Although the prospects are much more favorable for using the station as a staging base for a further deployment of spacecraft that leave Earth's orbital environment—like the Webb telescope and missions to the moon or Mars—such outfitting would need to be done in the vacuum of space with the spacecraft docked to the station. The launch window to the moon, Mars or other points would occur far less often on the station than from the ground. For example, a lunar launch window from the station occurs approximately every 10 days. Mars is even more rare. From a rotating Earth, we can choose a launch window every day that aligns us into the plane of our trajectory to the moon or desired planet. The moon's 29-day orbit around the Earth helps to bring the ISS into alignment with it every 10 days, but Mars' relative motion is so small that we must wait for orbit precession alone, which gets us aligned roughly every 30 days or so.
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3 Comments
Add CommentHow disappointing. To think that the scene from 2001:A Space Odessy(1st scene,act2)the commercial shuttle rising up to a large, all purpose space staion is as whacky of a fantasy as StarWars etc. That 1 movie scene I can never get of my mind.We were so certain back then that it would become a reality.It´s sad,very sad.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeh, I have a suggestion. While the shuttle is still in orbit with the space station,send up a special supply ship to dock with the space station. The supple ship will transport a bomb . The bomb should be placed by the shuttle crew to the rogue satellite. Than make the shuttle can boggie on home The rogue junk can than be blasted remotely. rmartinosr@verizon.net
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Edited by gunondeer at 02/27/2008 9:53 PM
How about using the space station as a base for recovering billions of dollars of gold on the satellite's that are no longer functioning sitting out there out there as junk.
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