Tsiolkovsky, that jerk

This blog has barely mentioned the name "Tsiolkovsky" - and then, mainly to poo-poo one of his followers. I am still trying to figure out where I even need him.

My world-building has been juggling all manner of other factors; which have clustered in maintenance. Once something is in L2, how do we keep it there. Ditto the various orbits. Ditto the Flotilla, and ditto the farms (though these deal in aerodynamics and buoyancy respectively, so aren't rocketry). How to get there in the first place, is where we talk delta-V - that is where Tsiolkovsky steps in.

Some of that is because I'm unfamiliar with Tsiolkovsky. But elsewhere ignorance hasn't stopped me from looking up the relevant equation, as with battery power and [10 Feb.] the lift/drag equations in aerofoils. I haven't yet grokked ramjet and magsail equations, I admit; mainly because I'm missing the details of the upper Venus atmosphere and the full nature of the coma, respectively.

Mainly what I did find of Tsiolkovsky is that he is a jerk. He demands I carry a lot of propellant, which takes up space I need for the actual, you know, payload; and he also removes the content of said propellant from wherever else I might need it, like for drinking water.

I'd rather not deal with him at all. That is why I prefer Pluto ramjets to get cargo off Venus, and magsails to float in her umbra. Their propellant is all around them. I did find a use for ion-drives as stabilisers at L2. Also scooping the onrushing ions.

Where it looks as if I may have to consult him despite myself: getting off one of the planetary librations, into some Hohmann transfer. My ship can at least pick up propellant at a depot.

High thrust will be where an Orion rocket might come in - also, the scramjet. I'm told (for the scramjet, and for the Pluto when that was still in testing) that our main limit is the specific-impulse. That's "just" energy, if we're on nukes... but those boring engineers need something to resist what energy ends up as, which is heat. So, ceramics by Coors Porcelain. I would reserve such "torchships" for shifting asteroidal ores to friendlier orbits. And yes the Kzinti Lesson applies, so do check in with the Space Force first.

If we're saving on fuel, those types of rocket are lower-thrust and now look to limits by power. From this angle, we're lowering our alpha - and yeah, real alpha, not "thermal energy" (we've just been over this in Venus, with my flying submarine, the one we're NOT able to fly most of the time). Since 2015 we're looking rather better for battery alpha, with chemical-cells and capacitors. If it's flying through space, that seems most practical for the inner system where, when the initial push is done, they switch to solar (also doing very-well-thank-you).