Lunar Lander

Lunar Lander

Some of you may recall that I was a software engineer in a former life.  Recently, I had a chance to re-acquaint myself with Java and so, naturally, I coded my favorite learn-a-new language software program, Lunar Lander, in Java.

For those unfamiliar, the object is to land (not crash, not run out of fuel, not ram) on the Moon.  You, intrepid pilot, start up 2500 feet above the surface, with 600 pounds of fuel, and are descending at 450 feet per second (that’s -450 fps relative to the Moon).  You succeed if you land (that is, your height is 0) with a velocity between 0 and -5 feet per second and without having run out of fuel.  Your engines can only burn a maximum of 75 pounds of fuel a second.  You can specify the length of your thrust from 1 to 10 seconds (beginners are advised to stick to 1 second each burn).

To run this, you’ll need the Java runtime (you have it if you’re using Java with your browser) and you’ll need to unzip the file into a separate directory.  Switch into the “dist” directory, then, just click on lander.jar and the program should pop up.

File Attachment: lander.zip (146 KB)

Happy landing!

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