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Re:Everything About Mars Is the Worst (2017) by pwatsonwailes on Monday June 10, 2024 @06:42AM (#40632104)
The problem with a Hohmann transfer orbit is that you rely on launch windows. You can only do it when the two planets are in a straight line from the sun (or more accurately, and the same equivalent points in each of their orbits at the same time). This is a pain as Earth-Mars launch windows only come along every two years.

If you want to launch without that issue, you're then into the world of using more delta-v, which is catastrophically expensive, unless you've got some form of propulsion for your craft beyond what we've got now. So yes, but with caveats.

Obviously, there's a giant pile of detail beyond this in terms of the calculations for trading off time of flight vs distance between bodies, vs delta-v to accelerate towards the body, and then accelerate away from it to slow your descent into an orbital trajectory, but that's more depth than I'm going into for a quick HN comment.

Re:Everything About Mars Is the Worst (2017) by Dylan16807 on Monday June 10, 2024 @04:54PM (#40638958)
If you're jamming the throttle then the difference between Venus and Mars is also not very much.