spaceship one

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:41:16 +0000, Ron Wanttaja wrote:

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 01:03:41 GMT, Richard Lamb
wrote:

Hey Ron, help me out some more here on
rec.aviation.homebuilt.spacecraft.

For the reentry phase from orbit...
For the sake of argument (and ignoring the increased fuel required)
wouldn't slowing down too much before reentry be a problem?

Steeper path, higher G load, and even more reentry heat?

Like I said on an earlier post, I don't have much background on re-entry
physics. But I think it's possible to deorbit going slowly at a fairly
shallow angle...you just have to time the deorbit burn properly.

But one thing you can't do is "slow fly" a satellite. For any given speed,
for any given velocity vector, there is only one possible orbit. Sure, you
can probably increase your angle of attack and do a "skip", but that just
means that on the other side of the world, you're going to come down at a
much steeper angle. Kinda like bouncing a landing without the ability to
add a burst of power to catch the bounce.

I'm having one of those moments...

I had always wondered why you couldn't dolphin in and out of the earth's
atmosphere, cooling down in between hops.

AC

On Fri, 25 Jun 2004 05:41:36 +0100, anonymous coward
wrote:

But one thing you can't do is "slow fly" a satellite. For any given speed,
for any given velocity vector, there is only one possible orbit. Sure, you
can probably increase your angle of attack and do a "skip", but that just
means that on the other side of the world, you're going to come down at a
much steeper angle. Kinda like bouncing a landing without the ability to
add a burst of power to catch the bounce.

I'm having one of those moments...

I had always wondered why you couldn't dolphin in and out of the earth's
atmosphere, cooling down in between hops.

I think you'd re-enter at steeper and steeper angles each time, since you
lose velocity at each encounter with the atmosphere. I suspect, at some
point, you can't "pull out" and may break up due to the overly steep
re-entry.

Just a guess, mind you.

Ron Wanttaja