Moving Gilly to Kerbin ?

[Mapoko]

Hello.

While looking into asteroids moving and planning to get one around Kerbin I was thinking.

Since Gilly is the lightest of the moons 1.24 x10^17 or 1.24 x10^14 t is it theoretically possible with the exploitation of Kethane/Karbonite and many clusters of high thrust engines and Klaw, that will be fueled by heavy mining to even change it's orbit ?

I will be honest here. I have not yet went on adventure to capture asteroid, so that notion I am presenting might be absurd.

[Greenfire32]

Nope. Gilly is treated as one of the "on rails" bodies like the rest of the planets. No amount of thrust is going to move it.

----EDIT----

However, if the planets weren't locked in their orbits, then yeah. I don't see any reason why you couldn't change Gilly's orbit if given enough thrust.

[SpenSpaceCorp]

I remember Scott Manley did a video on this if it was theoretically possible- that is, Gilly (along with every other celestial body in the game) is stuck on rails and thus impossible to move (unless you wield the ultimate powers of Hyperedit or something similar).

This is the video:

Edit: Ninja'd XD

[smjjames]

It would take a LOT of thrust to get it out of Eves orbit though.

[Renegrade]

Meh...you could move Gilly from Eve to Kerbin using a single, real-life ion engine, assuming you could get enough fuel to it.

It might take a few million years but hey, it could be done (if it wasn't on rails). Who needs high thrust when one can have a lot of fuel and patience?

[panzer1b]

Meh...you could move Gilly from Eve to Kerbin using a single, real-life ion engine, assuming you could get enough fuel to it.

It might take a few million years but hey, it could be done (if it wasn't on rails). Who needs high thrust when one can have a lot of fuel and patience?

main reason i dont touch anything with a TWR below .25. Heck, even my newest ion laythe roundtrip SSTO has .25 TWR, and it uses ions (and over 500 massless batteries to thrust on the dark side of a planet). I can stand longish burns, but i cant snad having to perform multiple burns to get somewhere (20mins is like the absolute maximum for me when it comes to burn tolerance).

[Mapoko]

Thanks !

So I will have to find a good looking and hopefully minerals rich asteroid and move that instead.

[Xavven]

Didn't Scott Manley say it would take literally a trillion (or something in that ballpark) orange fuel tanks to de-orbit Gilly, assuming only LV-N use? It would probably take more than that to hohmann transfer to Kerbin. So even if it were possible, which it's not because it's on rails, it'd be the most boring thing you could possibly do unless you used hyperedit or some other such cheats.

[Hotblack Desiato]

Meh...you could move Gilly from Eve to Kerbin using a single, real-life ion engine, assuming you could get enough fuel to it.

It might take a few million years but hey, it could be done (if it wasn't on rails). Who needs high thrust when one can have a lot of fuel and patience?

or just download roverdudes asteroid recycling mod.

it contains a rock-engine running on pulverized rock, with an ISP of a bit over 2000 and quite an energy demand.

pulverize a bit of gilly and fly it whereever you want... at least if it was on rails.

(I do know that the massdriver from ART isn't capable of using planetary material, although the game tells about gilly being a captured asteroid)

shouldn't the n-body physics mod be capable of moving planets and moons around? I know that it just tracks the interaction of planetary bodies, but it should be also capable of tracking forces applied on the bodies (although they are negligible compared to the planetary forces).

Edited April 17, 2015 by Hotblack Desiato

[kerbiloid]

Kopernicus ( http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/114649-0-90-Kopernicus-Pre-Alpha-%280-0-6%29 ) has a Gilly clone near Kerbin - Hodor.

[Mandelbrot]

Didn't Scott Manley say it would take literally a trillion (or something in that ballpark) orange fuel tanks to de-orbit Gilly, assuming only LV-N use? It would probably take more than that to hohmann transfer to Kerbin. So even if it were possible, which it's not because it's on rails, it'd be the most boring thing you could possibly do unless you used hyperedit or some other such cheats.

I'm not sure, but my guess is that it'd much cheaper to kick it up and into a transfer to Kerbin than to deorbit it.

[Xannari Ferrows]

Meh...you could move Gilly from Eve to Kerbin using a single, real-life ion engine, assuming you could get enough fuel to it.

It might take a few million years but hey, it could be done (if it wasn't on rails). Who needs high thrust when one can have a lot of fuel and patience?

A real life ion engine? That would probably take around 24 quadrillion years.

[Tex_NL]

Didn't Scott Manley say it would take literally a trillion (or something in that ballpark) orange fuel tanks to de-orbit Gilly, assuming only LV-N use? ...

Yes. If I recall correctly the cluster of fuel tanks required would have to be about the same size as Gilly itself.

[r_rolo1]

Well, TBH Mr. Manley video is from a time where we didn't had the NASA parts or even ion engines. Given those constraints, his numbers are correct up to now.

If I have time today I might make the math for ions ...might even give surprising results

[Renegrade]

A real life ion engine? That would probably take around 24 quadrillion years.

Actually just 3.33773e+13 years - about three trillion to reach 2k delta-v, which I have rigorously calculated would be sufficient to move Gilly to Kerbin without the benefit of Oberth. And by rigorous calculation, I mean I employed the W.A.G. method.

The point being that in a perfect patched-conics simulation, you don't need a hundred billion KR-2Ls or something, just a lot of patience. In actual KSP, it would pretty much be impossible, as the k-drive/force imbalance effects are of greater magnitude than realistic ion thrust

By the way, it should be possible to edit an asteroid to BE Gilly, the PotatoRoid entries actually have a "mass =" floating-point parameter.. (obviously it wouldn't have any gravity, but it would be a movable object the mass of Gilly. Also you could joke about how Gilly doesn't have gravity either~)

Since people are talking about fuel required, moving Gilly with xenon power @4200 specific impulse, you'd need 6,171,363,808,102,380 kg of xenon for the maneuver I described (around 5% of Gilly's mass). Possibly even less, as you don't have to have all the xenon present at once if you're willing to resupply. It's not like Gilly will be making much progress on a yearly timescale.

(the biggest (currently) xenon tank carries 70kg.)

Edited April 17, 2015 by Renegrade

[justidutch]

Hmmm. That's a lot of donuts of xenon!

[Xannari Ferrows]

Actually just 3.33773e+13 years - about three trillion to reach 2k delta-v, which I have rigorously calculated would be sufficient to move Gilly to Kerbin without the benefit of Oberth. And by rigorous calculation, I mean I employed the W.A.G. method.

Wow, really? How much thrust did you give it? Then again, I'm not really up to date on the more powerful ions.

[spaceman1999]

Can we get an E-class for scale into orbit around Gilly? ya'know... for science?

[Renegrade]

Wow, really? How much thrust did you give it? Then again, I'm not really up to date on the more powerful ions.

I gave it NEXT level thrust - a bit less than a quarter newton (could lift two whole pages of this heavy laser paper I have here on the surface!). Millions and trillions of years is a long time. Note that it's actually thirty trillion years not three - there were so many threes in the number I got three-itized or something.

Anyhow the overall point is that any non-zero thrust can eventually move something from one orbit to another, assuming you have enough time.. landing of course would be a different story~

Can we get an E-class for scale into orbit around Gilly? ya'know... for science?

I was offered a contract to do that at one point. I said 'no'. It is possible though...just not worthwhile~