Thursday, April 30, 2026

An interplanetary shortcut can speed up trips to Mars

In a way, this harkens back to the original moon missions.  Computers (ie, the people - mostly women - who did the computing by hand) figured out the most efficient way to get to the moon, orbit it, and come back to earth… and have a fairly precise landing spot (yes it was many 10s of miles, but it was a reasonable calculation in the 1960s). 

Here, a scientist looked at the path that a meteor took in its path between mars and earth, and figured out that we could theoretically have a “fairly short” trip to mars because of the orbital mechanics and whatnot. 

It’s a cool way to look at the way in which we can get to the red planet. 

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