Page 46 - BBC Sky at Night - September 2017 UK

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How Aldrin’s interplanetary ferry might work

Earth-Mars Cycler
on return leg

Phobos

Earth-Mars Cycler
on outward leg
Deimos

Aldrin’s expertise in orbital mechanics is a big part of his plan to land
people on Mars. The Earth-Mars Cyclers are spacecraft that would take
astronauts to Mars every two or four years, when the two planets align
favourably, which happens every 26 months. Aldrin has calculated a
trajectory that makes the journey in only three months, rather than the
usually quoted 150–300 days.
“The technology is not any sort of magical propulsion, it is just an orbital
trajectory I began developing over 30 years ago,” says Aldrin. “The easiest
way to think about it is that it’s like an orbit around Earth except that it is
orbiting between Earth and Mars.”
There’s another unique characteristic to Aldrin’s plan: astronauts would use
the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos as stepping stones to the surface.

> According to Aldrin, once you have the right a single launch, with refuelling in Earth orbit,”
kind of surface and transportation infrastructure, explains Aldrin. “Using spacecraft that cycle
the cost of sending individual astronauts would between Earth and Mars would be an order of
be affordable. His is a pragmatic plan built upon magnitude cheaper than using an entirely new series
orbital calculations that could make inhabiting of rockets to send each crew to Mars.”
Mars far more affordable than anyone imagines.
Aldrin’s idea revolves around the concept of Following on from Von Braun

‘Cycling Pathways’: one or possibly two Earth- Although his ideas pre-date those currently being
! Establishing a colony on
Mars spacecraft (a ‘Cycler’) that travel constantly proposed by various billionaires, Aldrin is certainly
Mars could reduce the cost
between Earth and Mars. “The astronauts will of subsequent missions not the first to consider how to carry out a manned
be transported to the Earth-Mars Cycler with to the Red Planet mission to Mars. Dr Wernher von Braun, developer

ISTOCK X 2, SPACE X, CAT VINTON/CATVPHOTOGRAPHY.CO.UK, CHUCK DAVIS/DRACONOIR

skyatnightmagazine.com 2017