SpaceX SHOCKED NASA and China to Land Starship HORIZONTAL on the Moon...

What if the next generation of rockets didn't land upright at all? Imagine a starship diving through the thin Martian sky, then flipping sideways, firing engines from its sides and touching down like a massive steel airplane. It sounds insane, right? But believe it or not, this wild idea, side-mounted engines and horizontal landings, has been seriously discussed inside the space community. The question is, could it actually work? Or would it break every rule of rocket engineering we know? Find out everything in today's TechMap episode. Have you ever wondered why Elon Musk has such a big issue with landing legs? Simple. They add weight, they complicate the design, and they create more points of failure. But here's the thing, without landing legs, a rocket has nothing to steady itself on touchdown, it would just topple over. So, at first glance, legs seem absolutely necessary. But Musk? He doesn't think inside that kind of box. When everyone else saw legs as the only way he went full outside the box, and came up with something wild, a massive steel tower with two robotic arms that literally catch the booster out of the sky. That's right, Mechazilla. Now that's an awesome solution for Earth. But it immediately sparks a bigger question. Could we ever pull something like that off on the Moon or Mars? Let's strip this problem down to first principles. How should Starship land on other worlds if legs aren't an option? Back in the early days of Starship's development, Musk actually pitched a radical idea instead of traditional legs. Why not use the ship's own body as a landing surface? The concept was for Starship to descend vertically and then gently tip over just before touchdown using a deployable composite landing pad to distribute the force and keep things stable. SpaceX even included this concept in their proposal for NASA's human landing system. But NASA wasn't exactly sold on it. They wanted the safer, more familiar option of vertical landings, with legs especially for crewed missions. Still, that wild horizontal landing idea stuck around, and it kind of blew up online. The space community ran with it, brainstorming all kinds of creative versions. One viral clip even showed a Starship with four side-mounted Raptor engines designed to let it shift orientations mid-descent for a smooth horizontal landing. So what makes this kind of sideways or horizontal landing concept actually appealing? Well, for starters, it spreads out the landing forces across multiple points on the rocket's side. Think of it like giving the rocket a wider stance. That extra balance helps keep it from tipping over during touchdown. There's another cool advantage too. By placing engines along the sides, you can lower the rocket's center of gravity. It's kind of like how a sports car stays stable through sharp turns because it sits lower to the ground. In theory, this makes the rocket less wobbly and easier to stabilize when it's coming in for a landing if it's designed right. Now that's something bottom-mounted engines just can't do. Traditional rockets push straight from the bottom, so all that landing force travels down one narrow point. The legs have to absorb everything, all the impact, all the weight, and still keep the That's a big ask, especially on worlds with an atmosphere like Mars, where the rocket has to fight, drag, and angle itself just right during descent. But here's where the big question kicks in. Is this sideways landing approach actually feasible? Could Starship really pull it off? Some people think so, and their reasoning is pretty clever. They point to Starship's flap hinge points, those massive super strong joints that hold the big aerodynamic flaps on each side. When Starship is flying through Mars's thin atmosphere, it's slammed by sideways forces of over 400 tons on those hinges. That's enormous, but they're built to handle it. So if those hinge points are already designed to take huge side loads, why not mount engines there? In theory, SpaceX could install small Raptor engines or thrusters at those hinge points, using the existing structure to handle the landing stresses. It's a wild idea, but not impossible. Now, if we move this concept to the Moon, things get even easier. The Moon doesn't really have an atmosphere, which means Starship wouldn't experience those massive sideways forces during descent. Because of that, engineers think the lunar version of Starship, especially the HLS version for NASA, might not even need heavy reinforcements. Its current structure could probably handle the landing just fine, maybe with only minor tweaks. And it's not like side-mounted engines or some sci-fi fantasy. We've actually seen similar systems before, just on smaller scales. The Space Shuttle, for example, had six tiny vernier thrusters to help it adjust its orientation in space. Even NASA's Space Launch System uses a mix of big bottom-mounted main engines and smaller auxiliary thrusters around the body for control. Now, here's the catch. All those side-mounted engines and thrusters we've talked about, they've only ever been used as support systems, not for the main lift or landing of a spacecraft. And there's a good reason for that. See, when engines are mounted on the sides, they create uneven pressure on the rocket's structure. Instead of pushing straight up, they push from an angle which bends the rocket a bit, kind of like when you press on one side of a ruler and it flexes. That bending causes what engineers call structural stress. To handle it, the rocket's body has to be built much stronger, and that usually means heavier. It doesn't stop there. The fuel lines and control systems for side-mounted engines get way more complicated. You've got to route propellant differently, manage thrust vectoring in new ways, and keep the rocket balanced while it's firing sideways. All of that adds complexity and potential failure points. And when it comes to landing or takeoff, that imbalance becomes a real challenge. If your engines aren't pushing straight up, it's a lot harder to keep the rocket stable during descent one small error, and you're tipping over. So in the end, the classic design bottom-mounted engines still wins. It's simple, it's proven, and it just works. But hey, that doesn't mean the idea of a side-thrusting starship isn't exciting. Imagine a future starship variant with raptors mounted on the sides. It sounds insane, but also kind of awesome. Right? So what do you think? Should SpaceX or maybe another company actually try this out someday? Drop your thoughts in the comments below. I'd love to hear what kind of crazy next-gen landing systems you think could work for future space missions. Not only the side-mounted engine, but also the horizontal landing position in general is not popular. Most engineers and space fans agree that while it sounds futuristic, the trade-offs might completely outweigh the benefits. The biggest concerns, mass complexity and practicality. Let's start with mass. To land a rocket horizontally, you'd need extra hardware. As said, things like stronger structures to handle bending forces from side engines and additional systems to manage thrust from different angles. But it doesn't stop there. Horizontal landing often requires extra fuel tanks that are dead weight until they are used at the very end of the mission, which are way heavier than aero flaps. It is mainly because the rocket needs more fuel to control its fall and keep flying sideways or tilted like an airplane before it actually lands. Unlike vertical landing, where the rocket just fires engines straight down to slow its speed, horizontal landing uses wings and control surfaces to glide and slow down over a distance. This means it stays in the air longer and needs fuel to keep engines running or to adjust its position during that glide. Also, horizontal landing designs usually have bigger wings and control parts that take up space and weight. So extra fuel tanks are needed to carry enough fuel for the longer, more complex landing process. And then there's the engineering side. To support a design like that, you'd need major structural reinforcements enough that by the time it's all practical, you might as well have built a completely different vehicle. Somebody even compares this to a Toyota Corolla, which is designed for smooth city roads, not rough off-road trails. Someone might ask, why can't we just raise the Corolla's wheels and take it off-road? But to do that properly, you have to add stronger suspension, bigger wheels, tougher tires, better clearance, and maybe a stronger frame until it becomes more like a Toyota Tacoma, a truck built specifically for rough terrain and off-road conditions. And of course, extra structure means extra cost. More mass means more refueling missions, less room for crew or cargo, and higher operational expenses. You'd also lose the landing commonality that SpaceX relies on different versions of Starship would need, totally different landing systems, adding more complexity to the entire fleet. Then there's the control problem. One user on Reddit commented, engines placed so far from the horizontal center of mass would need to be very fine-tuned to prevent pitching. A little bit of unbalanced force with such a long lever arm creates a very drastic difference. Most importantly, the fuel could slosh a lot more in a horizontal fuel tank. I know the tanks have anti-slosh baffles, but they may not be effective enough. And the internal layout becomes another headache. Do you still keep crew space on one end and fuel tanks on the other? If so, balancing the entire ship during a horizontal landing gets even more complicated. Some defenders of the idea say, well, Starship already handles huge lateral loads during re-entry, so what's the difference? But engineers point out it's not the same thing. During re-entry, the aerodynamic pressure is spread evenly across the hull. It's a distributed load. But during a horizontal landing, those forces are concentrated at just a few points, like engine mounts, creating intense localized stress that the structure simply wasn't designed for. SpaceX specifically avoids putting engines near the lunar surface because of this. Lunar regolith isn't soft powder. It's made of sharp glass-like particles that can blast out at high speeds, damaging equipment and coating everything nearby. That's why the HLS version of Starship uses high-mounted thrusters to steer clear of the dust. Switching to a horizontal landing doesn't solve this. In fact, it could make it worse by blowing dust sideways instead of straight down. NASA's Human Landing System, HLS program, is working with two U.S. companies to develop landers that will safely carry astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon and back throughout the agency's Artemis campaign. SpaceX for Artemis 3 and Artemis 4 and Blue Origin for Artemis 5. Beginning with Artemis 3, the lander will be launched uncrewed to lunar orbit to wait for the crew. Launching atop NASA's SLS, Space Launch System, rocket, the Orion spacecraft will bring the astronauts from Earth to the lander in lunar orbit. A crew of two will transfer to the lander from Orion and descend to the moon's surface. For later crewed missions, astronauts will use NASA's Gateway Lunar Space Station for crew transfer.