Construction Platform

(dave schneider) wrote:
[...]
And, if I may be permitted to laugh at my own humor, I just had a
picture of the mothership popping a big solar sail brake as she
approached the "finish line", looking like a really long-railed Top
Fuel dragster....

Okay, okay, I apologize for this.

Besides, there are some practical considerations to using the solar
drag chute: you don't want to deploy it so soon that it has slowed
the ship enough that the VAB (Van Allen Belt, not Vehicle Assembly
Bldg) transit time becomes a problem for the returning crew, unless
the return capsule can seperate before the belts *and* have enough
oomph to reduce the transit time again.

/dps