Your speed was zero the moment you stopped under the trap door. You are matched with the ship. This similar thing is done by military pilots doing air refueling. I might be doing 400 Kts over the ground but I'm doing 0 Kts relative to the tanker.

 

Todd

Think AIR Speed and rate of change of position.

 

Outside the Mothership, in the atmosphere, your horizontal thrust is used to maintain a given airspeed to match that of mothership, and you achieve vertical position and vertical speed, either by generated lift due to forward airspeed, or from vertical thrust.

 

As you ascend up into the mothership, you will need to reduce that forward thrust, so that when you are fully within the mothership, your Horizontal thrust will be zero, and your airspeed will be zero (as your airspeed is relative to the air within the mothership)

 

You will also have to deal with your VERTICAL Thrust, to compensate for any loss of lift, and your airspeed reduces to zero. When you are fully in the mothership, your vertical thrust will need to balance gravity, and be previously adjusted, so that your vertical velocity is zero.

 

You will also have to deal with roll & yaw, and the turbulence of air near the mothership.

 

Docking with a mothership is very difficult in the atmosphere, and a lot easier in outer space.

Both are far easier to achieve with some form of automated, closed loop, auto-positioning system. (auto-dock)

Think AIR Speed and rate of change of position.

As you ascend up into the mothership, you will need to reduce that forward thrust, so that when you are fully within the mothership, your Horizontal thrust will be zero, and your airspeed will be zero (as your airspeed is relative to the air within the mothership)

 

Docking with a mothership is very difficult in the atmosphere, and a lot easier in outer space.

Both are far easier to achieve with some form of automated, closed loop, auto-positioning system. (auto-dock)

Okay, that makes sense. So when you are inside the mothership, regardless If the trap door is open or not you will be relative to whatever the space conditions are inside. Your trajectory and orbital path will then have to be monitored so you don't end up as a sandwich at the ?front ?back of the ship.

Okay, that makes sense. So when you are inside the mothership, regardless If the trap door is open or not you will be relative to whatever the space conditions are inside. Your trajectory and orbital path will then have to be monitored so you don't end up as a sandwich at the ?front ?back of the ship.

 

Once you are inside, and at a stable position within the Mothership,  you will need to  "attach" yourself to the Mothership in some way, or any change is speed, or acceleration in any axis of the mothership, will not be transferred to you, and you will end up colliding with the inside of the mothership.

 

Just like when you are  a passenger Inside a car,  without a seatbelt, and the driver suddenly applies the brakes !!

 

 

how fast are the balls moving?

 

depends on how  hard  you hit  the  balls

Hi.

 

It's not a dumb question at all, but it is incomplete. FSMP tells you to think AIR speed. You then mention space and orbital velocity. We have still to hear whether you are thinking of an atmospheric or a space craft. The situations are very different.

 

...

 

Assuming you are in space, gravity is not an issue at that altitude-- not because there is no gravity but because if your mini craft is only a couple of hundred feet from the m/ship and you're both a several miles above the ground there will be very little difference between the gravity affecting the mini and the gravity affecting the m/s.

 

The important thing to understand is that if the forces acting on your little craft are the same as the forces acting on the m/s then you will both move in the same way and you'll be effectively fixed relative to one another.

 

Captain Barfbag said 'if you are in a free orbit (no force applied)'... there is a force but it's the same for you both. Strictly, zero force would leave you both heading off into the wild black yonder along a straight line. Gravity is what keeps you both moving in a big circle around the earth, and like he points out, it's angular velocity that's important rather than relative velocity or relative speed. You and the m/s will have to do the same number of degrees (lat & lon) per second if you want the mini to remain steady beneath the m/s belly. The circle your orbit makes will be slightly smaller than the m/s circle (unless the planet is above both your heads, which would put you on the bigger circle...).

 

Once you have that sorted, it's just a matter of a squirt of a vertical thruster to move you out to the m/s' orbit combined with a small horizontal tweak to increase your speed (metres per second) to keep your angular velocity (degrees per second) from changing.

 

See if you can find a video of a gaggle of helicopters taken by one of the pilots. The formation can look pretty tight from above or from the ground but as the helicopters hit thermals or down draughts they are often an undulating, bobbing mess when seen from the side...

 

Provided your mini has the same angular velocity as the m/s when you are in the docking bay you won't hit the walls but as soon as the m/s makes a manoeuvre, the unattached mini will carry on around its own orbit while the m/s moves relative to it and the walls will hit you. So once you are inside, a clamp will be necessary. If you jump in the carriage of a moving train you won't splat against the back wall but if the train is turning a corner you won't land on the bit of the floor you started on: you'll carry straight on while you are in mid-jump and the train will move sideways around the bend. It's the same in a car when you feel yourself getting pulled outwards as you drive round a bend. What's actually happening is that your body is trying to continue in a straight line while the car moves laterally; the inside of the car-door pulls you around with it.

 

...

 

On the other hand, if you are thinking of flying a small plane into a large plane you'll be in trouble. You need that flow of air over your wings to keep yourself in the sky. The air inside the 'docking bay' of the large aircraft is moving along with the aircraft so as soon as you try to enter the larger craft you and the air will be moving along at the same speed. (Stick your hand out of the window of your car-- you can feel the airspeed. Draw your hand back in-- you and the air are moving together and your hand has no airspeed even though you are still doing 50 mph down the road.) The air won't be flowing over your wings any more and you'll stall, probably quite suddenly. You'll drop back out into the rest of the atmosphere and you will very suddenly have airspeed again. That could be difficult to control... That's why one aircraft attached to another is piggy-backed, not platypus-pouched.

 

Regards,
D

Thank you all for the very detailed answers!

 

That clears it up.

 

Cheers.

This has surely become over elaborate. if the vehicle and mothership are not moving relative to each other then their velocities must be equal.

 

 

This has surely become over elaborate.

 

No, we haven't even touched on quantum-mechanical effects yet.

No, we haven't even touched on quantum-mechanical effects yet.

I should hope not. Quantum mechanics have no application to this thread. They relate to relate to atomic and subatomic length scales

I should hope not. Quantum mechanics have no application to this thread. They relate to relate to atomic and subatomic length scales

 

On the contrary, quantum mechanics applies to everything.  I still remember sitting in physics class, watching the derivation of the equations that showed the quantization of the altitudes at which a given mass could be in a stable orbit around a massive body such as the earth.  Oddly, the spacing between valid orbits was measured not in angstroms, as one would expect, but rather in centimeters.

Unfortunately the OP is correct -- It is a DUMB question, in that it is is severely lacking enough information in the question, or anyone to give a reasonably informed answer.

 

:h0134:  :p0502:

Unfortunately the OP is correct -- It is a DUMB question, in that it is is severely lacking enough information in the question, or anyone to give a reasonably informed answer.

 

:h0134:  :p0502:

 

Dunno about you, but I've learned heaps about the informed answers in this thread, which I'm thankful for.

 

 

the derivation of the equations that showed the quantization of the altitudes at which a given mass could be in a stable orbit around a massive body

 

 

But that has nothing to do with quantum mechanics which are only applicable at the atomic/sub-atomic scale.

But that has nothing to do with quantum mechanics which are only applicable at the atomic/sub-atomic scale.

One of the four forces of nature encompassed by quantum mechanics is gravity........which acts on scales that span the universe.