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Space Voyage #1 Chatter


Jay-qu

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When the Prophesy swings back from earth. We are at this time returning to earth from lunar orbit. We will enter a LEO and rendevous with a supply ship - lingering for 36 hours. We will then return to the moon. Once back at the moon we collect everyone and everything over a 2 day period. Then we are off to Mars.

 

The trip started on June 1. It is now June 12, so you have been on the moon for most of the last 9 days. Racoon is with you gathering a variety of soil samples for horticultural experiments. Moon soil veggies anyone?

 

You should be back on the ship by mid week. This weekend we exit the locality of earth for the first time.

 

Can anyone give us a plan for getting to mars? How long to burn, what engine power, how long to drift, etc.

 

Bill

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...Racoon is with you gathering a variety of soil samples for horticultural experiments. Moon soil veggies anyone?

...Can anyone give us a plan for getting to mars? How long to burn, what engine power, how long to drift, etc.

Veggies grown in moon soil--maybe something strange would happen? :naughty:

 

I'll look up the delta V for Mars. But we'll want to use something faster anyway or it will take nine months.

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Can anyone give us a plan for getting to mars? How long to burn, what engine power, how long to drift, etc.
I read somewhere that the Prophesy’s maximum sustained acceleration was .1 g. Is that correct?

 

Or does she have a most efficient acceleration? or thrust? If thrust, what is her mass, and her fuel/reaction mass?

 

What’s her maximum [math]\Delta[/math]v? Or, equivalently, how many seconds can her engine burn?

 

Is fuel cost important?

 

As Pyro points out, we’ll likely want the trip to be a fast one, not a low-energy one. Planning that depends on how much [math]\Delta[/math]v is available, and these and other factors.

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Yes, she accellerates at a maximum of .1g. She has enough fuel for approximatly 1000 hours at that rate. She used about 4 hours in the moon mission. We are going with the current position of Mars. Does it maybe make sense to visit the planets in a different sequence? Maybe go to mars on the swing back in?

 

Bill

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I'll look up the delta V for Mars. But we'll want to use something faster anyway or it will take nine months.

 

Besides that, Mars and Earth are not in the correct position for a minimum energy transfer orbit (When we reach Mars' orbit we want Mars to be there.)

 

BTW, the total delta v for such a transfer would be about 6.27 km/sec which includes the delta v needed to break Earth orbit.

 

Right now The Earth is about 100 degrees "ahead" of Mars in their respective orbits, Which puts Mars about 296,220,000 Km from Earth.

 

If we boosted at 0.01g for the whole trip we could travel that distance in about 40 days*. That's boosting for 20 days and braking for 20.

 

At 0.1g, it will take about 13 days*

 

While 0.1g will get us there in less time, it means that we have to spend nearly the whole trip with floors slanted at 5 degrees from level. (At 0.01g we only have to deal with a 1/2 degree tilt.)

 

*Unfortunately, it's not as easy as that, these are for "straight line" trajectories. They don't take into account the fact that a part of our velocity will be eaten up just climbing out from the the Sun, or the fact that we will have to compensate for Earth's and Mars' relative velocities (Earth's orbital velocity is presently taking us in the wrong direction than we want to go so we will have to cancel out this velocity, and Mars will move during the trip, altering the trip distance some.)

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Can we slingshot around the earth safely?

 

To use the Earth for a gravitational slingshot boost we would have to break Earth orbit, enter a Solar orbit that brings us back to the Earth, and then use that near pass for the boost. While this could save us some fuel, it would cost us on time.

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didnt we install rotational acceleration compensators for that *wink wink* :)

 

I think we could go to jupiter first, then saturn and swing back for mars, then on to uranus. I think this would be the one of the shotest ways of doing it if we want to visit all these planets.

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Here is just one of many possible flight paths. I like this one because it gives us a chance to swing back by the inner planets and if we need past Earth for refueling.

the planets will shift a little during our travel time, but this is negligible for the outer planets, for the inner planets it actually works in this flight paths advantage :)

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One more thing. Is it... infectious...?

It IS, if you have had carnal relations with Desiree la'Tush! :doh:

 

After some serious interrogation, I believe that Desiree had no prior knowledge that the Associated Press ("WE Control The News!") had infected her readily available nether region with bio-nano-bots. She is just a VERY FRIENDLY young lady with a serious hero-adoration complex for astronauts. US!!! :hihi:

 

Woops! This should be posted in the main thread. However, I am fiendishly leaving it to someone else to unravel the puzzle of just what the bots are programmed to DO! Bwahahaha!

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I am fiendishly leaving it to someone else to unravel the puzzle of just what the bots are programmed to DO! Bwahahaha!
If it’s anything like what Neil Stephenson had them doing in ”The Diamond Age” – forming a massive, sexually connected network of distributed computation of an important engineering problem – sort of a “STSETI@home”, with the side effect of everyone running constant, variable fever, with the occasional person catching fire, being made into soup, and consumed by everybody else … Well, I just hope that’s not where you’re going. I loved Diamond Age, but this story is, IMHO, way too busy already for that sort of subplot!
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If it’s anything like what Neil Stephenson had them doing in ”The Diamond Age” – forming a massive, sexually connected network of distributed computation of an important engineering problem – sort of a “STSETI@home”, with the side effect of everyone running constant, variable fever, with the occasional person catching fire, being made into soup, and consumed by everybody else … Well, I just hope that’s not where you’re going. I loved Diamond Age, but this story is, IMHO, way too busy already for that sort of subplot!

3rd base nanobots? Are we sure they are 3rd base only? I have not read the story Craig references, but I am sure that is out of the question. I think we need to get everyone cleaned of this infestation ASAP. I will say that it is as simple as wanting to kill the crew. If the crew all dies the Prophesy will bring herself back to earth orbit. Once there she could be claimed by the first crew that could get onboard. There are security protocols for her systems so that the earthside folks from Prophesy control would need to activate certain systems. But that is the case I would worry about the most. Killing the crew to take the ship without firing a shot.

 

I am not a nanobot expert. I will have to wait for the medical reports as to what the real capability is.

 

Bill

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