Re: Orbit B

[T.L.G.vanderLinden@student.utwente.nl (Timothy van der Linden)]

>> All this is irrelevant, computers could calculate the path far in advance.
>> Besides that, the Asimov could follow the beam (up to certain limits).
>
>
>Ha, you have a lot of misplaced faith.  Calculations only work when you can
>rely on acurate data.  In this case the data would be months old, and we'ld
>have no way to know exactly what happend in the mean time.  Any slight
>deviation or flutter (inevitable with these huge flimsy structure) and the
>ship would not be doing exactly the speeds and accelerations we think it
>would.

But this means that any beam, from Earth or from some kind of retro-mirror
would be impossible! (In fact this is one of the reasons I never really
liked using a beam and always tried to think of taking all fuel along)

Anyway since the retro-mirror flies in front, it would know what the path
would be like for the Asimov, so it could calculate where to direct using
that data. 


Timothy