No grand tour of the solar system

[Neopeius]

In 1961, a UCLA grad student solved the Restricted Three Body problem, enabling probes to be launched beyond Venus/Mars at a low energy cost.

Basically, until people figured out how to use the gravity of planets to accelerate space probes, everything beyond Jupiter was inaccessible.

This is probably beyond everyone here, but what would have our space program looked like if the math for gravity assist hadn't been worked out? Was it inevitable?

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Any person that worked with the math to figure out orbital mechanics and also happened to play pool would have likely thought up the idea... or maybe had juggling as a hobby.

So I'd have to go with inevitable on this one.

AG

 

[GodThingFormerly]

In 1961, a UCLA grad student solved the Restricted Three Body problem, enabling probes to be launched beyond Venus/Mars at a low energy cost.

Point of order. There appears to be some doubt as to whether Michael Minovitch played any meaningful role in the development of gravity assist for spaceflight, at least as far as Gary Flandro - the former JPL astrodynamicist who actually designed the "Grand Tour" class of interplanetary trajectories - is concerned:

http://www.russianhillrussiancosmist.com/stuff/AIAA-7655-721.pdf

TGT

 

[anti-matter]

Pretty incredible thought process to come up with that sling shot approach before computers...

...do the math.

 

[JustAFriend]

They HAD computers. They were called slide rules....

(and were good enough to do lots of things pre-1980s desktop computers....)

I got pretty good on one while I was in school. You can out-do a lot of calculators.

 

[Neopeius]

In 1961, a UCLA grad student solved the Restricted Three Body problem, enabling probes to be launched beyond Venus/Mars at a low energy cost.

Point of order. There appears to be some doubt as to whether Michael Minovitch played any meaningful role in the development of gravity assist for spaceflight, at least as far as Gary Flandro - the former JPL astrodynamicist who actually designed the "Grand Tour" class of interplanetary trajectories - is concerned:

http://www.russianhillrussiancosmist.com/stuff/AIAA-7655-721.pdf

TGT

That's funny. The impetus for this post was I read the 1999 presentation made by a number of folks include Rex Ridenoure that spent 50 pages showing that it was Minovitch, *not* Flandro or anyone else, who did the work. It just came out in the latest AAS history volume.

In fact, Flandro didn't come into the picture until 1965, the authors say, doing data crunching based on Minovitch's work.

 

[Neopeius]

Pretty incredible thought process to come up with that sling shot approach before computers...

...do the math.

They had computers. Big, powerful mainframes.

 

[GodThingFormerly]

That's funny. The impetus for this post was I read the 1999 presentation made by a number of folks include Rex Ridenoure that spent 50 pages showing that it was Minovitch, *not* Flandro or anyone else, who did the work. It just came out in the latest AAS history volume.

In fact, Flandro didn't come into the picture until 1965, the authors say, doing data crunching based on Minovitch's work.

I was actually referring to the 2001 AIAA paper I linked to upthread that was written by Flandro - From Instrumented Comets to Grand Tours: On the History of Gravity Assist - in response to Minovitch et al regarding the assignment of proper credit for gravity assist and not Flandro's own contributions (or lack thereof) to this particular astronautical engineering sub-discipline.

TGT

 

[flux_29]

In 1961, a UCLA grad student solved the Restricted Three Body problem, enabling probes to be launched beyond Venus/Mars at a low energy cost.

Basically, until people figured out how to use the gravity of planets to accelerate space probes, everything beyond Jupiter was inaccessible.

This is probably beyond everyone here, but what would have our space program looked like if the math for gravity assist hadn't been worked out?

We would know more about Venus and Jupiter with only a couple of expensive probes going beyong jupiter.

Was it inevitable?

yes