Just how Far...
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O'Brien said 160,000,000 kilometers. Which is about one astronomical unit, or the distance of Earth (and supposedly Bajor) from her star.
Which would make very good sense in a certain respect. Namely, the impulse trip from DS9 to Bajor is later said to take either two or six hours, depending on the episode. Now if DS9 orbits the star at twice the distance Bajor does, then the distance between DS9 and Bajor would indeed grow threefold from minimum to maximum as the two objects orbited!
Of course, it's a bit difficult to move things in a straight path if they happen to circle a star at dozens of kilometers per second. Today, we'd do it with two rocket blasts, giving us an elliptic transfer orbit. DS9 would do it with constant thrust, giving a spiral.
We don't know if O'Brien meant moving along a trajectory that was 160 million klicks long (in which case the station's final orbit might be just a few million klicks farther out than Bajor's, unless the spiral was very steep), or moving along a trajectory that ended up placing the station 160 million klicks farther out from the star (in which case the actual trajectory traveled might be a much longer spiral, perhaps more than a billion kilometers long).
Timo Saloniemi
Which would make very good sense in a certain respect. Namely, the impulse trip from DS9 to Bajor is later said to take either two or six hours, depending on the episode. Now if DS9 orbits the star at twice the distance Bajor does, then the distance between DS9 and Bajor would indeed grow threefold from minimum to maximum as the two objects orbited!
Of course, it's a bit difficult to move things in a straight path if they happen to circle a star at dozens of kilometers per second. Today, we'd do it with two rocket blasts, giving us an elliptic transfer orbit. DS9 would do it with constant thrust, giving a spiral.
We don't know if O'Brien meant moving along a trajectory that was 160 million klicks long (in which case the station's final orbit might be just a few million klicks farther out than Bajor's, unless the spiral was very steep), or moving along a trajectory that ended up placing the station 160 million klicks farther out from the star (in which case the actual trajectory traveled might be a much longer spiral, perhaps more than a billion kilometers long).
Timo Saloniemi
It would have to be a nearly "flat" trajectory in the orbital plane, I think. At the hours O'Brien stated, and the velocities indicated, those are not Hohlman orbits. The vectors involved, would have a velocity component implied, that makes nonsense of local gravitational drag gradients.
GodThingFormerly
A Different Kind of Asshole
My mistake, I never write his name correctly, but the major orbital mechanics point stands I think, based on the evidence given.
Hohmann orbits presuppose just two burns anyway - and DS9 would have no reason to limit itself to that.
If the station moves 160 Gm in half a day, that's thousands of kilometers per second of delta-vee already. Which makes it a trivial effort to cancel Bajor's orbital speed and then choose any damn course they want.
Timo Saloniemi
If the station moves 160 Gm in half a day, that's thousands of kilometers per second of delta-vee already. Which makes it a trivial effort to cancel Bajor's orbital speed and then choose any damn course they want.
Timo Saloniemi
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