Getting to Mars is never going to be cheap. But a couple of mathematicians have figured out how to shave some significant bucks off the price tag. Rather than fly to the red planet when it’s orbit brings it closest, the craft will “meet” it on the way. The strategy is called ballistic capture and involves launching the ship into a Mars-like orbit, but moving slower than than the planet itself.
There are myriad reasons why getting from Earth to Mars is hard, but chief among them are two 1) the massive amount of fuel needed and 2) a launch window that is limited to every 26 months, when the two planets are in optimal alignment. A couple of mathematicians have calculated a new path to Mars that solves both — and it’s far from a straight line. Mapping a route to Mars, of course, is more complicated than mapping any Earth-bound route. The distance between the two planets is constantly growing or shrinking, depending on their orbits around the sun. (That’s why the optimal launch window only opens every 26 months.) And you have to take into account how gravity from the Earth, Mars, and the sun will pull a spacecraft off its course.
NOTE: TECHi Two-Takes are the stories we have chosen from the web along with a little bit of our opinion in a paragraph. Please check the original story in the Source Button below.
TECHi weighs both sides before reaching a conclusion.
TECHi’s editorial take above outlines the reasoning that supports this position.
If you're worried about being out of shape, or suspect you might have a disease like diabetes, just breathe into…
Quadrocopter drones are capable of some incredible acrobatics, but they seldom handle failure all that gracefully. ETH Zurich's Mark Mueller is tackling this…
