by MarkBour » Mon Feb 10, 2020 12:31 am
When I learned a few basic facts about orbital mechanics, I found them surprising / counter-intuitive.
For example, if you are following behind a spaceship and want to catch up to it, a single forward blast would increase your speed, but this would cause you to go into a higher orbit and eventually fall further behind the spacecraft.
As I think about an astronaut attempting to maneuver freely with his/her MMU, I wonder if this is an issue. Perhaps they needed to undergo special planning and training about these surprising facts, in order to behave correctly in the event of an emergency resulting in a widening distance. But, without trying to get deeper into the physics of it, I'm hoping that the effects such as I mentioned are not really a problem over short distances, or with real-time ongoing control by the astronauts. For example, perhaps they just angle their thrust downward a bit, perhaps even without having to really think about it. Optimistically, in the local frame of reference where they're flying around and about a spaceship, intuitive jetting around works fine.
I guess I'm wondering the following: Can an astronaut just "aim back at the ISS" and he/she'll get there without a problem, or is it complicated?
When I learned a few basic facts about orbital mechanics, I found them surprising / counter-intuitive.
For example, if you are following behind a spaceship and want to catch up to it, a single forward blast would increase your speed, but this would cause you to go into a higher orbit and eventually fall further behind the spacecraft.
As I think about an astronaut attempting to maneuver freely with his/her MMU, I wonder if this is an issue. Perhaps they needed to undergo special planning and training about these surprising facts, in order to behave correctly in the event of an emergency resulting in a widening distance. But, without trying to get deeper into the physics of it, I'm hoping that the effects such as I mentioned are not really a problem over short distances, or with real-time ongoing control by the astronauts. For example, perhaps they just angle their thrust downward a bit, perhaps even without having to really think about it. Optimistically, in the local frame of reference where they're flying around and about a spaceship, intuitive jetting around works fine.
I guess I'm wondering the following: Can an astronaut just "aim back at the ISS" and he/she'll get there without a problem, or is it complicated?