Gravitational Currents Could Slash Fuel Needed For Space Flight

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that scientists are mapping the gravitational corridors created from the complex interplay of attractive forces between planets and moons that can be used to cut the cost of journeys in space. 'Basically the idea is there are low energy pathways winding between planets and moons that would slash the amount of fuel needed to explore the solar system,' says Professor Shane Ross from Virginia Tech. 'These are free-fall pathways in space around and between gravitational bodies. Instead of falling down, like you do on Earth, you fall along these tubes.' The pathways connect Lagrange points where gravitational forces balance out. Depicted by computer graphics, the pathways look like strands of spaghetti that wrap around planetary bodies and snake between them. 'If you're in a parking orbit round the Earth, and one of them intersects your trajectory, you just need enough fuel to change your velocity and now you're on a new trajectory that is free,' says Ross. 'You could travel between the moons of Jupiter essentially for free. All you need is a little bit of fuel to do course corrections.' The Genesis spacecraft used gravitational pathways that allowed the amount of fuel carried by the probe to be cut 10-fold, but the trade off is time. While it would take a few months to get around the Jovian moon system using gravitational currents (PDF), attempting to get a free ride from Earth to Mars on the currents might take thousands of years."

Re:So...

[Chris Burke]

Space Travel is just like the internet. All you need to do is navigate a bunch of tubes.

Yeah, and you can get it for free as long as you're okay with it being slow.

Now we just need to find the Space Travel equivalent of your neighbor's unsecured wireless router, and we can even solve that problem!

n-body problem

[buback]

This is a great idea but the difficulty is in solving n-body problems incorporating all the gravitational bodies in the solar system.

Even finding the Lagrange points between the earth, sun, and moon is very difficult. Throw in all the other moons and planets and you have a even harder task on your hands.

You can't dumb down rocket science

[starglider29a]

TFA makes this sound really easy, cheap and quick. It's not. Can you decrease the propellant used to get from lunar orbit to Mars? Yes. Is it free and easy? No. But TFA says I can decrease the amount of propellant 10-fold! Yes, from 1000000 to 100000. If you use enough time (and money) a solar sail will get you there for free.

But TFA makes it sound like you can find 'just the right spot just past the Moon' and zoooooop! Off you go the the gasoline seas of Titan.

BS.

Douglas Adams stated that "Space if really big." The image in TFA makes it looks like a skate park. Try drawing the Solar System to scale, and you begin to get the idea. A local community college has a scale MODEL. The sun is about a meter in diameter a frisbee throw away is Earth, this tiny dot with a tinier a fly's wingspan away. It took us a Saturn V to get there and 4 days. TFA wants us to think that once we get there, we can "freefall [down] pathways in space around and between gravitational bodies. Instead of falling down, like you do on Earth, you fall along these tubes." That's crap, without a metric a55load of Delta V.

'If you're in a parking orbit round the Earth, and one of them intersects your trajectory, you just need enough fuel to change your velocity and now you're on a new trajectory that is free.''

BS.

Summary says it all

[GodfatherofSoul]

...Earth to Mars on the currents might take thousands of years."

Now, I can go back to sleep

Re:old idea

[dpilot]

As others have said, not news. In my deskPix directory, from which I randomly pick a background each login, I have "Interplanetary_Superhighway.jpg" dated Sept 8, 2005 which is as far as I can tell, exactly the same picture used in the article. Doesn't beat the 2003 Slashdot date, but the illustration matches.

This is sort of a groaner

[Brett Buck]

'If you're in a parking orbit round the Earth, and one of them intersects your trajectory, you just need enough fuel to change your velocity and now you're on a new trajectory that is free,' says Ross.

      Oy Vey! Of course I haven't RTFA (will later, being a space guy and all). But 'all you have to do is change your velocity'? That's exactly the same as what you do *without* gravitational currents. If you are in a parking orbit around Earth, and change your velocity by 13000 FPS, yes, you don't have to expend any more fuel to get to Jupiter. Of course that maybe took 200,000 lbs of fuel, but otherwise it's free. It's like saying "all you have to do is buy General Motors, and you get Corvettes for free".

      It is probably just a matter of saving some fuel, but the quote is exceptionally misleading.

        Brett

Re:Mission to Mars (almost)

[Kell Bengal]

The problem is even at high-orbit you still need to slow down at intercept and circularise your orbit. You'd be much better off making fast fly-by on an (sun-centric) elliptical orbit that returns to Earth on the way back in. That way, you're in Mar's neighborhood for a month or so and can easily dispatch a lander for the final leg to Mars, but you don't waste a fuckton worth of fuel slowing down the bulk of your vessel to stop at the planet itself - save that for braking when you get home.