Aerobrake. Not aerobreak.

[Suzaku]

I aerobroke your spaceship hehehehehe....

[SciMan]

speaking of lithobraking, I wonder if anyone has made a functional "airbag" style landing system, seeing as we already have people using:

1. retro-rockets (mun/minmus/other bodies without atmosphere)

2. parachutes (kerbin return, eve landing)

3. even skycranes (the lionhead rover, for instance)

However, I have yet to see so much as a hint that anyone is even thinking of making an "airbag landing cushion" type landing gear, much less a fully-developed and released add-on! someone should really do this, because airbags have been used to absorb the final few m/s of decent velocity for over a decade now in real life. The Mars Pathfinder lander and Sojourner rover landed on Mars on July 4, 1997, and its airbags were designed for up to 15m/s vertical impact, and 28m/s grazing impacts, according to Wikipedia. Airbags were also used for the two Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, and there have been several proposals for a man-rated spacecraft's re-entry capsule landing system to include an airbag so that it can land on terra firma instead of the system historically used on US capsules of a "splashdown" type landing (the water ends up spreading the impact of landing out over time, thereby reducing the maximum forces encountered to a level that is tolerable to humans, whereas a land impact is nearly instantaneous, therefore generating much greater shock-loading forces, but a land impact is survivable if you add an airbag to perform the same function as the water does in a splashdown)