine Trophy Trucks with pressurized cabins as a base. The off road environment would provide better traction than a paved surface at such low gravity because of the mechanical grip the tires would be able take advantage of. This still leaves you with the problem of keeping the vehicle planted over jumps and bumps. A few roof mounted thrusters could take care of that though. I imagine they would either be manually activated or tied into a traction control system that would activate a particular corner mounted thruster if the corresponding wheel started to spin. I think that would make for a helluva spectacle.

Uak42 > The Transporter
11/15/2014 at 17:50

Great answer. Can I ask your opinion on what tires would work the best for a moon car?

Mud boggers?....Extremely wide tires?....Or something 3rd?

I was thinking extremely wide tires with very low erh...maybe nitrogen/argon pressure, since we are in space(sort of). What's your take on this, if you had to design a Moon Baja 1000 car?

TheStigsGermanCousin > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 18:07

Lots of weight, maybe some sort of magnetic track for them to drive on so they don't bounce about if they get airborne, I think reasonably soft suspension and a very wide stance with wide tires and a very low torque engine.

TheStigsGermanCousin > Takuro Spirit
11/15/2014 at 18:09

I love this video.

45bullets > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 18:10

anyone know that gran turismo mission where you drive a lunar rover?

Kinja'd!!!

The Transporter > Uak42
11/15/2014 at 18:11

Wider tires = more contact patch = greater friction coefficient = more grip for cornering and acceleration. That's if we're talking about running on an otherwise regular paved track plopped down under a pressurized dome on the Moon. If we're talking about a Lunar Baja 1000 across the open surface of the Moon, then the best tires developed so far seem to be the ones developed for the lunar rovers. Their piano wire mesh "tires" offer the same flexibility and rigidity as rubber tires, but don't need to be inflated. Also, the wire mesh allowed the tires to sink in to the regolith a bit, aiding in traction.

TheCrudMan > The Transporter
11/15/2014 at 18:14

All cornering when racing is cornering during acceleration.

The Transporter > GhostZ
11/15/2014 at 18:16

Accelerating (in either direction) would also be a pain on the Moon because you still need grip with the surface to do that. A drag race on the Moon would be wheel spin city and braking distances would be increased by about 83%.

Justin T. Westbrook > Takuro Spirit
11/15/2014 at 18:18

Can you just imagine the surreal experience of "having fun" on the surface of another body in the solar system. Like, "I traveled 238,900 miles to go off-roading." Off-planeting?

The Transporter > TheCrudMan
11/15/2014 at 18:22

Technically yes because the car is accelerating in a direction tangential to the velocity vector, but in an ideal constant radius corner or a skid pad type situation its instantaneous velocity remains constant.

smalleyxb122 > The Transporter
11/15/2014 at 18:40

Your semantics are wrong on a few points (weight, and how it relates to mass, makes a huge difference in how fast you can go around a corner), but your main points are spot on.

Except wider tires do not equate to a greater coefficient of friction.

Edit to add some more pedantry: The centripetal force vector isn't tangential to the velocity vector, it is orthogonal to it.

wagnerrp > Uak42
11/15/2014 at 18:41

The lunar surface is a fine pulverized dust. You would be best off with snow studs.

SHARPSPEED > The Transporter
11/15/2014 at 18:46

SO. MUCH. SMART.

No really, wasn't expecting this kind of answer. Thanks for the help. Guess it's artificial gravity then if moon racing is gonna be worth anything.

wagnerrp > GhostZ
11/15/2014 at 18:46

This means that aero would probably be even more important than it is now, and you would have extremely high levels of drag in order to get the downforce necessary to keep planted.

Are we assuming this racing is occurring in an artificial atmosphere, and not the surface?

SHARPSPEED > GhostZ
11/15/2014 at 18:47

So moon gravity just makes things suck. Disappointing. Thank you for the help.

smalleyxb122 > techinsanity2011
11/15/2014 at 18:48

We're racers on the moon.

We came up here to hoon.

wagnerrp > Uak42
11/15/2014 at 18:48

They're sealed batteries, so there would be no problem with the battery pack. The trouble would be cooling the whole thing when you have no atmosphere to convect heat to.

SHARPSPEED > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 18:49

Thanks to everyone here who chimed in. Wasn't expecting this much feedback!

SHARPSPEED > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 18:57

Kinja'd!!!

Looked at FP and my stupid post about my dumb hobby is there. That's a major first. Thanks Kat! And again, thanks to everyone else here!

Neutral President > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 18:59

There are two ways you could get cars (or bikes) to stick to the track in a low-gravity environment: Loads of aerodynamic downforce if the track is in a pressurized environment, and/or designing the track so it's made up almost entirely of steeply banked corners that turn the lateral acceleration of centripetal force on a flat track into downforce on a banked track. It could definitely be done, but the temporary loss of downforce as the suspension and tires are unloaded when changing directions could make for some VERY interesting racing.

GR1M RACER : Wrong Most of the Time > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 19:15

Relevant

Kaizer Soze > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 19:24

Play GT6, you can use the moon rover and drive around, I wish they opened it up to free play with any car. You can get some serious air going about 15 MPH so it would be cool to see what a rally car could do.

Santiago of Escuderia Boricua > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 19:27

Chapparal 2J fan car. Make your own downforce

The Transporter > smalleyxb122
11/15/2014 at 19:52

You're going to have to talk to my physics professor about weight and cornering because I got that question right twice...no, three times. Once on a homework assignment, once on an exam, and once on the final.

Riddle me this, if mass greatly affects cornering velocity, then why isn't the neutral steering speed of a banked track mass dependent? Yes, those two things are related to one another. In fact, you use the same equation to solve both of them, it's just that for a flat track = 0 (Zero. The default Kinja font makes the number zero look like a lower case o).

7liter12598723 > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 19:55

As others have stated, low gravity makes acceleration difficult, including changing direction in a corner, unless you have wild aero. And high HP ICE cars in a low volume habitat do indeed stress the balls out of your life support systems. Maybe take a page out of the HAwMS Gotland and run your ICE car AIP with liquid O² and exhaust gas capturing?

If that sounds too heavy, dangerous, and hard on power (because it would be all of those things, what kind of exhaust backpressure do you get when the exhaust has to be collected in the car and not let out, lol), obvious solution is electric karts with suction fan ground effects.

Deeply banked curves, off camber curves, bits of track on the ceiling. There are a million awesome things you can do with a fan effect car in low gravity.

But I want to see a Corvette retrofitted with flexible ultra low clearance GFX, a suction fan where the rear hatch would be, and AIP using bottles of LOx and a huge positive displacement air pump compressing the exhaust gasses into a carbon fiber storage tank. Sure, that makes for a lot of stupid hazard in a vacuum habitat track, and would compromise the weight and balance of the car, but damn could it end up looking cool...

Hallpass > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 19:55

You need to familiarize yourself with the classic Commodore 64 racing game "Racing Destruction Set." The idea was no-holds-barred slot car racing. You could have basically any vehicle. Outfitted with landmines oil slicks battering rams. But the most fun thing, was that you could set the gravity to emulate any world in our solar system.

Can Am racers on Io? Yes please!

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_De…

The Transporter > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 20:01

I wouldn't say racing on the Moon is worthless. I'd totally watch Moon buggies bouncing all over the place in the Tycho 1,000.

Wolc *grammar nazis go f*** yourselves* > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 20:08

Found one problem with moonhooning and stock wheels

Kinja'd!!!

But seriously, on pressurized track there will be problems with traction off the line. But with speed and aero, things get better (like Caparo). So, it'd be heavy on aero, and fast to keep the grip. Just watch out for those jumps.

LappingLuke > smalleyxb122
11/15/2014 at 20:16

Correct, he says that cornering speed is not dependent on *weight* because it doesn't appear that it is directly dependent on *mass* and the left side of the equation ( F f = F c , or s mg = (mv 2 )/r) shows this but Ff does depend on weight (weight=mass*accel due to gravity) and then he says that since the gravity is less (and thus the weight is less and thus the friction is less) that the cornering speeds will be less (conclude: cornering speed is directly related to weight). You are also correct that wider tires do not effect coefficient of friction and centripetal force vector is 90 deg to velocity v.

LappingLuke > The Transporter
11/15/2014 at 20:19

You are confusing yourself. In your first comment you said cornering speed is independent of *weight* then you proved cornering speed is independent of *mass* which is mathematically true but meaningless if we compare two cases both on earth. Then you also rightly proved that cornering speed is indeed directly dependent on weight. You have the right thinking mostly. Also see my response to smalleyxb122 above for clarification.

edit for spelling

Jonny683 > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 20:33

Total Oil and Renault did your idea already:

F1 on the moon. Boom.

LappingLuke > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 20:34

Hahaha it's good that you ask that kind of question though! Most people couldn't care less about learning something scientific like this.

Robert McDonald > The Transporter
11/15/2014 at 20:44

I'm sorry, but there are a number of errors here. Too many to address in detail. Basic principles are:

1. The car's mass is the same on the moon as earth. The weight is one sixth ( w=mg).

2. Without taking downforce into account, the friction force generated by the weight is therefore one sixth. If the car can generate 1.2g on earth ( just for easy maths) then it can only generate 0.2g on the moon.

3. The friction force is independent of area. Wider tyres make a difference but not because of contact area.

4. There is no such thing as centrifugal force. A cornering car has a centripetal acceleration. That is an acceleration directed at the centre of rotation. If the car was connected to the centre of radius of the orner by a string and you suddenly cut it, it won't fly away from the centre, it will continue on a path perpendicular to the string.

This is very basic physics.

Racing on the moon would be very drifty.

Dr. Strangegun > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 20:49

It would be very, very slow unless you had a mirror-smooth track. And, while gravity is reduced, inertia is the same. If you had adequate grip, take a long corner too quickly and you'll roll over. Accelerate too hard, and flip over backwards. Brake hard enough, assuming grip, and you'll endo.

phee_the_emcee > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 20:49

the Dodge Challenger would make a great rally car.

The Transporter > LappingLuke
11/15/2014 at 20:51

My bad. I know the difference between weight and mass, but I still use the words interchangeably when I know full damned well that I shouldn't. Old habits die hard.

LappingLuke > The Transporter
11/15/2014 at 20:53

I assume you're an engineering major or physics or some other technical field. Make an effort to get your semantics right and you will find people in your career respect you and your opinions more! :)

The Transporter > LappingLuke
11/15/2014 at 20:54

Computer science. I tried physics but it turns out that I'm no good at calculus.

heeltoehero > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 21:07

Will someone please design me a good Lego C7 please?

username289 > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 21:19

I worked on that game for a while. Google "Lunar Racing Championship" to get an idea. You won't find a lot of info but we spent a good deal of time modeling the physics and using actual terrain data. Our game was not in a pressurized track but either way your biggest foe is going to be downforce. Our cars needed a full Reaction Control System to be stable and the only way to get ANY grip was to use thrusters to push yourself into the ground. Ultimately the gameplay was more like skiing in tribes...it was all about planning the takeoff and sticking the landing.

Even in a pressurized track getting enough downforce to effectivly brake/corner/accelerate would be a huge challenge. Don't fight the environment...use it.

I should really put up better videos...it was a pretty cool game.

Dave K. Bibbins > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 21:29

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smalleyxb122 > The Transporter
11/15/2014 at 21:31

Like I said, it's purely semantics. You divided out mass. I kept it in. You weren't wrong mathematically to divide it out, nor was I to retain it. A lot of this depends on what direction you take when approaching the question. I went with more weight = more frictional force; more frictional force = more acceleration for a given mass. You went with more acceleration (g)= more acceleration (centripetal). We are both saying the same thing. I just find it improper to state that the weight doesn't matter, while altering the one variable that separates it from mass (we agree that mass cancels out).

ninjagin > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 21:37

Curves and corners would have to be extremely steeply banked, but that's about all that would be different from being on earth.

mastawyrm > GhostZ
11/15/2014 at 21:42

Perhaps Chaparral could show up and build a new "sucker car" that would be effective. Or maybe something like that Gran Turismo dream-F1 thing could be brought to life.

mastawyrm > TheCrudMan
11/15/2014 at 21:46

All cornering of any kind is acceleration by definition.

KillerRaccoon - Group J's Sébastien Loeb > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 22:49

If you wanted to race on moon dust, the tires would need to be made out of something very tough as that shit is extremely abrasive. If you were on a paved course, tires about the size we have here would work just fine. The biggest issue you would have, though, is that much more minute perturbations to the car would send it into the air (or space, rather), where it would proceed to sail into the nearest hill. The tracks would have to be glass smooth and have veeeeery gradual negative gradient (how quickly it starts to slope down) changes.

The biggest difference in the racing behavior of the cars, though, is that they would have 1/6th the grip with the same amount of inertia. This means that to go around corners, they would have to be going 1/6 the speed they would go around the same corner on earth. This of course does not account for the fact that modern high-performance cars have high downforce, allowing a couple g's of lateral acceleration (sometimes up to 4 in F1 cars), all of which requires an atmosphere to happen. Essentially, the most acceleration a tire-based vehicle would be limited to .2g in the best case scenario (.17 if you're going by the traditional friction model, the extra .3 to account for "interlocking"). However, if you had thrusters forcing the car down onto the track, things could get a lot more exciting.

VashVashVashVash > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 22:58

Other have mentioned the problem with lack of friction in low gravity. You can solve it by adding much more bank to the track. Have it reach almost 90 deg in the corners, looking something like the rainbow road. Personally, I would prefer the track to be left exposed to vacuum, with the cars carrying their oxidizer as well as fuel, and either the cabins being sealed, or the drivers wearing suits. It would add an extra danger element, and the cars could look much stranger when they don't have to worry about aero. Also, we can add rockets to help with the initial acceleration.

VashVashVashVash > Drakkon- Most Glorious and Upright Person of Genius
11/15/2014 at 22:59

The vacuum of space will not be sucking heat out of your tires. Quiet the opposite, it will insulate them. If there is a constant heat load, they are likely to melt.

Oomfoofoo > Hallpass
11/15/2014 at 23:06

Hell yes, my first thought when I read the article.

Fix It Again Tony > BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest.
11/15/2014 at 23:24

Leave it to GT6 with their pretend realism.

It would've been a much better game if you can drive a Vette on LSIR with moon gravity instead.

Fix It Again Tony > 45bullets
11/15/2014 at 23:25

All I know is that you flip over all the dang time.

Hallpass > Oomfoofoo
11/15/2014 at 23:27

Behold this fucking 8-bit glory!

http://www.yourepeat.com/watch/?v=Xw3R-…

Maxaxle > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 23:28

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Slow.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > Fix It Again Tony
11/15/2014 at 23:31

Until you hit a rock.

TommyK154 > The Transporter
11/15/2014 at 23:36

stopped reading at "centrifugal force"

If you know physics you should know why this is wrong

TommyK154 > SHARPSPEED
11/15/2014 at 23:50

weight plays a huge role in racing, specifically the weight shift during acceleration. I'm using the word "acceleration" in the physics definition, meaning a change of speed or direction. Thus applying throttle, braking, and turning will all be affected. In a straight line this won't make much of a difference. It will place less force on the rear axel during "applying throttle" acceleration, as most race cars are RWD, and when you accelerate, the weight shifts to the back thus placing more weight on the rear axel, giving the rear wheels more traction, which means they can "spin faster" before braking traction under acceleration. In simple terms, the more weight on the rear axel, the more traction, the faster you can accelerate before wheel spin occurs. This would also affect trail braking in a corner. When you brake, the weight shifts on the front axel, and once you have this extra weight on the front wheels, you get more traction to turn-in on a corner. Having less weight as a result of less gravity would hinder this as well. This also affects under/oversteer. For example, when you start accelerating out of a corner, you start understeering as traction starts leaving the front axle (Just realized I've been spelling this word wrong). Because the weight shift is less in less gravity, this effect would be less pronounced. I'm not entirely sure right now as to whether this would affect lateral G limits, I'd have to look at the physics formulas for this, because although the car should corner better because of its weight, it will also have less traction because there is less force pushing the tires against the road.

TommyK154 > TommyK154
11/15/2014 at 23:51

the summarized version is basically cars would need to slow a lot more for corners or the corners would need to be wider

e36Jeff now drives a ZHP > Baeromez
11/15/2014 at 23:54

You are missing option #3, which is my personal favorite. Retro-rockets pointed upwards mounted on top of the vehicles to proved them with downforce. Speed is a non-issue at that point, as long as you still have fuel for the rockets.

fiubar1 > The Transporter
11/15/2014 at 23:57

Haha!! Aerodynamics... on the moon... Seriously good stuff, except for that. :-)

TheCrudMan > The Transporter
11/16/2014 at 00:48

Well yeah, turning is accelerating, but instantaneous velocity should be increasing throughout any corner in motorsport...at least after the apex, if not before. Even with a constant radius you're still following the racing line and accelerating out of it in as straight a manner as possible.

Baeromez > e36Jeff now drives a ZHP
11/16/2014 at 01:01

Yeah, that's pretty much what I mean by thrusters. I think of thrusters as any pressurized release of material designed to alter velocity. Rockets are more specific, but fall into this category. I got to thinking about this after I posted last. Why hasn't anyone tried this on Earth? I know it seems impractical at first, but imagine Formula 1 with a limited amount of downforce-producing thrust. It would just add another interesting layer to the kers/active aero era.

Blakkar > The Transporter
11/16/2014 at 01:29

That would come down to the disposition of the lunar, or any land vehicle except a motorcycle, vehicle's roll center, and axis about which a vehicle rolls from side to side, to its center of gravity.

The normal inclination of a land vehicle is to lean out of a turn while lifting itself off the ground. On Luna, with a much slower gravitational acceleration, 1/6 of G, a land vehicle can not travel very fat or maneuver very quickly without throwing itself off the ground and out of a turn.

A turn at 20mph on Luna would be roughly equal to do the same turn at 120mph on Earth.

After that lateral traction is only a minor concern. You need to stay on the ground first.

* BTW Luna is the name of Earth's Moon. It is NOT a pony thing. So don't even start.

Blakkar > SHARPSPEED
11/16/2014 at 01:37

That would come down to the disposition of the lunar, or any land vehicle except a motorcycle, vehicle's roll center, and axis about which a vehicle rolls from side to side, to its center of gravity.

A turn at 20mph on Luna would be roughly equal to do the same turn at 120mph on Earth.

Unless a Chassis and Suspension design can remedy this, and invert the Roll Center relative to the CoG (A personal project of mine), it will be extremely difficult even impossible to travel very fast at all in anything but a straight line on the surface of Luna. Moving the RC over the CoG in vehicle will allow the vehicle to lean down to the ground and into a turn. This negates the need to advanced aerodynamics, which Lunar atmosphere is only six inches thick, or super sticky tire (more like knobbies), on the extra fine and dry dust of Luna's surface and uses centrifugal force and gravity, what little there is, to generate the downforce needed, much as a motorcycle relies on.

After that lateral traction is only a minor concern. You need to stay on the ground first.

* BTW Luna is the name of Earth's Moon. It is NOT a pony thing. So don't even start.

Turbo-Brick > The Transporter
11/16/2014 at 03:01

My understanding is that wider tires do not change the coefficient of friction, nor do they change the size or the contact patch (assuming constant tire pressure). What it does is change the shape of the contact patch for additional side-to-side stability and resistance to tire rollover during cornering at the cost of straight-line traction for acceleration and braking.

GhostZ > wagnerrp
11/16/2014 at 04:13

Yes. He stated that it was in a pressurized inside track.

oldirtybootz > SHARPSPEED
11/16/2014 at 08:31

This is what I love about Legos, you build extraterrestrial race tracks, I build Earth towns.

Kinja'd!!!

Daniel Fleck > SHARPSPEED
11/16/2014 at 08:35

Question has already been answered...

John The Race Fan > Baeromez
11/16/2014 at 08:53

The next most obvious solution would be to use extreme aerodynamics to keep the cars planted. This would require very high speeds, which would probably be impractical and dangerous on an enclosed course. A more workable solution would be to race on a very steeply banked track. This would work well, but would limit you to oval track racing.

I don't think you'd be limited to oval tracks with steep-banked corners for high speed. Other track layouts could be utilized with banked turns both left and right. If you've played Grand Turismo 5, there's High Speed Ring . There was also a high-speed figure 8 in NASCAR Racing 2003 or one of the mods for it.

Granted, my examples are fantasy tracks built with neatly arranged 0s and 1s in a simulation environment. In the real world (or real moon?), it would be a much different scenario. A race circuit of this nature would be very, very long. A long race circuit would be expensive to build, so not practical in that regard.

A fun idea, nonetheless.

fallin2rhythm > GhostZ
11/16/2014 at 08:56

Ghostz does have a point though. If the interior is like that of earth, it would be smarter to develope a flying race machine because the density of the air compared to the gravity's pull would be much different. Essential you'd be more inclined to use the air as your means of propultion and turning and only use wheels as pivot points in high speed direction change. The concept visually looks amazing. On straights everyone passes 3 dimentionally and on turns everyone goes down and uses a hell of a lot of down force to maintain a line on a regular 2 dimential racetrack style plane. The only issue you have now is handling those types of Gs on corners. Best bet is to keep the corners short and hard angled for acceleration and deceleration purposes. Sweepers would cause loss of consciousness haha. On more difficult 24hr tracks the driver would need to be pivoting in a 3 dimential bubble to control blood flow to the brain and use cameras and oculus to maintain visibility. He would use g force pressure as "road feel" and his toes would be pointing at most corners but monitors taking the average g force direction would force the rotating cockpit to simulate his own pulse if under extreme load for long duration. Sr-71 acceleration straights f-16 cornering because let's face it, Its going to be a large jet engine strapped to very large but colapsable flaps with dense copper tips as "wheels" Think red bull plane racing but in a tube and you are constantly flying low. The only gripable surface is the ground and there are no tilts in the pavement as that would easily throw off the trajectory at those speeds. The pavement? Magnetic repultion as friction. This is all high speed plausible application using today's technology. Slow speed racing would use a wheel on a boom that rotates 360 degrees along the z axis and allows the vehicle only to accelarate while touching the ground. Think motor cross with wings and on a flat surface. If you really wanted 4 wheels you could just use regular cars but the camber would have to adjust to near 90 degrees on cornering and the car would litterally act as a motorcycle around the corner. tires would be rounded and yes full on wings would again play a huge part. But then I'd call this stock car racing and the first option f1. We would have to switch to jetliner engines because the f-16 engines are toooo louuud and waste too much fueell. Wow that was a lot.