HOME | DD

Description
ZRVTO - Zero Relative Velocity Transfer Orbit. A term coined by Marshall Eubanks.

Assocated with a space elevator are a family of confocal conic sections - ellipses, a circle, more elllipses, a parabola and then hyperbolas. The eccentricity and size of the conic depends on which point of the elevator a payload is released from. The conic is the orbital path the payload will follow.

The same family of conic sections can be scaled to different elevators, from a 144,000 km Clarke tower from earth's equator to a 2,000 bean stalk from Ceres' equator.

The illustration above is the conics associated with a Deimos tether overlaid with the conics from a Phobos tether. The moiré pattern suggests a shared ellipse.

And indeed the two tethers would share an ellipse. This ellipse is the ZRVTO. A payload released from one end of the ZRVTO will arrive at a point on the other elevator and hang motionless for an instant. Thus the moons could swap passengers and cargo without using propellent.

I talk about space elevators, ZRVTOs and conic sections at hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2016…

Description
ZRVTO - Zero Relative Velocity Transfer Orbit. A term coined by Marshall Eubanks.

Assocated with a space elevator are a family of confocal conic sections - ellipses, a circle, more elllipses, a parabola and then hyperbolas. The eccentricity and size of the conic depends on which point of the elevator a payload is released from. The conic is the orbital path the payload will follow.

The same family of conic sections can be scaled to different elevators, from a 144,000 km Clarke tower from earth's equator to a 2,000 bean stalk from Ceres' equator.

The illustration above is the conics associated with a Deimos tether overlaid with the conics from a Phobos tether. The moiré pattern suggests a shared ellipse.

And indeed the two tethers would share an ellipse. This ellipse is the ZRVTO. A payload released from one end of the ZRVTO will arrive at a point on the other elevator and hang motionless for an instant. Thus the moons could swap passengers and cargo without using propellent.

I talk about space elevators, ZRVTOs and conic sections at hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2016…