4 ms·
1000km/s on the energy-limited Orion would be hard to slow down using aerobraking without potentially disrupting the planet below, and reverse slingshots would
by com 14y ago
1000km/s on the energy-limited Orion would be hard to slow down using aerobraking without potentially disrupting the planet below, and reverse slingshots would probably occur too fast to do anything more than staying in-system for a few weeks...
- tocomment 14y agoHow about a solar sail for braking? (We've got to be creative, I can't imagine there's no solution for slowing down.)
- polyfractal 14y agoI imagine you would need a ridiculously large solar sail to slow down the mass of an Orion. It's not that slowing down is impossible...you just start throwing bombs the other direction. But by slowing down you increase your travel time, so the 150 year estimate is no longer valid.