• The idea was proposed by space scientists Francesco Topputo and Edward Belbruno
  • They suggest such an approach would be much cheaper and would allow for sidestepping the need for scheduling launch windows
  • Ballistic capture would eliminate the need for retrorockets, making a mission to Mars much cheaper—but it would also add months to the trip, which could be a problem for manned missions. For that reason, the researchers suggest it might best be used to send unmanned vehicles to the planet, some for observation and scientific purposes, others to send gear for use by humans once they arrive. Because such missions would not be time critical, they could be launched anytime, avoiding the necessity of launching during launch windows

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