Idea for Interplanetary missions

[rory438]

Hello, Steam! I have a great idea conerning interplanetary missions!
here's how it works:
1.A mostly unpowered, controled spacecraft is launched to orbit
2. there, it docks up with a powerful 'ram' spacecraft or mass relay, parked in orbit.
3. the ram/mass relay pushes the spacecraft to the desired trajectory
4 (IF RAM) the ram undocks and returns home to orbit, leaving the little spacecraf off to the target.

the smaller spacecraft could aerobrake or be caught by another ram at the destination, haveall the cargo taken out of it, have new cargo put in it, and be 'thrown' off to another destination.

would this work? please tell me, I want to know.

[Aragosnat]

The only draw back woud be if you needed course correction. It will not happen after the RAM craft leaves. As there is certainly a good chance your craft will not enter the desired place and sometimes miss getting the intercept completely even though last time you looked at it it was fine. But, something to certainly try to do with Ion Drive crafts.

About the only thing I can think of to help unpowered ones is to do it near the edge of the destionations SOI with a longish curve to it. That way. The speed should hopefully be slow enough for what ever is at the destionation to catch up and hopefully slow it down. Might need another craft to catch the craft that slowed down the first. Just depends on the size and mass of all crafts involved. This is best for ones without moons and atmospheres. Otherise you might be playing planet/moon pool and the craft you sent is the white ball....

[rory438]

'Mostly unpowered' meant that there would be a small amount of thrust in the cargo pod for just such an occasion. I also thought that you could put other RAM craft around other bodies, to catch/send cargo. I do admit that the challenge is there (planet/moon pool is a good explanation) but i'm sure a person could do it.

(BTW, do you know Scott Manley's steam name? I wanna throw this at him)

[Aragosnat]

Yes. You can do that as that is basicly just like capturing an asteroid misson. And don't know his account.

[rory438]

ok. so this isn't mucch different than from a asteroid redirec mission, except this carries Cargo and stuff.

[Ragequit Inc.]

I don't see why it wouldn't work, provided you plan out everything properly. I've thought about it here and there, but never bothered doing it. I'm sure others have.

On a sidenote; if you wanna 'throw this' at Mr. Manley, do it on his channel, you don't need his Steam for that.

[Aragosnat]

Pretty much. Should have said that from the start I should...

[rory438]

I don't have a youtube account. (sadface)

[Aragosnat]

Tis free.

[[COxMA] Altripp]

Originally posted by RoryYamm:

I don't have a youtube account. (sadface)

You don't use gmail? If you have a gmail, you have an youtube account (or at the very least you can set one with minimal effort). If you don't use gmail, you should. Unless you are afraid google is spying you and would rather have other company spy you. Either way the government will spy on you, so in the end it doesn't even matter.

[rory438]

OK, so a) stop talking about me and b) does anybody want to attempt this and post pictures? I really would like to see if this could be done.

[SievertChaser]

Docking with a ship in an unstable orbit (the destination "ram") as well as returning the initial "ram" from an escape trajectory are two stupidly impractical solutions.

Otherwise, you've just reinvented the Earth Orbital Rendezvous design of the Constellation program.

[[COxMA] Altripp]

I think i'm gonna give it a shot... If i actually do it, i'll let you know

[Athywren]

I've done a similar thing in the past - rather than having a ram that docked with the payload, pushed it to an encounter trajectory, undocked and returned, I had it be more like a taxi, where it docked, got the payload to the destination, undocked, remaining in an eliptical orbit and let the payload do its thing, then redock and return. So, yeah, that sort of thing works fairly well if you know how to use it efficiently. Can work very well if you have a refuelling station around the target planet, too. It's a good way to keep launch costs down in the long term, while still having a decent range on your space program.

[rory438]

OK. I am nowhere near good enough to do such a thing without Hyperedit and getting bored out of my mind, so I'll have to rely on you.

[[COxMA] Altripp]

Ok, so its definitely possible, but after testing a bit, it seems that it's just not worth it. You'd need to have a small payload so it could be at least somewhat practical (i found that 2.5 tons is the max i would try to do it). The ram would have to carry its own weight , and then recapture its own weight. All the designs i made had me thinking "It'd be easier to just strap a bit of fuel and a small engine on it..."

You have to use a high ISP engine to do it, otherwise you would need OBSCENE ammounts of fuel to get the small payload on an escape trajectory (and get the ram back into a low orbit). So, you need either the Ion engine or the nuclear engine. The Ion engine has a TWR so low that it'd be ridiculous trying to do it, so, we only have the nuclear as a real option. And the engine itself weights 2.5 tons. And we still need all the fuel... Yeah, you see where this is going.

If you wanted to get a small payload (2~2.5 tons) on an orbit to Eeloo (or even Jool - the transfer burn is almost the same deltaV), you'd need about 1000 units of liquid fuel (any less i wouldn't feel safe - i wouldn't feel i can 100% sure get the ram back into a low orbit).

My veredict is: Very cool idea (I myself thought about it in the past). Just SO not worth it at all in the end.

If anyone finds a way to make this work better, please let me know!