Landing Gear, Unrealistic in KSP

[Herbert McCheese-Wang]

In KSP, the landing gear are small and light-weight. However the landing gear of the LEM, the only (used in the field) lander IRL, they are huge!

I'm not talking about the descent stage as a whole - the individual legs themselves!

Pic:

[Mach_XXII]

well the parts in ksp are scaled done by 64% and some of the landing legs in ksp are actual pretty big

[Whoozy]

In KSP you also don't need to land 16 tons on the Mun in order to land and take off.

[Red Iron Crown]

Many other landers used in the field other than the Apollo LEM, just none of them were manned. Most of them had far, far lighter construction.

[Armchair Rocket Scientist]

That doesn't look too far off the scale of the largest landing legs in KSP (and the LEM is the largest vehicle ever to land anywhere besides Earth). The tiny legs are really just for probes (or manned vehicles without pressurized cabins), and the larger ones work well with a one-man lander or something on the scale of a Dragon spacecraft.

That being said, I wouldn't mind some bigger landing legs - maybe Falcon 9/Grasshopper sized (and long enough to extend past a Mainsail's nozzle).

[RSwordsman]

(and long enough to extend past a Mainsail's nozzle).

Agreed there, yet I shudder to think of the size of the transfer craft if the lander is powered by a Mainsail. O.O

[Sauron]

That doesn't look too far off the scale of the largest landing legs in KSP (and the LEM is the largest vehicle ever to land anywhere besides Earth). The tiny legs are really just for probes (or manned vehicles without pressurized cabins), and the larger ones work well with a one-man lander or something on the scale of a Dragon spacecraft.

That being said, I wouldn't mind some bigger landing legs - maybe Falcon 9/Grasshopper sized (and long enough to extend past a Mainsail's nozzle).

Agreed. Mostly for reusable SSTOs and Falcon 9/Grasshopper-type things, but they'd also have a practical application in Eve landers, and other massive horrors.