Hey all, long-time lurker, first-time poster here. I've been playing around in Orbiter for several months now and I've started using it as a testbed for some mission ideas for my own amusement. I'm finally starting to get away from the standard Hohmann transfers (as much as I like them) and in particular I'm interested in missions that might be practically useful in the future of manned spaceflight.
The problem that I've been working on lately is as follows: suppose mankind has established a permanent base on the surface of Mars (a Martian space station would work for this too, I suppose). Aquaponic gardens and other sustainability measures notwithstanding, the primary problem with maintaining such a base (as far as I can reason) is the regular transportation of crew and supplies between Earth and Mars. A round trip from Earth to Mars using only Hohmann transfers takes, by my figuring, about two years, eight months, and two weeks - around eight and a half months each way and fifteen months of waiting for the next launch window on Mars. I would like to significantly reduce that travel time.
My idea for a solution goes like this. We assemble a large ship (probably in orbit) and this ship functions as a cosmic train. A smaller ship transports crew and supplies from the large ship to planetary surfaces during the large ship's flybys without the large ship getting captured by either planet. This saves the large ship a substantial amount of fuel by not slowing down at Mars and then speeding back up for the return trip.
To test the idea I've been trying out some maneuvers with the DGIV with some moderate success. Today, I launched the DGIV from Cape Canaveral on 2013-12-08 into a 300km LEO. After about 5km/s of dV total (including MCCs) I encountered Mars right on schedule on 2014-08-18. With the help of flytandem's video tutorial on this I was able to sling around Mars and back to Earth adding about 1km/s of dV at periapsis and another 400m/s in a MCC. Doing this I was able to return to Earth on 2015-03-26 for about a sixteen-month round trip which I was very pleased with.
However, though I wanted to make another sling maneuver at Earth to go back to Mars, I found the fuel required for this was far too high as it required a very large angle of deflection. Since there's not another Hohmann launch window for about another year I'm considering other options for continuing back to Mars and was wondering if anyone else had tried something similar. Would it be easier to sling around the Moon or Venus for this? Is a year-long stop in LEO unavoidable for the cosmic train?
The problem that I've been working on lately is as follows: suppose mankind has established a permanent base on the surface of Mars (a Martian space station would work for this too, I suppose). Aquaponic gardens and other sustainability measures notwithstanding, the primary problem with maintaining such a base (as far as I can reason) is the regular transportation of crew and supplies between Earth and Mars. A round trip from Earth to Mars using only Hohmann transfers takes, by my figuring, about two years, eight months, and two weeks - around eight and a half months each way and fifteen months of waiting for the next launch window on Mars. I would like to significantly reduce that travel time.
My idea for a solution goes like this. We assemble a large ship (probably in orbit) and this ship functions as a cosmic train. A smaller ship transports crew and supplies from the large ship to planetary surfaces during the large ship's flybys without the large ship getting captured by either planet. This saves the large ship a substantial amount of fuel by not slowing down at Mars and then speeding back up for the return trip.
To test the idea I've been trying out some maneuvers with the DGIV with some moderate success. Today, I launched the DGIV from Cape Canaveral on 2013-12-08 into a 300km LEO. After about 5km/s of dV total (including MCCs) I encountered Mars right on schedule on 2014-08-18. With the help of flytandem's video tutorial on this I was able to sling around Mars and back to Earth adding about 1km/s of dV at periapsis and another 400m/s in a MCC. Doing this I was able to return to Earth on 2015-03-26 for about a sixteen-month round trip which I was very pleased with.
However, though I wanted to make another sling maneuver at Earth to go back to Mars, I found the fuel required for this was far too high as it required a very large angle of deflection. Since there's not another Hohmann launch window for about another year I'm considering other options for continuing back to Mars and was wondering if anyone else had tried something similar. Would it be easier to sling around the Moon or Venus for this? Is a year-long stop in LEO unavoidable for the cosmic train?
