Slashdot Mirror
Gravitational Currents Could Slash Fuel Needed For Space Flight
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that scientists are mapping the gravitational corridors created from the complex interplay of attractive forces between planets and moons that can be used to cut the cost of journeys in space. 'Basically the idea is there are low energy pathways winding between planets and moons that would slash the amount of fuel needed to explore the solar system,' says Professor Shane Ross from Virginia Tech. 'These are free-fall pathways in space around and between gravitational bodies. Instead of falling down, like you do on Earth, you fall along these tubes.' The pathways connect Lagrange points where gravitational forces balance out. Depicted by computer graphics, the pathways look like strands of spaghetti that wrap around planetary bodies and snake between them. 'If you're in a parking orbit round the Earth, and one of them intersects your trajectory, you just need enough fuel to change your velocity and now you're on a new trajectory that is free,' says Ross. 'You could travel between the moons of Jupiter essentially for free. All you need is a little bit of fuel to do course corrections.' The Genesis spacecraft used gravitational pathways that allowed the amount of fuel carried by the probe to be cut 10-fold, but the trade off is time. While it would take a few months to get around the Jovian moon system using gravitational currents (PDF), attempting to get a free ride from Earth to Mars on the currents might take thousands of years."
Space Travel is just like the internet. All you need to do is navigate a bunch of tubes.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
In my day we went to Mars uphill both ways unlike you kids who coast the whole way - and we LIKED IT!!!
Next:$150 trip to Mars
Come on MIT boys, pump up that balloon and add another handwarmer.
While it would take a few months to get round the Jovian moon system suing gravitational currents (PDF)...
I had never before considered using the power of lawsuits to drive an inter-planetary vehicle, very interesting. But is it feasible? What's the TPL (thrust per lawsuit) against a given gravitational current and how many lawsuits can a lawyer put out during the life of a mission? Does the size of the gravitational current matter? I imagine so since they said the system is much faster suing Jupiter's gravitational currents than Earth's and Mars' currents.
I haven't seen any solid details on this yet, I think this whole plan is still a ways off yet.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
Apparently the Rocket Industry Association of America found out that people were planning to travel for free by stealing gravity from nearby planets. They also discovered that gravitational currents are aiding and abetting these crimes by making it easy to find and use the gravity. These pirates think they can escape prosecution by relocating to the Jovian moon system, but the RIAA lawyers were able to track them down and sue them within a few months.
There's also Dupe Currents, and if one knows how to correctly navigate them, they can avoid dupes.
But I think it's okay if Slashdot posts the same concept every 5 years or so. There is turnover in users. Woodstock is not a dupe if you missed the first one. (Then again, most Woodstock attendies were probably too strung out to remember the first one anyhow.)
Table-ized A.I.
Pffft, Russians do it for $40, and survive more.
Table-ized A.I.
". Try drawing the Solar System to scale,"
I did, now get the hell off my map~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Like fish in the water, we are swimming in an immense sea of energetic particles but we can't see it. An analysis of the causality of motion leads to the inevitable conclusion that we are moving in an immense sea of energetic particles. Soon we will understand how to tap into the sea for energy production and extremely fast transportation. It will be an age where vehicles have no need of wheels, move silently at enormous speeds with no visible means of propulsion and negotiate right-angle turns without slowing down. Get ready for interesting times ahead because Aristotle was right about motion requiring a cause.
The Problem with Motion
Now if we only had a book to tell us how to use these unsecured cargo bays to get around the Galaxy...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Rocket propulsion technology belongs in the Smithsonian right next to the buggy whip and the slide rule. It hurts just to think about it. What is needed is a clean technology that taps into the universal sea of energy in which we move for extremely fast transportation. Earth to Mars in hours instead of years, that sort of thing.
Essentially, physicists are wrong in thinking that motion does not require a cause. Acausal motion is crackpottery, on a par with the flat earth hypothesis. An analysis of the causality of motion leads to the inevitable conclusion that we are moving in an immense sea of energetic particles organized as a lattice.
The Problem With Motion