quetric

quetric t1_j5w6n75 wrote

In addition to what others have said about delta-v required to match the orbital speed of the ISS, there's also the challenge of matching its inclination. Most likely a sample return mission will occur roughly in the solar system invariable plane, since that's where most of the planetary mass is. The ISS orbits at a relatively high inclination and I suspect it would take some creative gravity assists or a lot of delta-v to get in alignment with it.

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quetric t1_iueo4rl wrote

This is pretty far from beautiful. The graph is confusing because looking at the vertical axis tells you the comparison is by yield, but having the mushroom clouds instead of bars suggests the comparison is by height of the cloud. I suspect the relationship between the two metrics is not linear so they're not interchangeable.

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