presented by Shane Ross (Virginia Tech) Everhart Lecture Series, Caltech, May 5, 2004. The competing gravitational pull between celestial bodies creates a vast array of low-energy passageways that winds around the sun, planets and moons. Space travel along these corridors would slash the amount of fuel needed to explore and develop our solar system. We have shown how to identify and traverse these passageways, which are associated with Lagrange points, regions of balance near a planet or moon. We have laid the groundwork for a new kind of space transportation architecture for the exploration of Mars, the asteroids, and the outer solar system, including a mission to assess the possibility of life on Jupiter's icy moons. Related article (PDF): http://www.shaneross.com/papers/AmericanScientist2006.pdf The interplanetary transport network, American Scientist 94(3), 230-237 (by S.D. Ross [2006]) Download the slides (PDF): http://www.shaneross.com/talks/ELS-2004-Ross.pdf For more information, visit http://www.shaneross.com

Comments

1. Fascinating! Thank you!
2. I learned so much from this video! Thank you!
3. The mass parameter for Jupiter/Galilean moons allow for wide ranging tubes in the Jovian neighborhood. Same goes for Earth/Luna. But the mass parameters for sun/Venus, sun/earth and sun/Mars are much tinier. So far as I can tell, there are no tubes from earth to Mars or from earth to Venus. http://hopsblog-hop.blogspot.com/2015/04/potholes-on-interplanetary-superhighway.html