Posted on 07/18/2002 4:13:04 PM PDT by blam
Nasa discovers 'motorway' network between planets
Nasa says an interplanetary superhighway discovered by one of its engineers will make space travel simpler.
The solar system 'motorway' is a virtual network of winding tunnels and channels around the Sun and planets.
Each planet and moon has five locations in space called Lagrange points, where one body's gravity balances another. Spacecraft can orbit at those points while burning little fuel.
He came up with the superhighway by mapping out all the possible flight paths among the Lagrange points to see how fast or slow the spacecraft would travel.
Experts say the superhighway flight path will drastically cut the amount of fuel needed for future missions.
Nasa hopes to use the system for future human space missions by building spacecraft docking and repair platforms around the Lagrange points.
The system was discovered by Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer Martin Lo.
He's using the theory to draw up a flight path for the Genesis Sun probe and plans to map out a superhighway for the entire solar system.
Mr Lo told the Nasa website: "Designing the Genesis spacecraft's flight path with traditional methods used to take eight weeks - now we design a new flight path in less than a day.
"The savings on fuel translates into a better and cheaper mission."
Story filed: 11:30 Thursday 18th July 2002
Human exploration beyond Earth orbit also is on the mind of Robert Farquhar, a space scientist and L-point expert at the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland. It was Farquhar, then working at NASA Goddard, who prodded the agency to send the International Sun-Earth Explorer 3 to an L-point in 1978.
"We can establish a human presence at the sun-Earth (L-point). We can build up infrastructure for interplanetary transportation. It's an ideal staging node to go to Mars, Earth asteroids, or even the moon," Farquhar told the American Astronautical Society in Pasadena, California, recently.
Farquhar called for the installation of a mini-space station located near an L-point. One spacecraft would take crew and cargo from low Earth orbit to the vicinity of the L-point. From there, astronauts would board a second spacecraft to the target of their choice.
"One of the first missions would be a human sortie to a near-Earth asteroid," Farquhar said. He outlined the route that should be taken and the asteroid to be visited: 1999 A010. "It would be a one-year round trip, departing (the L-point) on April 7, 2025.
"We need a whole new way to think about human exploration beyond Earth orbit. We've been to the moon ... Let's go somewhere else," Farquhar said.
Skeptics immediately called it "a bridge too Farquhar".
Except on a Friday when everybody is heading out to Vegas
clash of the math experts! I'll bet you ten bucks the vegas guys win!
Can you recommend any interplanetary lawyers?
But 55 is a speed limit.
Therefore, I win again.
That would make sense. Like the dead zone in a lagoon fills with trash.
That would surprise me. As massive bodies are "wells" in spacetime, the LaGrange points would be mountain peaks - an unstable location for masses to be. However, the solar system's LaGrange points will move as the planets orbit, so a smart massive body can "surf" the downside slope of the moving peak.
The point is that they are indeed "wells." If they drift in slowly and aren't too massive, they'll stay. It takes energy to move them out.
(I'll admit to being unfamiliar with exactly what Lagrange calculated. But if he were wrong, we'd have noticed by now. I believe the opposite has happened.)
It is better to be in a room that is 55o fahrenheit than it is to be in a room that is 28o fahrenheit.
So I win yet again.
"If things drift in . . ." May the Pronoun Police question me all night!
Not on my planet!
Sorry to hear you are limited so,
You should really do something about that! Being you have an Imperial Aire about you, you should have some Gravity on this issue with the locals....
I win AGAIN!
Damn.
We've been bested by our betters, Tel.
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