Gravitational
corridors describe minimum energy pathways between objects in the solar system;
they connect Lagrange points where gravitational forces balance out. They were
first investigated by Jules-Henri Poincare, the French mathematician, in the
1890's.
These twisting, ever-changing
pathways provide low speed but highly fuel efficient paths between planets
and moons. They create what some call an Interplanetary Transport Network
connecting all of the major bodies in the solar system.
These paths are reminiscent
of that wonderful sf notion space-lanes. As
far as I know, the first mention of this phrase was in Edmond Hamilton's 1928
classic Crashing Suns:
He had
travelled the space-lanes of the solar system for the greater part of his life,
and now all of his time-honored rules of interplanetary navigation had been
upset by this new cruiser.
Just a generation later,
Philip K. Dick borrowed this majestic term and used it to describe a harrowing
daily commute back to Earth:
Commute
ships roared on all sides, as Ed Morris made his way wearily home to Earth at
the end of a long hard day at the office. The Ganymede-Terra lanes were choked
with exhausted, grim-faced businessmen; Jupiter was in opposition to Earth and
the trip was a good two hours.
In more modern sf movies,
you might want to use a stellar
cartography room, like the ones depicted in Star Trek: The Next Generation,
to plot these routes.
Hardy spacefarers eager to
ply the gravitational corridors between the Earth and Mars in real life should
be prepared for a long voyage, though; it could take thousands of years. The
best use for these "space-lanes" is as low-consumption routes between
the moons of a planet like Jupiter.
One example of a real-life
space voyage to use this method was the Genesis
spacecraft launched in 2004 to capture solar wind particles and return with
them to Earth.
(This Science Fiction
in the News story used with permission of Technovelgy.com)
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