[TML] Guns in Space!

[Andrew Long]

On 1 Sep 2007, at 10:44, shadow at shadowgard.com wrote:

> On 1 Sep 2007 at 17:55, Timothy Little wrote:
>
>> Andrew Long wrote:
>>> 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.
>>
>> Hehe.  A far better "garbage burn" would be to point it 'behind'  
>> them.
>> That would double the reduction of perigee.  It would also reduce the
>> orbital period so that if it missed, they'd have vastly longer to  
>> deal
>> with it.
>
> The female commander points this out.
>
> She also notes that they had picked up the bad habit during training
> in a low orbit station where things dumped that way *would* deorbit
> quickly from atmospheric drag. And theorizes that they had trainees
> "dump the garbage" that way *there*, because it's the one burn that
> they didn't have to worry about the trainees pointing it in the wrong
> direction (get the "backwards" burn flipped and you'll have a nasty
> problem half an orbit later).
>
Damn! Shadow always beats me to it. However, here it is:-

Analog November 1973. 'Epicycle' by P.J. Plauger

Regards, (the late) Andy (as in 'not in time')

-- 
Andrew Long
andrew dot long at yahoo dot com