I'm writing a story involving the PC-Morningstar conflict. I want a terrorist to redirect an iceteroid so that it crashes into a research station on the Venusian surface.
Here's how I'm imagining it goes normally.
1. Iceteroid located in the asteroid belt using spectrometry or something.
2. It is then captured with hooks or something and brought to a mass driver station by an actual ship. This is a relatively short distance.
3. Conductive shielding with small disposable thrusters is attached to the iceteroid and it is fired in the general vicinity of Venus.
4. On the other end, it passes through another mass driver which slows it down.
5. A ship carries it from there to the processing plant for use by the nearest Aerostat.
Is this too crazy? Would it just be dragged by a ship all the way from the main belt to Venus? Are there closer iceteroids?
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Iceteroid farming mechanics on Venus
Sat, 2015-11-14 17:23
#1
chlorinecrown
Iceteroid farming mechanics on Venus
Sat, 2015-11-14 22:22
#2
Trappedinwikipedia
Mass drivers seem like a
Mass drivers seem like a wasteful way to move iceteroids into the inner system. There aren't really short distances in the asteroid belt, as it's really enormous. The catcher would also need to be quite large to catch a projectile thrown from the asteroid belt. It gets worse when iceteroids are thrown from the kuiper belt as a number of them are.
IIRC the common method in setting is using "whaler" space craft to redirect their orbits near the target and having another whaler finish the catch and put the iceteroid where it needs to be. A hijacked catching whaler would probably be the easiest way to put an iceteroid somewhere it doesn't belong, especially around Venus, where the orbital defenses are quite poor. (Doing the same around Mars or Titan would probably not be possible).
Sun, 2015-11-15 03:54
#3
ShadowDragon8685
chlorinecrown wrote:I'm
1: Absolutely fine, that's, well, how you'd locate an asteroid to begin with.
2: Uh... No? You generally want an object in space to have as few orbital changes as possible, so they'd probably just redirect the asteroid directly.
3: Why wouldn't they just fling the asteroid at Venus directly?
4: No. Slowing something down by passing it through a mass driver is like trying to "catch" an incoming cannonball with another cannon. The results will be similarly destructive, even if you do manage to aim the damn thing right.
5: Whhhhhhhhy?
This is too crazy. To get an iceteroid to Venus, here are the steps.
1: Intercept iceteroid with ship.
2: Install lots of $ENGINES on the iceteroid, along with maybe a layer of smartmatter cladding to help it resist solar radiation better.
3: Light up the $ENGINES, applying change in velocity, to bring the asteroid's orbit into something you wish it to be.
4: Repeat step 3 as needed until the iceteroid is where you want it to be, orbiting the way you want it. Then go to step 5.
5: Use iceteroid in the manner in which you see fit.
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Sun, 2015-11-15 09:18
#4
ORCACommander
shadow has the gist of it the
shadow has the gist of it the other part with mass drivers is that they operate on magnetic principles. iceteroids are not magnetic.
Sun, 2015-11-15 10:56
#5
chlorinecrown
I guess I was imagining
I guess I was imagining engines are less disposable than they are. I'm also thinking of the mass drivers as gigantic cylinders studded with thrusters and moving them into position is not that hard a problem.
I'm a little confused about step 3. Am I not just firing the engines 180 degrees away from venus once they're in place? Or I am, but it's got sufficient angular momentum that even doing that will just cause it to start a spiral pattern? Is it going to normally be in multiple intermediate orbits before arriving on Venus?
Sun, 2015-11-15 15:54
#6
Trappedinwikipedia
Engines cost as much as the
Engines cost as much as the materials they are made of+the power needed to fabricate them. Often they have to be pretty large so they're still expensive by EP standards, but not really that expensive.
Whenever you're using rockets, every bit of mass added requires more fuel, adding more mass, which will in turn require more fuel. Moving massive objects around is disproportionately tougher than smaller things, which is a pretty big argument against gigantic cylinders. There's also the problem that orbital trajectories are inherently kind of unpredictable, but that should be smaller in AF10 than it is in the present.
I'm not sure what your question is for step three. You're probably never going to thrust directly at or away from Venus though. To get an asteroid from the asteroid belt to venus you're going to need to start by thrusting retrograde to the asteroid's orbit around the sun. This will reduce the asteroid's orbital velocity, and cause it to drop into a lower orbit. Do this enough, and at the right time for the new eccentric orbit to intersect with Venus, ideally with a fairly low relative velocity to venus. Once the gravity of venus captures the asteroid, you're going to want to thrust retrograde again to make the asteroid orbit venus rather than just doing a flyby. Thrusting a little longer will drop the asteroid's orbit into the atmosphere or surface of venus doing causing an impact.
http://history.nasa.gov/conghand/fig20d20.gif
This image shows a Earth to Venus flight path, one from the asteroid belt would fundamentally be the same but across a longer distance. You could also use the ITN if speed is not an issue, but I suspect that that would help less from the main belt than in many other places in the solar system, as there aren't really lagrange points in the asteroid belt. I am not an astrodynamicist though.
Sun, 2015-11-15 17:35
#7
electron dream
Moving an asteroid (or iceteroid)
As far as moving asteroids in space goes, there are a number of options:
1)Attach a rocket as suggested above
2)Attach a solar sail to the asteroid and use that to change the asteroids orbital path
3)Attach an engine/cannon to the asteroid and use the materials on the asteroid as fuel/propellant/projectiles to move the asteroid.
4)Use a laser to "push" the asteroid in a desired direction or use the laser to vaporize material on the surface of the asteroid to move the object.
Some of these options require a number of years to move an asteroid, but what is time? There's also a number of other variations that could be used.
Sun, 2015-11-15 23:30
#8
ORCACommander
Solars sails are not
Solars sails are not particularly viable for going sunward unless you can make a program that knows how to tack into the wind
Mon, 2015-11-16 00:03
#9
Trappedinwikipedia
Tacking is typically how
Tacking is typically how solar sails work actually. They should usually be held at about a 45 degree angle to the sun. Radial in/out thrust is often a waste thrust wise.