"Tom Cuddihy" wrote in
ups.com:

My limited knowledge of rendezvous came from a lecture my orbital
mechanics prof, Dr. Chirold Epp gave,

Now there's a name I've not heard for a long time. Chirold was a branch
chief in the Flight Design and Dynamics Division back when I was a co-op
student there mumble-something years ago. Legendary man - we all looked up
to him.

but I thought he said you could
generally 'drive it in' within 400m or so--generally any distance you
think you can make up in less than a 1/4th of an orbit.

That was true at the time he left FDDD. Keep in mind, in those days our
shuttle prox ops experience base was all small payloads and you could get
away with quite a bit of brute force. Shuttle-Mir was just gearing up and
Shuttle-ISS was still several years away. ISS is quite fragile and
sensitive to RCS plume impingement. By necessity, prox ops became much more
of a finesse game.

He said he's
been a part of a few rdvs himself, but then again he's been teaching
students for the last 10 years. He's going back to Johnson this year
though--in fact, I think he might already be back there!

Didn't know that. Well, your loss, our gain. I'll have to look him up and
see where he landed.

Anyway, you never know who you're talkin to on usenet-- hope you
weren't offended by my a.s.s.umption.

Not at all - I learned quite a bit in this exchange, thanks!

--
JRF

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