Space ballets to carry astronauts to other planets
Space ballets have been used to send the Galileo and Cassini probes to
the remote outer planets Jupiter and Saturn. That is instead of
launching a probe directly to a remote planet it is send to the close
inner planet Venus. There it is accelerated by its encounter with
Venus. It makes some more encounters with Venus and Earth, till it
acquires enough velocity to reach Jupiter or Saturn.
Current probes to Mars are sent directly to Mars and need 6 up to 9
months travel. If humans are sent that way to Mars, they'll need that
time to travel to Mars and the same time to travel back to Earth.
What's more they'll need to wait lengthy months on Mars till the travel
back becomes possible. All in all the whole journey can take two years.
It is possible to make the travel to Mars in much less time. The
problem is this needs a lot more rocket power. Hence the travel will be
a lot more expensive. Solutions can be to manufacture the rocket motors
on the Moon, to manufacture propellants on Mars using a nuclear
reactor, to use the atmosphere of Mars to slow down the vessels, to use
plasma beam propulsion...
I wonder if a space ballet can be used to travel humans to Mars faster.
At first hand, sending an inhabited space vessel to Mars using a space
ballet would be nonsense: the travel to Venus then back to Earth and so
on would take years. The idea is the vessel would be uninhabited
during the ballet. Astronauts would reach the vessel only when it
shears the Earth on its way to Mars. Only the astronauts
and a little lightweight spaceship will need to be accelerated, in
order
to reach the
vessel.
To return to Earth, another vessel would have made another space
ballet and would shear along Mars towards Earth. Again the Astronauts
would accelerate inside a little spaceship to reach the vessel and
embark
to Earth.
What when a vessel carrying astronauts reaches Mars or the Earth? Two
possibilities exist. Either the astronauts leave the vessel and use a
little reentry spaceship to brake and go to orbit or land on Mars. The
vessel
would continue is route towards another ballet. Or the whole vessel is
braked, for example using atmospheric braking, and goes to orbit.
I'd say most interesting is the astronauts accelerate towards a vessel
just before it shears along Earth or Mars. This would allow for an
emergency abort. On failure of reaching the vessel, the little
spaceship
carrying the astronauts would have to opportunity to make an emergency
atmospheric braking and land back or go to orbit. If this happens when
leaving Mars, either the Astronauts can reach a vessel in Mars orbit or
they can wait for a second chance with a backup vessel.
That way a set of balleting vessels can be launched and used to travel
back and forth between Mars and Earth or between other planets like
Venus, Mercury or maybe the outer planets. Those vessels would be
whole space stations. Maybe they can be refueled and reequipped by
cargo vessels using solar sails or ion propulsion, after a long travel
and/or a ballet to reach the target vessel. The cargo vessels can be
launched from the Earth, the Moon or from other planets or asteroids
that would carry robotic factories. Exchanges can be made between
vessels. Depending on the paths of the respective vessels, the time
allowed and the ballet opportunities, the exchanges would need more or
less energy. When uninhabited the vessels would be frozen down.