Roy Stogner wrote:
It just occurred to me today that whenever I've seen people talk about
space colonies orbiting the Earth-Moon Lagrange points, it's always
assumed that the first colony will be at the L5 point (trailing the moon
in its orbit) rather than the L4 point (ahead of the moon).

Is this just sort of a cultural tradition (homage to the L5 society?) or
is there some technical/economic reason why L5 would be a better location?
Is there any delta-V difference between Moon-to-L4 and Moon-to-L5
missions, for example?
---
Roy Stogner

Wow, that's a weird coincidence. On April 11 Peter Knutsen started in a
thread in rec.arts.sf.science entitled "Why Always L5"

"I just checked out some of the sci.astro FAQ, which got linked to in
the "green stars" thread. One of the questions dealt with the five
Lagrange points.

"According to those diagrams, L4 and L5 are the two trojan points, 60
degrees ahead or behind the smaller body's orbit around the larger body.
So how come I always hear much more about L5 than about L4, in science
fiction and in RPGs?

"Is there something that makes L5 easier, or more desirable, than L4?"


If the rassers came up with a good reason L5 was more commonly used, I
missed.

--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html