[TML] Guns in Space!

[Andrew Long]

On 1 Sep 2007, at 03:02, Timothy Little wrote:

> <Snip/>
>
> Firing nearly toward or away from the planet would be almost as bad,
> since that wouldn't change the orbital period either.  There would be
> a second intersection point, but with different eccentricities the
> second one would be a near miss.  You'd be hit one full orbit later.
>
> Note: if you're not hit after one orbit, the shell's orbital period
> doesn't match and you're likely safe for quite a while longer.
>
There was a short story in Analog about this, lo those many years ago  
(I'll have to see if I can find it...) Female astronomer is 'in  
command' of a manned orbital mission with two 'space cadet' type NASA  
pilots making sure that she doesn't actually get to DO anything. At  
some point in the mission, the pilots jettison their propulsion unit  
in what they call the 'garbage burn' - just point it at Earth and  
light the touch paper.

Unfortunately they're in too high an orbit for the (messy, nuclear)  
thruster to be caught by the atmosphere, and it's up to the  
astronomer to save the day... She realises that the orbits can be  
treated as cycles and epicycles, and just puts them at the other edge  
of the thruster's epicycle.

Coming back to it now, it seems less likely that even NASA space  
cadets would be dumping highly radioactive junk into the upper  
atmosphere, and their attitude towards their 'mission commander'  
would get them grounded, if not court-martialed, today.

Regards, Andy

--  
Andrew Long
andrew dot long at yahoo dot com