Strange Stuff About Orbital Mechanics

[Spacescifi]

 

I thought I understood orbital mechanics well enough but found I may be wanting.

 

Apparently playing the original space war game (google spacewar game if you wanna know) was not enough.

But it would have helped to have multiple sources of gravity for teaching in the game (planets around the star).

Here is what I read online: Fly away from Sun and cut off engines. Apparently the sun's gravity pull will slow your vessel's speed somewhat.

 

Conclusions I Reached: Just not enough to change much if your speed is high enough. If your speed is too low you will enter an ever tighter orbit of the sun until you're cooked. Higher speeds will result in higher orbits of the sun, and too high and you are on solar system escape speed. Note: All of these conclusions and any of them would take considerable amounts of time. As in years, not days.

 

So feel free to enlighten or correct me if I need to be. If I read correctly that is fine too.

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

Fly away from Sun and cut off engines. Apparently the sun's gravity pull will slow your vessel's speed somewhat.

True

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

Conclusions I Reached: Just not enough to change much if your speed is high enough.

True

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

If your speed is too low you will enter an ever tighter orbit of the sun until you're cooked.

False. With no further acceleration on your craft, your orbit will remain as it was when you cut the engines. This "orbit" may go around the Sun, it may plunge you into the Sun, and it may continue on away forever. But it will not change until something changes the path of your craft.

1 hour ago, Spacescifi said:

Higher speeds will result in higher orbits of the sun, and too high and you are on solar system escape speed.

Sort of, but not directly. It's not like you speed up 10m/s and your orbit goes up 100km or something. But in general the faster you are going at any point, the larger your orbit.

 

[SuperFastJellyfish]

3 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

 

I thought I understood orbital mechanics well enough but found I may be wanting.

 

Apparently playing the original space war game (google spacewar game if you wanna know) was not enough.

But it would have helped to have multiple sources of gravity for teaching in the game (planets around the star).

Here is what I read online: Fly away from Sun and cut off engines. Apparently the sun's gravity pull will slow your vessel's speed somewhat.

 

Conclusions I Reached: Just not enough to change much if your speed is high enough. If your speed is too low you will enter an ever tighter orbit of the sun until you're cooked. Higher speeds will result in higher orbits of the sun, and too high and you are on solar system escape speed. Note: All of these conclusions and any of them would take considerable amounts of time. As in years, not days.

 

So feel free to enlighten or correct me if I need to be. If I read correctly that is fine too.

 

Have you not played KSP?   

[Spacescifi]

On 12/24/2019 at 8:31 PM, SuperFastJellyfish said:

 

Have you not played KSP?   

 

Actually no. My knowledge of space travel has been aided aided mostly by watching youtube videos, including Scott Manley's Kerbal videos.

[Gargamel]

15 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

Actually no.

Should probably try it. 

[kerbiloid]

What is KSP? Some game?

[Guest]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

What is KSP? Some game?

It's a famous recipe, Kasper's Spicy Pizza

[kerbiloid]

6 minutes ago, Aperture Science said:

It's a famous recipe, Kasper's Spicy Pizza

Playing with food is bad manners. Why should he?

***

No need in a spaceship to get orbital.
Just throw a stone, it's on a geocentric high-eccentricity elliptic orbit, and you are next to its apocenter.

Try not to think what is happening to the same elliptic orbit of an air balloon when you release it untied, at it starts chaotically moving in random directions..

Edited December 28, 2019 by kerbiloid

[UmbralRaptor]

14 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

 

Actually no. My knowledge of space travel has been aided aided mostly by watching youtube videos, including Scott Manley's Kerbal videos.

It (and the associated DLC) are on sale on both Steam and GOG right now.

 

If you're looking for something a bit more formal, I can suggest a website or a textbook.