Transfer ship-twins

For Venus/Earth, inbound overlaps outbound. So for any regular schedule between the two worlds there exist at least two ships which shuttle that sort of passenger from one planet to the other. Maybe ten. These come in twins, designed for the service provided.

Hohmann-arrived craft have nothing to do whilst their erstwhile passengers are on (or floating over) their respective planets. Some might be cyclers - running around their orbits aimlessly for another four synods. Some get repurposed. But for specialised ships, these need to be available later - so will likely stay in orbit. During that time (467 days either way; for Venus here, 7 August 2231 to 18 November 2232) the ships remain available for citizens of the orbit.

There is a gap when the transfer-ships are all in transfer. Those ships are not orbiting Venus nor Earth. The gap spans Conjunction. Each flying in the same direction - the ecliptic - they do not meet each other. Maybe they cross paths with an aimless cycler.

These ships are radiation-shielded as far as possible.

Over Venus each noncyclic arrival keeps to a high-altitude at least at apocytherion, holding back from the ion wind. This wind does push these vessels back some, but the vessels don't expect to stay here for too many orbits. [11/26] Likely 23 swings-'round. And apocytherion gets hotter later on. Although, since we intend to adjust the angle of this orbit for the return trip, we'll be skating atmo to circularise the orbit some at that point.

Besides blocking radiation, for most of the time keeping life-support online is too expensive for the bother (especially those cyclers!). Plus: why not kill some germs and spend some effort maintaining the place.

But sometimes a use can be found. For the student-transfer ships, now caught in a planet's orbit, since each is designed with lecture-halls: academic conferences. Or just filming a school movie.

UPDATE 8 Feb: pull back to a gap in the week.

WHERE 11/26: For Venus, positioning back to Earth, I aim at 29:1, from 11814 to 616290 km. For its main manifest between worlds, I load after and offload before it fires the thrusters.