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Old 17-October-2007, 06:54 PM
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NEOWatcher NEOWatcher is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tdvance View Post
Supppose it is only Jupiter's gravity that is the issue?
...
And what does that solve?
Whether it is a rock, or a balloon, that mass of hydrogen still needs to accelerate out of Jupiter's gravity. If it is transferred from the rock, then you still need to restore the rock's speed by the same amount as you would have without the rock anyway.

And; you have moved all your acceleration costs from being amortized over many journeys to a single, huge, up-front expenditure to get the rock in the proper orbit.
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