Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Titan doesn't need rockets

The Tyrannical Rocket Equation reigns o'er all the planets from Earth to Neptune because of a velocity gap: between what a furthest ramjet gets us, and what a nearest orbit needs. Above a given altitude, there's insufficient ambient air to feed the ramjet. And still, Wi Tyu-Lo (and slow) to get into orbit. Although there's questions about Earth.

Propose a planet with low gravity yet high atmo. Such may well hold for Venus. It certainly holds for cold planets. We can start haggling over Titan. If that ever gets colonised, its colonials won't need rockets to visit the other Saturnine moons. They'll just need good batteries.

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