Lunar Lander

[Mike T.]

I first encountered the Lunar lander game on a flight back to England way back in 1976 when my father introduced me to his brand new HP97 as a way to keep me occupied. By the time the battery went flat I'd managed to land successfully, had written a couple of programs of my own, and I knew I wasn't going to grow up to be a Marine Biologist!

I recently gave the HP33C version a go (from the HP33E Applications Book - Page 23) and after a few attempts managed to successfully land using 15 burns with no remaining fuel left.

Code:


Vel.Alt     Burn    Fuel

-50.0500    0        120
-55.0448    0        120
-60.0390    0        120
-65.0328    0        120
-70.0260    0        120
-75.0188    0        120
-80.0110    45       75
-40.0050    25       50
-20.0020    20       30
 -5.0008    8        22
 -2.0004    6        16
 -1.0003    5        11
 -1.0002    5        6
 -1.0001    6        0
  0.0000    0        0     (15 burns)
  0.

I'm sure I wasn't the only person whose imagination was captivated by this simple game - but the question is what is/was your best solution?

After a couple more goes I managed to improve on the solution above and land using just 13 burns with 10 units of fuel remaining, can you do better...