Retrograde moons...

karov · 2006-02-28 12:15:58

... `s systems.

All gas giants in SolSys possess moons in retrograde orbits. They could be redirected in order to inject tremendous amounts of energy via "face-in-face" collisions with the bigger COLONISABLE moon-worlds from the respective gas-giant lunar system. The topic is generalization of:

http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=395
===========================

Similarly, the larger and closer moons orbit their planets in the same direction as the planets' rotation, and so are also prograde. However, the gas giant planets have large numbers of small "irregular" moons in highly inclined or elliptical orbits, thought to be captured asteroids or Kuiper belt objects (or fragments thereof), and the majority of these are instead retrograde: 48 retrograde to 7 prograde for Jupiter, 18 to 8 for Saturn, and 8 to 1 for Uranus. One of the largest of these is the Saturnian moon Phoebe. Neptune is somewhat different: It seems to have captured its only surviving large moon, the retrograde but otherwise regular Triton, from the Kuiper Belt. The six irregular moons beyond Triton's orbit are evenly divided between prograde and retrograde; some of these may be original Neptunian moons whose orbits were disturbed by Triton's capture, rather than being captured bodies themselves

from: wikipedia / retrograde orbit.
SO:
=================================
Jupiter: Re-48 , Pro-7
Saturn: Re-18 , Pro-8
Uranus: Re-8, Pro-1

The re-moons most often are not only "re" but also they orbits are with higher semimajor axis, lower specific orbital energy, some inclination, and they are very excentric. Excentruc orbit means that comperatively "easy" ( just accelerate at perisaturnium, and decelerate at aposaturnium...) these re-moons could be deorbited in collision course with their inner , regular siblings , and would inject them with lots of energy... For example vector sum the velocities of Titan and Phoebe and you`ll see the amount of energy Titan would receive...

Roughly we have the 4 Gallileans at Jupiter + 48 "shells" to impact with, At Saturn , Titan could be power supplied with 18 projectiles, Uranus do not have big enough moons for classical terraformation, but indeed it could occur to be usefull to colide/merge some of them in order to have as result warmer, more manageable "land" there... Neptune`s Triton is a projectile itself, there the regular moons ( say, Nereid )- could supply the heat via collision...

Reminder: The collisions were the major instrument of nature for the planetforming completion... it goes on even now.

MarsDog · 2006-02-28 19:34:58

You need an energy budget for the collisions.

From conservation of momentum, what result ?

With large beam power could you turn a moon into a rocket
by intensely illuminating a spot, turning it into plasma.
Maybe even fusion for extra thrust ?

Proposal to move asteroid was to blast it to raise dust
then blast it some more for the dust to push the asteroid.
Extreme version might work for larger objects.

karov · 2006-03-01 10:01:08

You need an energy budget for the collisions.
Yes, the power budget is tremendous, but we could use the energgy potential differential of the counterrotating projectile and target to transfer momentum between them, without to emit power/momentum out of the system target-projectile...When I have more time I`ll give you ready calculated EXAMPLE - ( Saturn`s Titan-Phoebe case perhaps! )
From conservation of momentum, what result ? /
I think you mean the above solution. By using DCM ( dynamic compression members - www.paulbirch.net style ). Simpler for visualisation is just imagine s.t. like inter-lunar "tenis" -- i.e. if phoebe`s exhaust is indeed chuncks of mater fired sharply targeted to hit Titan... Advantages -- no loss of mass, and the impact events occur incrementally, untill the momentum change of phoebe didn`t send it in intersecting Titan trajectory. The better option is interconnected ORS ( orbital ring system ) - one along the Phoebe`s orbital path, one on Titan`s one and one between them. The ORS, would exchange momentum between Titan and Phoebe, slightly rising Titan`s orbit on account of lowering Phoebes one and redirecting it to collision...
With large beam power could you turn a moon into a rocket
by intensely illuminating a spot, turning it into plasma.
Yes, perfect if you have power source for that. But much more inefficient than the Momentum Exchange Loop Network. The MOLONET uses no thermodynamical conversions - it deals directly with mechanical energy. MOLONET could be very good source for the laser power ( for example, beaming laser light on account of lowering some moon), but why at all to bother with lasing, when one could just momentum-exchange...
From the other hand lasers are very usefull for turning a moon or asteroid into rocket, cause the plasma plume suddenly evaporating from the spot ALWAYS is directer in perpendicular of the iluminated surface ( see "laser ablation sails propulsion" ) sounds like designed specifically to push asteroids, but the ratio/ surface/volume , makes the laser ablation rocketing VERY GOOD, but for meteoroides ( objects under 30m or 10m diameter )...
Maybe even fusion for extra thrust ?
It is highly possible that we wouldn`t have real fusion in the next 100 years. Phoebe would contain some deuterium and /or Helium-3 ( which is NOT at all any feasible fusion fuel ), but ...
Proposal to move asteroid was to blast it to raise dust
then blast it some more for the dust to push the asteroid.
Extreme version might work for larger objects.
With other words, you are talking about kinda "Orion" -design. Yes, you could use the very surface of the body as "pusher plate"... Every explosion would cause certain amount of mass to evaporate wildly and bounce back into space, pushing the body into the other direction... But for really huge object as these dozens or hundreds of km wide retrograde moons, how many H-bombs one needs... Pure waste of materials...
SO, I think the solution is -- JUST couple / "shortcut" the orbital potentials of the moons and colide them...

MarsDog · 2006-03-02 02:34:27

www.paulbirch.net

Cyclers which interact with each noon,
acting as a gravity tug to pull into a keyhole to collide the moons ?

karov · 2006-03-02 09:05:52

www.paulbirch.net
Cyclers which interact with each noon,
acting as a gravity tug to pull into a keyhole to collide the moons ?

Hmmm, either the cyclers must move too fast, or to be very massive... Gravitational coupling is very weak. What will put in motion the cyclers. If the mathematical problem is to transfer momentum untill collision, without to expell mass out of the system Prograde-Retrograde body, than I think the best would be the "tenis" system:
============================

Lets take a look, again to Phoebe-Titan system. It is comperativelly easy to calculate the final energy yield of the impact between them. Cause Titan is much havier than Phoebe, its orbit would`nt change too much hence the impact wouold occur at the orbital speed of Titan times two, cause when the Phoebe orbit is lowered and flattened enough to touch Titan, the orbital velocity would be the same as Titan`s as quantity , but opposite as vector... The impact would occur at about 11 km/s. Phoebe is 8,289x10e18 kg... Its orbital velocity could be increased via DCM --
DCM would consist of accelerator array on Titan firing projectiles to receiver/decelerator in Phoebe, and vice versa... The excess of energy will be used to power the system`s increase of power consumption. Thus the energy differential between the moons orbits will be turned into energy of the DCM, untill the necessary amount of orbital velocity change in Phoebe occurs... S.t. like that.
The energy is there confined in the celestial mechanics of the bodies. Tying them up with such giant "spring" should do the job, ah?

MarsDog · 2006-03-09 15:47:01

Due to its retrograde motion, the already-close Tritonian orbit is slowly decaying further from tidal interactions and it is predicted that between 1.4 and 3.6 billion years from now, Triton will pass within its Roche limit

Long time left to rescue Triton.
Where to target it ? Add it to Mars ?

karov · 2006-03-10 04:18:11

Why to save it? Billions of years are ok. We could even accelerate its fall in order to extract orbital energy to feed the established there civilization...

To add Triton to Mars is good , cause such merger will refresh the environment there - volatiles, NITROGEN, geology... there are already such ideas concerning the Gallileans and Mars - http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/lar … 00710.html - impact/merger enginering is something the Nature widely used ( say Earth-Moon, Pluto-Charon...) in past and contineaues to "use" as planetforming method. Indeed this is THE method...

But , http://www.discover.com/issues/feb-04/d … ue/?page=1 , there are > 100 000 chuncks > 100 km diameter only in the Kuipert belt. And thousands of Tritons there... Cause of the helocentric orbit on such hight.distance is vry slow... from dynamical point of view is much better to slightly nudge the "front" of the object to cancel its helocentric orbit , i.e. to stop it and to let it fall along a course interscvting with the martian surface , than to extract Triton from its deaper orbit arount Neptune and to deceleate it again to plummet it down system...

chat · 2006-03-10 05:32:51

karov,

Wouldn't it be easier to move a moon with a smaller say 50km sized object.
Bring one from the kb and set it in an orbit that alters the moons orbit.
A long term project for sure though.

With moon to moon impacts the heat pulse will last an eternity though, and the edjecta generated from such an impact of similar sized bodies anywhere in the solar system would be very dangerous to all other bodies.

I'm sure that this sort of engineering will be routine if humans endure long enough to visit other solar systems, as very few ready made earths will be available.

karov · 2006-03-10 12:42:04

karov,
Wouldn't it be easier to move a moon with a smaller say 50km sized object.
Bring one from the kb and set it in an orbit that alters the moons orbit.
A long term project for sure though.
le.

VEEERY long term project. And why to waste time/money to bring in-system new moon to tickle gravitationally the retrograde on in collision course ( s.t. that would take in the best case dozens of thousands of years...) THAN directly to slam the regular big round moon with the KB or OO object. If true that in KB alone there are > 100 000 objects with diam.>100 km. that means according to the famous rule of multiply-by-5... that there are >500 000 pieces with diam ~ 50 km. Lots of possible projectiles.

The notion of "let`s slam together the regular with the irregular moons out there" is rooted into the assumption that thus we could utilize the internal lunar system`s gravitational energy, without to import stuff and momentum. I suppose that only the internal exchange of momentum could provide us with the necessary impact trajectories PLUS lot`s of extra energy.

BTW, remember my words -- it is possible that the hot spot under the Enceladus South pole is residual , "fosil" heat namely from such retrograde, excentric and highly inclined... lesser moon recently hit there -- in the last 1-2 mln. years. Such hit would explain also the smootness of the surface - just the heat of the impact managed to melt down the whole moon to a significant depth. The object should be comparativelly small - 10-100 km. And the impact at small terminal velocity - indeed more merger than impact - less ejecta and less energy imjected than the Gravitational binding energy of Enceladus. Examples : Earth-Moon, Pluto-Charon...
There shoulda be significant "stake" of Enceladus-born iceteroides within the closest Saturn`s ring... s.t. which could be checked isotopically or via Raman analisys... The recent publications about the Enceladus south pole`s "yellowstone" park, were tried to be explained by tides or radioactivity, but why so localized???

Google for "asteroid impact simulator" -- and play with the numbers. The gravitational binding energy is not so small for Enceladus size body, and you may see what part of the Earth would be melted via collision with planetary mass projectile... but how less would be ejected with escape velocity.

The simulations show that indeed only small fragment from thin ring around the impact ground zero could be ejected off-planet. For the smaller bodies, too...

A planet is everithing over 400 km diameter. This is lots of mass , binded tightly together. The planets are not baloons to just burst when something with 10 times their diameter, or 1000 times less mass , hits them with so modest speeds of the magnitude of 1-10 km/s. Imagine the pre-impact hypothetical Enceladus - a darker and not so smooth spheroid of 400 km diameter hit by say, 40 km body with terminal velocity of 2 km/s -- the impact will take TWENTY SECONDS!
More like merger of two raindrops splashing away infinitesimal part of their mass as water "dusticles" ...

karov · 2006-03-10 12:57:14

karov,

With moon to moon impacts the heat pulse will last an eternity though, and the edjecta generated from such an impact of similar sized bodies anywhere in the solar system would be very dangerous to all other bodies.
I'm sure that this sort of engineering will be routine if humans endure long enough to visit other solar systems, as very few ready made earths will be available.

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

using this for 50 km icy object impactor we have the following result ( asuming that the impact terminal velocity is within the order of magnitude characteristic for the orbital speed of the target-moon -- 5-6 km/s on average are the fast moons, usualy less...)

==========================================

Impact Effects
Robert Marcus, H. Jay Melosh, and Gareth Collins
Please note: the results below are estimates based on current (limited) understanding of the impact process and come with large uncertainties; they should be used with caution, particularly in the case of peculiar input parameters. All values are given to three significant figures but this does not reflect the precision of the estimate. For more information about the uncertainty associated with our calculations and a full discussion of this program, please refer to this article

Your Inputs:
Distance from Impact: 400.00 km = 248.40 miles
Projectile Diameter: 50000.00 m = 164000.00 ft = 31.05 miles
Projectile Density: 1000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 5.00 km/s = 3.10 miles/s
Impact Angle: 30 degrees
Target Density: 1000 kg/m3
Target Type: Liquid Water of depth 100000.00 meters, over typical rock.
Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: 8.18 x 1023 Joules = 1.95 x 108 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years is 2.7 x 108years
Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.
Crater Dimensions:
What does this mean?

The crater opened in the water has a diameter of 129 km = 79.9 miles

For the crater formed in the seafloor:
Transient Crater Diameter: 3.88 km = 2.41 miles
Transient Crater Depth: 1.37 km = 0.852 miles

Final Crater Diameter: 4.66 km = 2.89 miles
Final Crater Depth: 0.47 km = 0.292 miles
The crater formed is a complex crater.
At this impact velocity ( < 12 km/s), little shock melting of the target occurs.
Thermal Radiation:
What does this mean?

At this impact velocity ( < 15 km/s), little vaporization occurs; no fireball is created, therefore, there is no thermal radiation damage.
Seismic Effects:
What does this mean?

The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 80 seconds.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 7.1
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 400 km:

IV. Felt indoors by many, outdoors by few during the day. At night, some awakened. Dishes, windows, doors disturbed; walls make cracking sound. Sensation like heavy truck striking building. Standing motor cars rocked noticeably.

V. Felt by nearly everyone; many awakened. Some dishes, windows broken. Unstable objects overturned. Pendulum clocks may stop.

Ejecta:
What does this mean?

The ejecta will arrive approximately 296 seconds after the impact.
At your position there is a fine dusting of ejecta with occasional larger fragments
Average Ejecta Thickness: 31.6 micrometers = 1.25 1/1000 of an inch
Mean Fragment Diameter: 729 micrometers = 28.7 1/1000 of an inch

Air Blast:
What does this mean?

The air blast will arrive at approximately 1210 seconds.
Peak Overpressure: 1.61e+06 Pa = 16.1 bars = 229 psi
Max wind velocity: 986 m/s = 2210 mph
Sound Intensity: 124 dB (Dangerously Loud)
Damage Description:

Multistory wall-bearing buildings will collapse.

Wood frame buildings will almost completely collapse.

Multistory steel-framed office-type buildings will suffer extreme frame distortion, incipient collapse.

Highway truss bridges will collapse.

Highway girder bridges will collapse.

Glass windows will shatter.

Cars and trucks will be largely displaced and grossly distorted and will require rebuilding before use.

Up to 90 percent of trees blown down; remainder stripped of branches and leaves.

Tell me more...
Click here for a pdf document that details the observations, assumptions, and equations upon which this program is based. It describes our approach to quantifying the important impact processes that might affect the people, buildings, and landscape in the vicinity of an impact event and discusses the uncertainty in our predictions. The processes included are: atmospheric entry, impact crater formation, fireball expansion and thermal radiation, ejecta deposition, seismic shaking, and the propagation of the atmospheric blast wave.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

====================================================

AND this for the same impactor the same angle of 30 degrees, but for 15 km/s...-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Impact Effects
Robert Marcus, H. Jay Melosh, and Gareth Collins
Please note: the results below are estimates based on current (limited) understanding of the impact process and come with large uncertainties; they should be used with caution, particularly in the case of peculiar input parameters. All values are given to three significant figures but this does not reflect the precision of the estimate. For more information about the uncertainty associated with our calculations and a full discussion of this program, please refer to this article

Your Inputs:
Distance from Impact: 400.00 km = 248.40 miles
Projectile Diameter: 50000.00 m = 164000.00 ft = 31.05 miles
Projectile Density: 1000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 15.00 km/s = 9.31 miles/s
Impact Angle: 30 degrees
Target Density: 1000 kg/m3
Target Type: Liquid Water of depth 100000.00 meters, over typical rock.
Energy:
Energy before atmospheric entry: 7.36 x 1024 Joules = 1.76 x 109 MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years is 1.4 x 109years
Major Global Changes:
The Earth is not strongly disturbed by the impact and loses negligible mass.
The impact does not make a noticeable change in the Earth's rotation period or the tilt of its axis.
The impact does not shift the Earth's orbit noticeably.
Crater Dimensions:
What does this mean?

The crater opened in the water has a diameter of 209 km = 129 miles

For the crater formed in the seafloor:
Transient Crater Diameter: 6.29 km = 3.91 miles
Transient Crater Depth: 2.22 km = 1.38 miles

Final Crater Diameter: 8.04 km = 4.99 miles
Final Crater Depth: 0.554 km = 0.344 miles
The crater formed is a complex crater.
The volume of the target melted or vaporized is 0.88 km3 = 0.211 miles3
Roughly half the melt remains in the crater , where its average thickness is 28.3 meters = 92.9 feet
Thermal Radiation:
What does this mean?

At this impact velocity ( < 15 km/s), little vaporization occurs; no fireball is created, therefore, there is no thermal radiation damage.
Seismic Effects:
What does this mean?

The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 80 seconds.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 7.7
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 400 km:

IV. Felt indoors by many, outdoors by few during the day. At night, some awakened. Dishes, windows, doors disturbed; walls make cracking sound. Sensation like heavy truck striking building. Standing motor cars rocked noticeably.

V. Felt by nearly everyone; many awakened. Some dishes, windows broken. Unstable objects overturned. Pendulum clocks may stop.

Ejecta:
What does this mean?

The ejecta will arrive approximately 296 seconds after the impact.
At your position there is a fine dusting of ejecta with occasional larger fragments
Average Ejecta Thickness: 219 micrometers = 8.61 1/1000 of an inch
Mean Fragment Diameter: 1.28 mm = 0.0504 inches

Air Blast:
What does this mean?

The air blast will arrive at approximately 1210 seconds.
Peak Overpressure: 8.42e+06 Pa = 84.2 bars = 1200 psi
Max wind velocity: 2320 m/s = 5190 mph
Sound Intensity: 139 dB (Dangerously Loud)
Damage Description:

Multistory wall-bearing buildings will collapse.

Wood frame buildings will almost completely collapse.

Multistory steel-framed office-type buildings will suffer extreme frame distortion, incipient collapse.

Highway truss bridges will collapse.

Highway girder bridges will collapse.

Glass windows will shatter.

Cars and trucks will be largely displaced and grossly distorted and will require rebuilding before use.

Up to 90 percent of trees blown down; remainder stripped of branches and leaves.

Tell me more...
Click here for a pdf document that details the observations, assumptions, and equations upon which this program is based. It describes our approach to quantifying the important impact processes that might affect the people, buildings, and landscape in the vicinity of an impact event and discusses the uncertainty in our predictions. The processes included are: atmospheric entry, impact crater formation, fireball expansion and thermal radiation, ejecta deposition, seismic shaking, and the propagation of the atmospheric blast wave.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course here the target is the Earth, but most of the figures are not gravity dependent... So, about fire ball, ejecta, etc...

MOst of the eventual ejecta also will remain in orbit around the gas giant central planet.

I agree that the planetary-mass-objects merger ( PLANEMOM) could be good tech for warming up smaller bodies.

chat · 2006-03-12 05:47:29

karov,

I agree if we are going to all the trouble to fetch a 50km kb object, impacting it on the surface of mars is a much more useful use of the asteroid.

I don't think it would be as tough to alter moons or moon orbits in the outer solar system, especially around Saturn as it has a multitude of ready made impactors ready for use in the rings.

Ring debris might be good material for any project in the solar system as its pretty close to escape velocity already.

Would be interesting to see if 2 small crappy moons become 1 big crappy moon

karov · 2006-03-13 03:54:21

http://www.universetoday.com/am/uploads … o-full.jpg

http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish … moons.html -- note, the eventual ring system mentioned. in Enceladus case the ring forming particles should be grabbed by Saturn`s powerfull gravity...

"...The object that hit Pluto probably measured between 1600 and 2000 kilometres in diameter, and struck the planet at a speed of 1 kilometre per second, and may have come from the Kuiper Belt . This collision probably occurred between 4.4 - 4.5 billion years ago because at that time Kuiper Belt objects were circling the Sun at relatively slow speeds. ...'
from: http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/blo … pluto.html

the interplanetary collisions are rather merging of two drops of water than violent scatering event...

karov · 2006-03-13 06:03:04

The Titan-Phoebe case:

The orbital speed of Phoebe ( >12 mln. km from Saturn, >550 days for single obrit, 115 degres inclination, mass ~ 8.289x10e18 kg ) is ~ 1.17 km/s. It should lose 'only' ~ 50% of that orbital speed in order to fall on Saturn. The deorbitation could be managed so that Titan to happen on the falling trajectory -- the simplest maneuvre.

The orbital paths divergention is 115 degrees , so the speeds should be vector summoned to about 10-11 km/s at impact.

Titans should gain only about 0.0045 part of its present orbital speed in order to provide the necessary momentum conservation for bringing down Phoebe ( if in the ideal case we are able to ideally transfer via ORSs the momentrum between them )...

the impact would inject into Titan about 4.1x10e26 Joulles of thermal energy. The simulations show that the atmosphere will not be splashed out. The least quantity squirted into orbit will be mostly sucked up in again , cause would remain in Saturnian orbit...

chat · 2006-03-14 06:27:21

karov,

Very interesting idea for de orbiting Phoebe into Titan.
This looks like a very efficient way to make 2 small useless worlds have a potential to become one semi easily.

I doubt if crashing anything into titan will make it a better place though as its cryogenic environment and weak gravity wouldn't stand up well to global thermal shocks.
The escape velocity of almost all of titans elements are only due to its temperatures being so cold.

But the plan to de orbit one body into another is a sound one.

karov · 2006-03-14 13:10:34

http://www.jaqar.com/swingby.html

karov · 2006-03-14 13:37:34

The escape velocity of almost all of titans elements are only due to its temperatures being so cold.
.

No, Chat! You forget the Saturn`s gravity. The Saturnian gravity well is about 7-8 km/s deep at the Titan`s orbital distance. Titan losses only ~ 500 tonnes of hydrogen a year , due to the fact that the escaping Titan hydrogen, is still captive of Saturn. The non-excentric magenotsphere of Saturn further increases the atmosphere retention capabilities of Titan... The thick atmosphere and the liquified crust will retain almost all of the impact heat. >4x10e26 J is A LOT of energy.
For comparison Titan has roughly 1/7th of the EArth`s surface area, and due to the ~tenfold bigger distance, i.e. about 100 times less intense insolation receives in absolute terms about 700 times les joules as solar radiation than Earth... 4x10e26 is the total energy output of the Sun for one second, or the total amount of sun light that hits the Earth for about 75 years!!!
The gravitational binding energy of Titan is -- U=2.8x10e29 Joules which is
~ 700 times less than the hypothetical impact energy from Phoebe -- Titan would remain almost intact... "Just" would be warmed up , the warmth will be mostly sealed beneath surrface.

MarsDog · 2006-04-02 19:39:18

http://www.jaqar.com/swingby.html

Looking at this program to try and understand limitations of gravity slingshot.
Energy transferred per encounter, as a function of masses and densities,
what could be done in a few hundred years ?

Would be interesting to know how we could create a sister, mainly water planet,
for Mars by colliding moons and Kuiper belt objects..

karov · 2006-04-03 02:39:51

http://www.jaqar.com/swingby.html
Looking at this program to try and understand limitations of gravity slingshot.
Energy transferred per encounter, as a function of masses and densities,
what could be done in a few hundred years ?
Would be interesting to know how we could create a sister, mainly water planet,
for Mars by colliding moons and Kuiper belt objects..

MarsDog, can you calculate the orbital maneuvres ( the most economical in delta-V) for colliding Phoebe and Titan? I can`t.

The martian new huge moon could be coalesced incrementally form smaller KB objects, than to extract moons from the gravity wells of the gas-giants.
There are > 200 000 000 of KB objects with size bigger than 20 km.
Many KBO have companions/moonlets - ready source of gravitational potential energy ( GPE).
Use the GPE, to power the following procedure:
-- von Neumans to spawn artificial "snowflakes" each of them is little solarsail with integrateed circuit on surface.
-- slingshot the snowflakes flux to Martian orbit.
-- capture them there with a wheel of space elevators in martian orbit...
-- descend them towards the center of the structure to acquire the energy.
-- collect there the necessary amount of snow to form a ice-moon of Mars on the necessary distance to exert enough tide.
-------

MarsDog · 2006-04-03 19:01:27

MarsDog, can you calculate the orbital maneuvres ( the most economical in delta-V) for colliding Phoebe and Titan? I can`t.

Multiple Hyperbolic encounters with Iapetus and Hyperion before crashing to Titan ?
Destabilizing Phoebe orbit somehow ?
Numerical integrations or billiard ball guesses ?
Don't know how, but will try figure it out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit

even lower energies
http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~shane/paper … l-2004.pdf

karov · 2006-04-04 11:22:39

MarsDog wrote:

Destabilizing Phoebe orbit somehow ?
Numerical integrations or billiard ball guesses ?
Don't know how, but will try figure it out.

even lower energies
http://www.cds.caltech.edu/~shane/paper … l-2004.pdf
Rather s.t. like this. I relly on you! My knowledge is over...

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