From: Ross A. Finlayson (raf@tiki-lounge.com)
Date: Fri Jan 05 2001 - 18:37:59 MST
Ross A. Finlayson wrote:
> xgl wrote:
>
> > On Fri, 5 Jan 2001, Brent Allsop wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I've always figured the optimal interplanetary travel speed
> > > was accelerating at 1 g until you get half way there, and then
> > > decelerating at the same rate the rest of the trip. Then you wouldn't
> > > require centrifical force to simulate gravity right? How fast would
> > > this be? How fast would you be going at the midpoint? And could you
> > > get to Mars in two weeks with this?
> >
> > at 1 g, the velocity gets relativistic pretty fast. if my math
> > hasn't failed me, by the time the craft is halfway to mars, it'd be doing
> > about 0.4 c -- decelerating at 1 g as well, it will get from earth to mars
> > in a little less than 3 days.
> >
> > -x
>
> Nice. Nice to launch them to outside the planet's orbit so if it doesn't stop
> it doesn't hit Mars at speed. If it was a dependable process, after years of
> hundreds of test trials, then you could send people, you could send some
> animals before, using high acceleration intersolar travel.
>
> Ross
>
This was perhaps a bit too simplistic generalization. For example, if a craft is
accelerated and not decelerated, it probably wouldn't hit Mars, but would fly off
in a different trajectory than if it had been slowing, on the same trajectory much
before Mars would arrive there in its orbit.
One time I had some satellite software to try, it was pretty impressive. For
example, there was a map of the Earth and when different orbits for satellites
were selected then it would show the satellite's ground path. Tracking each item
in orbit must be a large project.
So, I will refrain from apocalyptic (for Mars) statements.
Ross
-- Ross Andrew Finlayson Finlayson Consulting Ross at Tiki-Lounge: http://www.tiki-lounge.com/~raf/ "The best mathematician in the world is Maplev in Ontario." - Pertti L.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:04:34 MST