Aerobraking in Fiction
In Robert A. Heinlein's 1948 novel Space Cadet, aerobraking is used to save fuel while slowing the spacecraft Aes Triplex for an unplanned extended mission and landing on Venus, during a transit from the Asteroid Belt to Earth.
In the fourth episode of Stargate Universe, the Ancient ship Destiny suffers an almost complete loss of power and must use aerobraking to change course. The episode ends in a cliffhanger with Destiny headed directly toward a star.
The spacecraft Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov in Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2010: Odyssey Two uses aerobraking in the upper layers of Jupiter's atmosphere to establish itself at the L1 Lagrangian point of the Jupiter - Io system.
In Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets (2004) the crew of the international spacecraft Pegasus perform an aerobraking in Jupiter's upper atmosphere to slow them down enough to enter Jovian orbit.
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Famous quotes containing the word fiction:
“The acceptance that all that is solid has melted into the air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs, is the point from which fiction begins.”
—Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)