Subject: (urth) "Trip, Trap" and Orbits

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 16:05:59 +0000

Adam Stephanides told the story, just in time, too, since I would have done
it in another hour or two.

The only thing I would add is that the story itself was published in Damon
Knight's ORBIT 2 (1967).  And that Gene Wolfe had said something to Damon
Knight along the lines of how that experience (being
edited/mentored/published in such company/etc.) had made him a writer (he
had a few stories published already); and Damon Knight scoffed and said
something like, "I didn't grow you from a bean."

Onto other topics: I mentioned before the notion of using "cyclers" between
Earth and Mars, and at that time I wrote that they were in Hohmann orbits.
If I said "like Hohmann orbits" that would be closer.

In any event, the notion started with a paper by Buzz Aldrin regarding
"Mars Transit System."  The cyclers (big habitats) drift in continuous,
stable orbits that cross both Earth's and Mars' orbits: the short leg is 5
months and the long leg is 10 to 21 months.

If I understand it correctly, the short leg is the trip from Earth to Mars,
and it would take at least 5 months (I've seen a figure of 6 to 8 months).
The long leg is the trip from Mars to Earth, and it would basically take a
year or two, depending.

(To reduce these travel times, the idea is to use multiple cyclers.  This
creates a sort of "conveyor belt" between Earth and Mars.)

=mantis=

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