The ship performing the bluff has also expended propellant, but it can refuel at LEO, an option not available to the blockaders. One possible tactic is to feign a departure, either to draw the blockader into battle with a heavily armed ship, or as sheer bluff - forcing the blockader to expend its limited propellant, then 'reverse course' and spiral back inward toward low orbit. Both prey and pursuer are circling Earth throughout the chase, which unfolds over a period of days due to their extremely sluggish acceleration.īut the scope for evasive maneuvers is extremely limited, since the blockade runner must keep spiraling outward if it is to proceed on its journey. This sort of space chase is more than a bit odd to contemplate. This gives ample time for ships in high Earth orbit to intercept would-be blockade runners, the interception taking place somewhere between geosynch and lunar distance. Departing ships spiral out for a week or more, their orbital speed (relative to Earth) gradually decreasing to a couple of km/s, before they finally pass escape velocity and break loose into solar orbit. On the flip side, the technology of deep space travel makes 'distant blockade' a surprisingly viable concept. Just on a practical level, all of these constraints are a good reason to seek mutual understanding through dialogue. And for human missions much of the advantage may be lost due to shielding mass. Nuclear thermal propulsion is intermediate, but much closer to chemfuel. Which means that a 1 km/s burn is huge, a sizable chunk of your entire maneuver capacity. By bringing along plenty of tankers for support, a few ships might have a couple of dozen km/s for operational movement.Ĭhemfuel spacecraft can have pretty much as much acceleration as you want, but unless they start out as mostly propellant drop tanks they will carry only 2-3 km/s of delta v. The expeditionary needs to reserve propellant for a (slow!) abort orbit back to Mars.Īnd while milligee drives preclude 'tactical' maneuver, at least some of your deep space ships likely have a few km/s of delta v for 'operational' orbit changes in Earth space. The Martian expeditionary force probably take a slower orbit than civil transports, because transports can refuel at their destination. This has been discussed here before, but it is almost impossible to overstate. Spaceships won't sink, or become aerodynamically unflyable.ĭelta v will be a constant preoccupation of commanders. On the other hand, punching a few small holes in the wings will not cripple them, so the vulnerability should not be overstated. Hardening these is a nonstarter, so deep-space ships are inherently vulnerable. Main drive acceleration is in the milligee range, and the ships have either very large radiator fins or very large solar wings. Human interplanetary travel uses electric propulsion, on the general lines often discussed here. Slagging individual transport-class ships is dicey, depending on the circumstances. Slagging Earth, its launch sites, or orbital infrastructure are not objectives, or even acceptable outcomes. ![]() Namely send the expeditionary force.Ĭ) Whoever this somebody is, their objective is to control outbound traffic from Earth, not eliminate it - especially not permanently. But a polite request, by itself, would be ignored.ī) Somebody on Mars (or at least in Mars space) has means and motive to issue more than a polite request. A polite request would reach Earth a lot faster, easier, and cheaper than an expeditionary force. For our purpose, it is sufficient thatĪ) The relevant Earthside authorities have zero interest, or less than zero, in helping Mars bottle these certain persons up. We will not, for this discussion, trouble ourselves with who 'certain persons' are, or why someone on Mars wants to keep them from leaving Earth. If they resist arrest they may be fired upon. ![]() Travel to good old Luna may or may not be included in the embargo, depending as much on operational as policy-objective considerations. to any other planet, moon, or other astronomical body. Specifically, certain persons are to be embargoed, forbidden to travel from Earth. ![]() Its mission is to establish and enforce a blockade of Earth - or of the rest of the Solar System, depending on how you look at it. ![]() An expeditionary force, let us say, has set forth from Mars, heading toward Earth.
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