Without doing the math, it's still fun to think about. The time frame of reference of a probe landing on such a planet would be out-of-sync with mission control, or another spacecraft orbiting further from the star in a more leisurely orbit. Would the computers on the two craft even be able to communicate with each other? Recall that NASA has had troubles with orbiter-lander communication in the past, thanks to Doppler-shifted lander transmission frequencies induced by velocity. Might relativistic effects pose similar problems? The longer the mission, the further "ahead" in time mission control gets from the probe's frame of reference. How different would a frame dragging have to be, before human perceptions would notice it, let alone computers? Are you reaching for the Excedrin, Rich? *;o) * On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 5:06 PM, Richard Tenney <retenney@yahoo.com> wrote:
This post reminds me of a fellow I took some programming classes in college with. He was interning for Huges Aircraft, doing a project to calculate liquid fuel sloshing effects on satellite trajectories -- gives me a math headache just thinking about it!