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A comment on Astronomers Find Cosmic 'Superhighways' for Fast Travel Through Solar System. Parent comment

Re:Astronomers Find Cosmic 'Superhighways' for Fast Travel T... by hinkley on Monday December 14, 2020 @02:55PM (#25422378)
Is that entirely true though? Many of our highest impulse engines have fewer problems with the tyranny of the rocket equation, but also have low thrust. The beginnings of trips are going to be slow even if the end is not.

Using these paths for the beginning and end of journeys may make a lot of sense, even if they make no sense at all in the middle.

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Re:Astronomers Find Cosmic 'Superhighways' for Fast Travel T... by dmitrygr on Monday December 14, 2020 @04:00PM (#25423222)
> The beginnings of trips are going to be slow even if the end is not.

Endings too. You cannot just slow down. No brakes in space. And if your engine is low thrust, you'll need a while to slow down too, unless your goal is kinetic impact unto your target.

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Re:Astronomers Find Cosmic 'Superhighways' for Fast Travel T... by dragonwriter on Monday December 14, 2020 @04:17PM (#25423445)
> You cannot just slow down.

If you engineer to survive it, aero- and even litho-braking are alternatives where you can “just” slow down, without using onboard reaction mass.

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Re:Astronomers Find Cosmic 'Superhighways' for Fast Travel T... by Zanni on Monday December 14, 2020 @07:49PM (#25425603)
Thank you for introducing me to "lithobraking." What a wonderful euphemism for "crashing into the planet" (albeit a controlled crash, or, as you say, engineered for survival).
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Re:Astronomers Find Cosmic 'Superhighways' for Fast Travel T... by JPLeRouzic on Tuesday December 15, 2020 @12:57PM (#25432867)
Isn't what a plane is doing while landing on the airstrip?
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Re:Astronomers Find Cosmic 'Superhighways' for Fast Travel T... by JPLeRouzic on Monday December 14, 2020 @04:28PM (#25423590)
So in the worst case the average speed is half of the maximum speed. Still something attractive.
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