eminentbrain

Yes, I’m actually being given a ride into space. News at 11.

Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of celestial mechanics should appreciate this. A scientist at JPL has mapped the Lagrange points (the point where one body’s gravity balances another’s) for every planet and moon in the solar system and then mapped those Lagrange points against possible spacecraft trajectories. The resultant mapping is a “freeway through the solar system resembling a vast array of virtual winding tunnels and conduits around the Sun and planets.” This translates into huge potential fuel savings for spacecraft exploring our solar system.

To me, this constitutes one of those head-slappingly obvious “duh” moments when you say, “Now, why the hell didn’t I think of that?”