  When launching or landing a spacecraft on the regolith of a terrestrial
surface, special attention needs to be paid to the rocket exhaust cratering
effects. If the effects are not controlled, the rocket cratering could damage
the spacecraft or other surrounding hardware. The cratering effects of a rocket
landing a planet's surface are not understood well, especially for the lunar
case with the plume expanding in vacuum. As a result, the blast effects cannot
be estimated sufficiently using analytical theories. It is necessary to develop
physics-based simulation tools in order to calculate mission-essential
parameters. In this work we test out the scaling laws of the physics in regard
to growth rate of the crater depth. This will provide the physical insight
necessary to begin the physics-based modeling.
