Delta V is a thing. For controlled bursts, mostly that's rockets. But rockets and their fuel are stuck with the vehicle for the duration of the journey, just adding mass and not helping with inertia. Here's a better idea: ballistics. Mind, the sudden bang which fires a bullet isn't what we'll want for more fragile cargo... like us. And someone's going to have to catch this "bullet".
Proposal: big rubber elastic sheets. These decelerate or maybe even accelerate payloads from one velocity at a given point, to another velocity toward another point. The net does a (silent) BOING with the kinetic energy it's absorbed.
Maybe the net follows the flyby vessel as another elliptical-orbit piece of trash. Maybe it just shoots into the planet and burns up, and/or crashes. That'll have to be dealt with, so I'm proposing this method as far from the centre as possible.
We can start with deceleration. Here is when Venus or Earth or even Mercury needs to catch some incoming cargo on a Hohmann. Or when some other planet dealing with the Stinky Cycler is catching a detached vessel. Or when dropping cargo to Venus orbit from The Fry By. Or when some planet and its L4 and L5 are tossing cargo between one another.
The relevant orbiting station(s) fire off that elastic net, and catch the floating mass's kinetic-energy. This energy is then released into the net, at the acceleration suitable to the cargo, and the net expands. Then - when it is all going at orbit-friendly velocity - release the distended net. Cargo is now at a velocity and trajectory manageable to whatever station wants to deal with it. Again I assume raw ore is handled as far from the planet as possible, to be processed there. More fragile (and human) cargo go to where they're needed - which might take an additional (rocket) transfer.
No comments:
Post a Comment