<<> Anyone care to guess what a return delta-v would be? It looks to me to be > miniscule, 100m/s? Certainly under 1km/s I would think.>>
<<Not so good, alas. Notice that its orbit is inclined at about 11deg. That means it passes through the ecliptic with a "vertical" velocity of 5-6km/s, however low its relative "horizontal" velocity might be.>> If by "return delta v," we mean a sample return, this could be quite low. The inclination difference means only that one would have to time the Earth encounter for the time that the Earth passes through the orbital plane. Atmospheric braking will take care of the velocity difference due to inclination. To raise or lower an apsis by .04 AU from a 1AU orbit takes about half a km/s. Rotating the line of apsides or changing eccentricity to achieve a coincidence may take less--I don't have time to do the calculation right now. One of the concerns about letting just anyone have access to space is that just anyone could do this. --Best, Gerald _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
