It'll be mass. Self righting mechanisms are a thing and probably quite easy in low gravity, but they have mass, and every kilo you spend on making the machine better is one you haven't spent on carrying stuff up. Very like the aerospace problem where making aircraft heavier is worse, except that you're climbing out of the gravity well by throwing stuff out the back of the rocket which makes the ratios much worse.
What about just distributing existing mass better? I used to have a little oblong toy that was unbalanced like this. No matter where or how you threw it, it would tumble over and eventually reorient straight up due to the weight all on the bottom.
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It'll be mass. Self righting mechanisms are a thing and probably quite easy in low gravity, but they have mass, and every kilo you spend on making the machine better is one you haven't spent on carrying stuff up. Very like the aerospace problem where making aircraft heavier is worse, except that you're climbing out of the gravity well by throwing stuff out the back of the rocket which makes the ratios much worse.
What about just distributing existing mass better? I used to have a little oblong toy that was unbalanced like this. No matter where or how you threw it, it would tumble over and eventually reorient straight up due to the weight all on the bottom.
weeble-wobble. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeble