The SpaceShipOne Thread

[Sarevok]

Solar sails a few kilometres across would be fast enough to get a person from Earth to Mars in a matter of months, if the sailship first dropped orbit to around Mercury then opened sail there. Check out Mining the Sky and Islands in the Sky.

But how is it going to slow down for orbital insertion ?

[kojikun]

Thats actually not a problem. Angling the reflector changes its tangential velocity. For instance, if its on an outward spiral, turning the reflector so that the craft receives a push away from the direction of spiral (clockwise or anticlockwise) would slow its spiral and turn it into an orbit. There are also really nifty spots where gravitational, orbital, and repulsive forces cancel and the ship can just hang with relatively minimal relative motion without actually orbiting much of anything.

[SWPIGWANG]

You can always skim the upper atomsphere and use the grav. well to hold things in place for a few times around and such, if one plan the trip right.

*gah for orbital calculations.....high order partial differentials ARGGGG*

(I am high on cola.....caffine is da evil)

[Sarevok]

You can always skim the upper atomsphere and use the grav. well to hold things in place for a few times around and such, if one plan the trip right.

There is a similar maneuver called aero braking. It was used in the film 2001 : A Space Oddysy

[SWPIGWANG]

It is used in real life too, though it tend to destroy space crafts when idiots messed up metric conversions, I believe.

[Sarevok]

Ah the Mars climate orbiter. I think it was lost when scientists mixed up Imperial and Metric units.

[Crayz9000]

There is a similar maneuver called aero braking. It was used in the film 2001 : A Space Oddysy

They didn't use aerobraking in 2001, IIRC. They used it in 2010: Odyssey Two, with the Russian ship Leonov.

[kojikun]

Yeah, that was 2010. The Alexi Leonov used a balute to slow down and enter orbit.