The Interplanetary Travel Thread - Why not go for the sun?

[Calebc789]

All Discussions for Interplanetary Travel to MARS and Beyond is allowed here.

Difficulties for travel from earth:

The Sun: Easy if you keep ajusting your aim to the sun, it shouldnt be that hard.

Mercury: i dont know, ive never tried

Venus: easy since its close to earth

Mars: a bit challenging for inexpirenced users like me, but probably easy for most expirenced users

Jupiter: Hard and long for inexpirenced users, a bit challenging for expirened users obviously

Saturn: easy if you go to the sun and slingshot to it from there, but beware of Gravitational Pull!

Uranus: Easy but very long. Impatient people: dont do a earth/Uranus Transfer, because of very long travel times

Neptune: same as uranus

Pluto: Near impossible for any user, since its small and hard to detect without planet labeling.

Sorry for the lack of content, tired at the moment.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I didn't think Jupiter was all that difficult reach. If you peruse the "IMFD Full Manual" (available at the 'Hangar), you'll find the technique not too troublesome.

At worst, just aim for Jupiter and let that enormous gravity well pull you closer. The only touble I had was that IMFD didn't take into account any of the moons that might have be between me and the orbit I was looking to establish. That was then, I've gotten better, and, I've learned not to leave Orbiter running while I go out to eat (helps if I pay more attention to the flight plan).

 

[cymrych]

Most of those targets further out from jupiter aren't too hard to reach, especially utilizing some sling-shots. Even a Pluto rendezvous isn't terribly tricky if you have the patience for it.

Now, decelerating and achieving orbit at Pluto ... totally different story! :lol:

 

[Sky Captain]

I think Jupiter is easiest to reach, it was my first interplanetary flight. It's huge gravity well is nearly impossible to miss. Even with stock trasfer MFD it's not that hard to go to Jupiter. Most difficult to reach are objects with no significant gravity like asteorids and small moons.

 

[C3PO]

The short answer is "DV"

 

[T.Neo]

The Sun? What are you going to do at the Sun? Try to land at night?

Pluto: Near impossible for any user, since its small and hard to detect without planet labeling.

Seeing a planet directly from millions of kilometers away is not the problem, as interplanetary navigation in Orbiter is based on orbital elements, not eyeballing the target.

 

[Goth]

Saturn: easy if you go to the sun and slingshot to it from there, but beware of Gravitational Pull!

You mean a slingshot on Jupiter to Saturn maybe :shifty:

 

[IgnoreThisBarrel]

Getting to Pluto is actually fairly easy with IMFD, though I admit to using the scenario editor to make time go by much quicker than time acceleration could!

If you're just learning how to do interplanetary flights in Orbiter I recommend watching some IMFD tutorials; they're very helpful.

 

[RisingFury]

All Discussions for Interplanetary Travel to MARS and Beyond is allowed here.

Difficulties for travel from earth:

The Sun: Easy if you keep ajusting your aim to the sun, it shouldnt be that hard.

Mercury: i dont know, ive never tried

Venus: easy since its close to earth

Mars: a bit challenging for inexpirenced users like me, but probably easy for most expirenced users

Jupiter: Hard and long for inexpirenced users, a bit challenging for expirened users obviously

Saturn: easy if you go to the sun and slingshot to it from there, but beware of Gravitational Pull!

Uranus: Easy but very long. Impatient people: dont do a earth/Uranus Transfer, because of very long travel times

Neptune: same as uranus

Pluto: Near impossible for any user, since its small and hard to detect without planet labeling.

Sorry for the lack of content, tired at the moment.

:facepalm:

The only thing I have to say after reading this post is.... dude, share whatever you're smoking!

 

[bande]

I don't think getting to Europa to be so hard... I made it at the first try, it took over 2 years and a HUGE amount of fuel (when I say huge I mean REALLY HUGE).
I'm gonna give another try to improve my skills, but this time I'll keep in mind to close airlocks BEFORE undocking XR2 from Arrow!

 

[Wishbone]

Getting to Europa will kill human spacefarers...

 

[C3PO]

:facepalm:

The only thing I have to say after reading this post is.... dude, share whatever you're smoking!

Cut the guy some slack. It's his 1'st post, and we know nothing about his background, (except that he's probably not an experienced interplanetary navigator)
I guess the best advice is to do a bit more research on the subject. A few searches on this forum will do a world of difference.

Welcome to the forum.

 

[flytandem]

With limited fuel, I found the sun perhaps the most challenging (making a tight PeA that is) as it involved a sling of Jupiter with fairly fast encounter speed, something like 12 or 13 km/sec as I recall. Mercury a close second in difficulty and if you are talking about landing then even tougher than the sun. Everyplace else is substantially easier than these two IMO.

 

[T.Neo]

Getting to Europa will kill human spacefarers...

Only if you don't use adequate shielding.

 

[Wishbone]

Thank goodness sails have unlimited* dV.

* - limited by the minimum of sail and onboard equipment endurance

EDIT: re - Europa. Just reviewed the NASA doc on LEO rad hazards (and no, I haven't yet implemented the proton/electron codes). Any EVA on Europa looks to be one-way venture - 40 cm shield doesn't fit my understanding of a walk.

 

[perseus]

Flight to Pluto, using the window to voyager-2 Jupiter-Pluto, this was one possible path, using agreeing Trans-X and IMFD.
There were no options for a Jupiter-Saturn-Uranus-Neptune-Pluto tour; Pluto just wasn't far enough along in its orbit (as you can see from the image) to be reachable from Neptune - it actually was behind Neptune, and closer to the Sun! But found a Jupiter-Pluto transfer with a flight time of only seven years.

Option Pluto

 

[fsci123]

I have to say how do you expect to land on the sun...:compbash:

 

[Ark]

Honestly, you can get anywhere pretty easily once you're proficient in IMFD. Even making rendezvous with one of Jupiter's moons without stopping Jupiter orbit first is relatively simple.

 

[Salun]

Try This

Venus From earth on an XR2. One O2 Tank One fuel tank. No HAB.

Only Way to stop is to Aerobrake into a High Eccentricity orbit with a manual Negative lift Inverted Entry Interface. If you play your cards right you do it with just enough 02 to for a day or two in the main tanks. Dumping the tank before the Aerobrake.

 

[Wishbone]

The challenge of interplanetary travel: to go where flytandem hasn't flown before.