Re: SPACE: Is ISS a boondoggle?, was Re: SPACE: Why so much EVA on ISS?

From: Spike Jones (spike66@attglobal.net)
Date: Wed Mar 21 2001 - 21:59:54 MST


GBurch1@aol.com wrote:

> > nearly 5000 m/sec to alllll thaaaat stuuuuuff thats already at 51
> > degees. Inclination changes are a huge propellant devourer.
> > Like it or not, 51 degrees is where it stays. {8-[ spike
>
> This doesn't FEEL right, but you da man (and I'm not) when it comes to
> celestial mechanics. How hard would it be to do the calcs to determine the
> TIME involved to move the inclination from the Cold War Inclination to 0
> degrees with a reasonably potent ion propulsion system?

OK. This is something that should go with our proposed
public domain extropian software project, starting perhaps
with Adrians ion engine model. We could post equations and
a read-me file on how to do orbit mechanics. It really really
isnt complicated at all. We could even post rules of thumb,
such as it takes as much delta vee to change an orbit 90
degrees as it took to get it in orbit to start with. And it
scales linearly, so if you are in an 8 km/sec orbit, it takes
4 km/sec delta vee to change that inclination by 45 degrees.

Assuming we have plenty of time to change that orbit,
we still need to come up with a buuuunch of delta vee. spike



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