Re: superhero space navigation

Wasn't it Leonard Erickson who wrote:
>Ok, I've been playing with a story idea involving superpowers. (Yeah,
>I know, not exactly hard sf)
>
>What'm wondering is how someone who can "fly" and survive in outer
>space would navigate. Assuming no supersenses, of course.
>
>I can see visual nabvigation between the earth and the moon. But
>beyond that getting lost would seem awfully easy.

Even navigating to the Moon is tricky if your flying has limited 
acceleration, or your super hero has reasons to not waste flight energy. 
If you fly straight at where the Moon is going to be by the time you get 
there, then you find that the Moon is moving around its orbit at 3680 
kph perpendicular to your line of flight. Making that adjustment at the 
end of the trip is pretty expensive in terms of whatever it is that 
powers the flight.

However, calculating and managing low energy transfer orbits doesn't 
need massive amounts of computing power. The Apollo Guidance Computer 
had about the same computing power as my watch. In space you can always 
see the stars, so use them (possibly with a sextant) to tell you which 
way you're facing, and use a simple computer to do the orbit 
calculations and to calculate your approximate position using dead 
reckoning.

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure