Hi Gary

Ok assume the Mars crew have used centrifugal gravity to stay healthy, and wear counter-gravity suits to take up to 9 gees like Apollo. Assume a throw-away ablative shield. What would it be then? I was wondering if you could aerobrake from 'fast' 100 day transfer orbits into elliptical parking orbits.

On another issue I read an old SF story years ago that had ships aerobraking at Uranus, deccelerating from ~ 160 km/s to ~ 20 km/s - a bit much to believe, but any ideas as to what kind of aerobraking could be achieved at Uranus? Atmosphere is deep and cold, while Uranus is big, but not too heavy with the gees. Uranus - mass: 8.683E+25 kg, radius: 51,118 km.

Does your code go that far, or does it bust?

Galileo fell into Jupiter with a relative velocity of 47.5 km/s and survived...

Adam