Celestia Forums

Hello,

I am looking for someone who knows both Celestia and physics of space travel. We are building a suite of materials for a virtual learning magnet (NASA). One of the goals I have in mind is to introduce students to open modeling tools. I would love for Celestia to be represented! The introductory interactions are supposed to be short (10-20 minutes), and under several meg total, so using Celestia itself is not an option. The theme of the suite is settling Mars. So, I had the following idea for an introduction to Celestia:

Make a custom slide show, with the views "out of the window" of a spacecraft as it's flying to Mars from Earth, along the Hohmann transfer orbit. The interface should show points along the trajectory and dates starting at the 2033 window (see http://clowder.net/hop/railroad/EMa.htm) - probably a picture every 2 weeks, so about 20 total pictures. At first it would be nice to see the Earth get smaller, maybe see the Moon when flying by it. Then there will be a period of starry sky, and then Mars will get large. So, the interface should just be clicking on the trajectory points with dates on them. Any browser technology (Flash, Java, etc.) works.

I am looking for someone to do this within the next ten days or so, for a payment. The materials will be open and free online, as well as distributed on DVDs to rural schools (also for free).

I hope it's OK to post this here. I want to find someone who knows their modeling, and who will enjoy this task.

My email is droujkova@gmail.com and my Skype is maria_droujkova

Maria,

I am not volunteering to do this, hopefully someone else will be able to do it.
These questions are just for clarification.

1. How accurate do you want the results to be?

2. Would you be able to provide a valid trajectory for the transit to Mars?

Generating an appropriate trajectory could be an issue.
Once one has a trajectory, it's relatively easy to generate views along it.

The table you point to assumes circular, coplanar orbits for the Earth and Mars. Unfortunately, those assumptions aren't very realistic. Also, a trajectory which uses a flyby of the Moon for assistance (which you imply you'd like to see) would have different launch and arrival dates from one which does not use the Moon. This would result in different positions for the satellites and moons of Mars when the spacecraft gets there, for example.

Thanks for whatever clarification you can provide.

Selden,

Thank you for the excellent questions. I would like to get a "decent" approximation, but 100% accuracy isn't all that important, I think. I was hoping someone would figure out the trajectory, at least approximately, as a part of the task.

Another possibility, which may be easier, is to use a past trajectory from one of the historic Earth-Mars flights, which one can probably find on nasa.gov somewhere. Then I will just change the story to have characters look at historic flights, instead of modeling their own in 2033.

Moon fly-by isn't important. I was just trying to figure out where to point the camera to obtain interesting views.

Maria,

If I understand you correctly, you need a series of pictures (out of the window of an imaginary spacecraft) - made with Celestia - of a space flight from Earth to Mars. And these images should be accessible within a browser-window (internet-presentation) by using a date-oriented trajectory map. With date links which refer with the corresponding images?

Michael

Michael, this is correct. Basically, I need a Flash (or Java) slide show made out of Celestia-generated pictures, which you can navigate by clicking dated dots on the trajectory. If someone only knows how to get pictures with dates, this would be very valuable too since it's the specialist part (and then I will figure out the slide show part).

Celestia includes a date/time overlay in the viewport. It's in the upper right corner.

Thanks, Maria, for this explanation;

I was searching for a suitable trajectory-file of a historic Mars flight (probe) but I cannot find any file (only orbit-trajectories). And I haven't an appropriate experience in making trajectory files for Celestia.

But here some ideas and suggestions:

So, If your presentation must not be necessarily based on accurate scientific data you could "draw" the Hohmann transfer orbit by yourself (or copy it) and place the "date-points" (links) wherever you want on this line to show a picture.

As worldbuilder wrote; it is very easy to get pictures with dates in Celestia. Also Vincent's Edu_Lua_Tools could be very helpful for your project...

most of the images - except departure from Earth and arriving on Mars - will only show an empty space (with some stars, of course). For this period I would use (interior and "outside"-) images of the spacecraft. Many of them are free available (Orion at NASA and other...)

I don't recommend to use "Flash" for your work. Flash will dissappear (sooner or later), because the new markup-language (HTML 5) will replace it.

Please let me know if you encounter any difficulties, to create suitable images with Celestia.

Regards
Michael

Thank you for the comments, Worldbuilder and Michael. Guillermo A. from this forum sent me awesome pictures along the orbit of Spirit, and also recommended adding telescopic pictures along the way. This is what we will do.

I will send the link to the project when it's up. Thank you for the support!

Hi! Being Celestia scriptable, you can find some useful scripts here: http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/scripts.php . The "earth launch" script follows the Earth during a rocket's launch. Maybe it's useful for your task. Others splits the screen allowing the travel's vision for both forward and backward sights. Hope this help.