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About Astro Wars |
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They were little more than a foam-glass heat shield and a parachute, but in an emergency station personnel could suit up and let Antaeus's rotation toss them into the atmosphere. The station design has another advantage. By moving to the appropriate spot and letting go, a ship can be flung just about anywhere in Earth orbit. The rotating station could also catch upcoming shuttles traveling at less than orbital velocity, and fling them back into reentry orbits when they leave, although angular momentum management for that can get rather tricky sometimes. I looked back at Earth. It was apparent that the unlucky construction worker had been flung outward and slightly posigrade relative to the station. I plugged the computer into the radar to see what sort of orbit we were in. Not good; it intersected the Earth's surface. But the orbital period left plenty of time for rendezvous and rescue before the approach of atmospheric entry. I'd cut lose from the station a few meters farther out from the center than the point the doppler reading said the overboard worker had been, so I should be closing at a meter per second or so. After a few minutes the scan radar picked up a blip. It wasn't tumbling, so whoever it was had survived the explosion at least long enough to kill his spin. Previous - Next |
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