What if the mun was in a polar orbit?

[Tortoise]

Realistically, what would happen if mun was in a polar orbit?

[Pingonaut]

You mean our moon or the Mun in KSP?

[problemecium]

He did say the Mun, in which case all that would happen is that everyone who's new or used to going to the Mun relatively painlessly will be frustrated about it. Also it would be possible to land a craft where it would be stuck in the dark for several days and unable to run without RTGs (or about 9001 batteries).

[Wallace]

Well, for the Mun, it wouldn't be much of a difference as it's orbit would be fixed and kerbal water has no tides, it would just be a bit harder to get to. You'd have time your launch and launch into a polar orbit at the right time to match the plane of the mun's orbit.

For our moon I'm not sure, it would mean our tides would be very weird, when the moon was near the equator then the tides would be pretty much like now, but when it was directly above the pole, tides would effectively stop, at high tides near the poles and low tides at the equator until the mun became low enough again. The point on the surface with the highest tides would corkscrew around the planet, So each month you'd have tides going from changing like they are now to pretty much stopping, then back.

Another thing to consider is sometimes the polar orbit would be perpendicular with the direction of the sun, and sometimes aligned. When it was aligned you'd be getting spring tides every day, and when it was perpendicular, you'd get neap tides every day.

As for the spin of the earth and moon, I'm not sure what would happen there. The moon has a stabilising effect of the Earth's spin, stopping it getting too eccentric, I don't know what difference a polar orbit would have but I expect it wouldn't have the same stabilising effect.

[Wallace]

Also it would be possible to land a craft where it would be stuck in the dark for several days and unable to run without RTGs (or about 9001 batteries).

That's already possible, but you'd now be able to land somewhere where you were in the dark for about a quarter of the kerbal year.

EDIT: actually it's not more than 1 day in the dark at the moment, I misunderestimated the speed of a Mun orbit.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Wallace

[biohazard15]

Come to think of it, I'm kinda want that in KSP. "Challenge" planet, like Inaccessible from Planet Factory, is welcome. It's fun to design a craft for that sort of mission.

[Wallace]

Come to think of it, I'm kinda want that in KSP. "Challenge" planet, like Inaccessible from Planet Factory, is welcome. It's fun to design a craft for that sort of mission.

Well, you don't need planets for that, I've found an asteroid in an eccentric (approximately) polar orbit of Kerbin, it will be a challenge to get to and a bigger challenge to bring it into a low equatorial orbit.

[davidpsummers]

As for the spin of the earth and moon, I'm not sure what would happen there. The moon has a stabilising effect of the Earth's spin, stopping it getting too eccentric, I don't know what difference a polar orbit would have but I expect it wouldn't have the same stabilising effect.

The one wouldn't matter too much since it is long term. There is a reason why the moon is in a equatorial orbit, forces push it there. The only way to have a moon in polar orbit is for it to have been recently (geological definition of "recent").

[Duke23]

Well, you don't need planets for that, I've found an asteroid in an eccentric (approximately) polar orbit of Kerbin, it will be a challenge to get to and a bigger challenge to bring it into a low equatorial orbit.

True, the class b I brought home was a similar story but not actually orbiting. Highly inclined, retrograde, relatively short Kerbin encounter. A bit of a pain to catch and retrieve really.

Still though I would like to at some point see moons (somewhere in Kerbol system) with retrograde or polar orbits.

But it may not be realistic? This link attempts to explain why there are no moons with polar orbits in our own solar system. I can't vouch for the veracity of the information but it refers to the Kozai Mechanism as the reason (which is a little over my head at the moment).

http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthread.php?39049-Moons-and-their-orbits

[Caelib]

If it was, everyone who plays KSP would probably know how to time their launches correctly for a Polar orbit (perfect 90 degrees from the equator) -- you have to launch when Kerbal Space Center cross the Ascending/Descending node of the polar orbit path. Not to mention it would require more delta-V to reach the moon because getting into orbit would take more energy than doing due-East (because of Kerbin's rotation).

Edited June 9, 2014 by Caelib

[Boris_T_Roach]

[quote name=Wallace;1202242

As for the spin of the earth and moon' date=' I'm not sure what would happen there. The moon has a stabilising effect of the Earth's spin, stopping it getting too eccentric, I don't know what difference a polar orbit would have but I expect it wouldn't have the same stabilising effect.

I suspect the earth's axis would get tilted over a few more degrees and the moon would be forced down out of polar orbit to match the equator (sort of) as it does now, so summers would become nearly 24 hr sunshine and winters would be dark, cold and gloomy.

Of course this is discounting the weather effects caused by the extra tilt.

Any planetary scientists care to chip in here?

Boris

[AlamoVampire]

im not a planetary scientist by any stretch, but from what I know of how OUR moon formed, it COULD have been possible to have our moon in a 'polar' orbit had the impact with our near twin so many eons ago struck us a little higher in terms of latitude and pulled a Neptune on us. It would have kicked us to our side, but, the moon would have probably continued onto its current orbit. I speculate of course, as well, I can only guess here XD