6 thoughts on “A Celestial Dance”

  1. I’m sorry, but…”Take us home, Scotty”? Scotty doesn’t drive the bus, that’s Sulu’s job. Seriously, how can anyone NOT KNOW THIS? 😉

    Terrific view, though. Makes me feel like we’re a spacefaring civilization or something.

  2. Since Oct. 9th I’ve been having this sensation that I’m traveling around the sun more slowly than usual, this explains it.

  3. Someday…men and women will look back and see this with naked eyes on an outbound journey to the stars.

    I can only imagine how homesick it will make them feel, before the journey has truly begun…

    1. Homesick is right. Living in a tin can or a cave wont be very appealing to everyone born off world. If we do have colonies off Earth, there will be a lot of people who wish to return to their home world where they can walk outside and feel the sun on their skin and the wind in their hair.

    2. But by that time a lot of them will have genetic alterations to help adapt them to the environment of space, and for their safety and ours we’ll have to prohibit them from returning. I’m sure a few of the illegal aliens will manage to make their way back here, though, and we’ll have to train specialists to hunt them down.

  4. And this gives a clue of how crew from Earth get to Mars fast.
    Juno will reach Mars orbital distance on Dec 26.
    So crossed Earth orbit near Earth on Oct 9 and in 2 1/2 month reaches Mars distance
    traveling about 240 million km from Earth to Mars distance:
    ttp://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=-61&vbody=1001&month=12&day=26&year=2013&hour=00&minute=00&rfov=90&fovmul=-1&bfov=10&porbs=1&showsc=1&showac=1
    from:
    http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/
    Juno spacecraft and date Dec 26 and “10 percent of the image width” Or
    ttp://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?tbody=-61&vbody=1001&month=12&day=26&year=2013&hour=00&minute=00&fovmul=1&rfov=90&bfov=10&porbs=1&showsc=1&showac=1
    for: “field of view of” 90 degrees
    One also look at New Horizon spacecraft and Cassini . I show 5 days out from earth
    here:
    http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=25742.0
    To illustrate the difference of hohmann transfer [New Horizon, with sun escape trajectory]
    As compare Cassini spacecraft which by using gravity assist to change the vector of trajectory.

    So Cassini gets to Mars orbital distance quicker, and arrives at Mars slower, then New Horizon.
    Due to Cassini being required to travel a shorter distance. So about 1/2 distance needed.

    Of course Juno and Cassini are going to Jupiter, and go to Mars don’t want this much velocity.
    These trajectories merely indicate a type of trajectory which is unlike a Earth the Mars [or beyond]
    hohmann trajectory.

    What you want to do is trajectory one get if doing a Venus to beyond Earth distance hohmann trajectory which intersect and does gravity assist off Earth and bends towards Mars distance.
    So such trajectory doesn’t get you to Jupiter but gets beyond Mars orbital distance. And if Mars is at intersect of trajectory, one do Mars capture.
    And gets you to Mars in about 3 months or less.
    And requires about 7 Km/sec, if you start from say, Earth/Moon L-1. And 7 delta-v is used to do power gravity assist off Earth, that bend the trajectory to match a spacecraft if it it were coming from Venus.

    edit: Remove “h” from two links [as solution, as it seems to refuse to post].

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