(i) Nuclear rockets transport people between planets, reaching Venus in a hundred and twenty days depending on orbits.
(ii) Solar sails carrying freight take three or four times as long but are robotically controlled because no one can survive that long without gravity and also because there is greater danger of solar flares on longer journeys.
(iii) Passenger ships gradually adjust to denser air and higher oxygen en route to Venus.
(iv) Anyone even short listed to go to Venus has two or three degree-equivalents and is physically of almost Olympic caliber.
(v) Nevertheless, they need weeks or months of "...carefully phased acclimatizing..." (p. 11) after arriving.
This sounds plausible and torpedoes any idea that I might have had in the 1950's of joining Dan Dare's Interplanetary Space Fleet if I lived into the 1990's.
2 comments:
Hi, Paul!
Also, I think space ships propelled by solar wings were larger and could carry more bulk cargo than passenger ships.
And the care S.M. Stirling took in being true to known science or at least being scientifically plausible is itself, IMO, a sign of Andersonian influence!
Sean
"reaching Venus in a hundred and twenty days depending on orbits."
Time for a Hohmann transfer is 145 days, so SM Stirling gives a modest advantage in time for using nuclear rockets, but they would give a substantial advantage in payload per amount of propellant over chemical rockets. If you wanted to give up payload for short transit time you could probably get a shorter trip than 120 days with nuclear rockets.
Post a Comment