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Comet from another star?
On Dec 6, 2:38*am, "Martha Adams" wrote:
wrote in message ... On a more serious note, devoid of any anime nonsense, it seems to me that the energy requirements to intercept an extrasolar comet on a hyperbolic trajectory would be too great. Too much fuel would be needed to even catch up to it. Not if the probe used an ion engine like the one used by DS2. Or maybe this would a good mission use Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz's VASIMR engine. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variabl...Magnetoplasma_... That's true but it's wrong. *You fire your rocket engine to accomplish a vectored delta v. *That's how you get around in space until someone comes up with something better. *The orbit changes to catch the hyperbolic comet and then to return are the same whether you use an ion engine, a VASIMR, or that extra F2 engine you had along with you, and its (massive) huge tanks of fuel. I think if your probe has people aboard, your outgoing and return firings would act too slowly for that. *I do expect engines of greater thrust eventually, but then, where do they get the electric energy which they then make into thrust? Titeotwawki -- mha *[sci.space.policy 2006 Dec 06] Besides the engineering problems, you have to convince the politicians that a mission would be worth the federal dollars to go there. |
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Comet from another star?
On Dec 4, 1:12*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Sounds like a great beginning for a 1950's Sci-Fi movie plot:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28023860/ Seriously, if it is from another star system, this would be worth getting a sample return mission to. So we sent out a probe to do a flyby of it... and as the probe approached, we first saw written on the surface of the comet those words of terror that could spell the doom of mankind: "Space Battleship Yamato is destroyed...all your anime are belong to us." :-D Here is a graphical representation of the comet's orbit. Note the proximity to Jupiter, which captured the comet into a heliocentric orbit: http://s432.photobucket.com/albums/q...Machholtz1.jpg |
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Comet from another star?
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Comet from another star?
"OM" wrote in message
... On Sat, 06 Dec 2008 23:42:46 -0600, Pat Flannery wrote: I've got to get back over there again and see if what I wrote has been corrected by anyone with the new data on our favorite real sea monster ...Or reverted by some teenage limey catamite who thinks s/he owns the article because they used two dozen sock puppets to vote themselves admin powers. You'd be surprised at the number of admins who pulled that stunt to get their admin rights. OM -- ]=====================================[ ] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [ ] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [ ] an obnoxious opinion in your day! [ ]=====================================[ It's off topic ... when I see text like this, I think it illustrates the kind of family its writer grew up in. Grew up? Well, I mean in a calendar sense here. Titeotwawki -- mha [sci.space.policy 2008 Dec 8] |
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Comet from another star?
Martha Adams wrote: It's off topic ... when I see text like this, I think it illustrates the kind of family its writer grew up in. Grew up? Well, I mean in a calendar sense here. To lighten things up a bit: TEDDY BEARS... _IN SPACE_!: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20081204...e-6323e80.html Well, actually, the floated up there rather than being blasted up there on a rocket. But hey, they did get up there, and the photo's well worth seeing. It's a pity my little teddy bear - "Zondick" - with his chest full of Soviet space medals, couldn't have accompanied them. :-) Pat |
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