[zeristor]

I had a similar idea previously for interstellar travel. My idea was to fire fuel pellets ahead of the rocket so it would collect them up as it accelerated, relative velocity being not too much.

However Anything orbiting the sun wouldn’t be able to stay on target to fire the fuel for long. Calculating the trajectory to account for gravity would be problematic. The whole process would be too brittle, if something went wrong it could well be impossible to recover.

Nifty idea was to fire the pellets before and after, so when it flips mid-flight it could collect fuel pellets to decelerate.

[neckardt]

> Calculating the trajectory to account for gravity would be problematic.

Couldn't you just make every fuel pellet a powered spacecraft just a tiny engine? It could adjust its velocity when it drifts off course. That would add some weight, but a small ion engine might fit the bill. The engine could of course be disposed of to save weight once its captured by the larger ship.

The whole process could be safer if the rocket just keeps some extra fuel in case it doesn't manage to collect say every 10th pellet.

[zeristor]

Yes, I had thought of a buffer for that, probably a design trade off.

But if the pellet track is moved off target you have to follow it.

By the way I like to call it the PacMan Rocket.

[urb]

Nice, but the small powered pallets would have to catch up with the ship and quickly won't be able to even if given initial momentum