Fun day, little writing

Looks like I'm doing nothing.  But I'm reading a lot.  I've written about Belbruno before, so I will relate a little about that with this post.

Belbruno worked with the Japanese in saving one of their space probes.  He managed to get their probe into a useful location without using much propellant, since none was available.  The alternative was a failed mission.  The Japanese were desperate for help, and Belbruno saved the mission for them.

People may not believe this, but there is a way that you could move objects around in outer space without using that much energy.  The trick is that it takes a lot of time.  But you don't have to put people on one of these low energy trajectories.  Just put some useful stuff on it and use it when you need it.

Now, if you were to take a large mass, and move it into position so that it can facilitate high energy transfers, then you would really have something.  High energy transfers could transport people in comfort and safety, provided that you had sufficient mass.

Bringing sufficient mass to bear upon the problem isn't going to be easy using conventional methods.

You can overpower a problem with brute force, or you can finesse it.  This approach is a finesse approach.  What Elon Musk seems to be talking about is a brute force approach with a massively huge rocket.

Now Musk could use his massive rocket to deliver something that could be placed into low orbit, and then pushed by a low energy propulsion device through one of these Belbruno type trajectories.  That something could be a refueling station complete with fuel ready to be used.  Musk could place it there while waiting for a launch window to open up.  It may take two years to get it to a Lagrange point using a Belbruno type trajectory, but that is how long a launch window takes to open up for a Mars mission.

Neat how that could work.  Launch your refueling station 2 years from the next window, and then launch the crewed mission to catch up with it when the launch window opens up in 2 years as is the case on any trip to Mars.  More mass can be delivered that way than in waiting for the launch window and launching it all in one fell swoop.