Interplanetary Comet Surfer Boost

[rogers_buck]

Having watched Deep Impact it set me to thinking. What if a space craft were designed to absorb the shock of such a collision and, thereby, receive a considerable delta-vee?<br /><br />Use the comet as the cushion - more specifically, the comet's tail. Of course you would want to produce a calibrated tail by using a laser to vaporize the comet, but real-time obervations could be made to vaporize the right amount. So, after you have a comet with the desired tail stretching out behind it for miles, all you have to do is endure a near miss and manuever your spaceship behind the comet and deplay an enormous parachuts kevlar balutes. You would also have to shield the aft side of your spaceship with a thick fiberglass armored disk. Seems like quite a large amount of delta-vee could be garnered from comet surfing.

 

[vogon13]

23,000 mph to dead stop in what, maybe 0.05 seconds?<br /><br />Pretty nasty G load to design to.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[rogers_buck]

No, you get missed by the comet, but surf the tail. The tail has considerable forward momentum to impart to your balute/chute. You get sand blasted, but a good fiberglass slug ought to stop the nasty bits from punching holes in you...

 

[rogers_buck]

Amazing guy JV... Thanks for the link.