Project ICOVD Windmill Class Interplanetary Ramjet Development Thread

Ursus

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Now that the Windmill has her custom autopilot (ala Imagineer), five fusion reactors and code to tie the thrusters in with the reactors, I think its about time to start seriously thinking about getting a few folks to help shake her down.

The latest snapshot of the engineering panel...



A few notes...

* I've put the rear reactors (and their thrusters) on the primary fuel system. The auxilliary tanks act mainly as a buffer reserve for the front thrusters (maybe I ought to decrease their size a bit), though they can be isolated from the main fuel system or even feed fuel back into main tanks. I really don't like the idea of running the high-pressure lines along the length of the ship that would be necessary to provide thrust on demand.

* The tankage/depletion isn't quite exactly zero in ram mode, but rather hovers at points infinitesimally higher and lower than zero (though usually just during time compression). I'll have to straighten that out, too. I think I had it pretty steady at one time. (Maybe not. As I edit the Testing Notes document, I see a note about it in there.)

* I've reversed the order of the reactor indicators and selector buttons (left side of orange-ish section), so that AUX4 is at the top and MAIN is at the bottom. The way was, it was too easy to get confused about whether one is dealing the the front or rear reactors. (AUX1 and AUX2 are abaft, while AUX3 and AUX4 are abow.) Hopefully rearranging the indicators will help with that.

* I've masked out the scoop strength selector for now. We might consider totally abandon the idea if we don't find much demand for it by version 2.0. I don't even remember what the presets were going to be. (Oh... there they are... Max Ram and Tank-purge-then-ram... yeah... that'll probably get scrapped; those don't make sense unless the scoop can collect more fuel than the engine uses at full power, and probably wouldn't make much of a difference even then).

* I keep fluctuating on whether I should remove the acceleration value (the hypothetical acceleration if drag were the only force acting on the vessel) from the bottom of the scoop section, or add one to the bottom of the main thrust section.


I think I'll put together a distribution package for the test team before I make any changes noted above. Once those issues and any issues that come up during limited (can't really call it closed, since the package will be hosted on the SourceForge repository) testing are addressed, we can figure out how to use the SourceForge release system for some more widespread testing...

Hmmm... I don't feel like tracking down our volunteers... If you've volunteered to beta test, go to the following link...

http://downloads.sourceforge.net/icovd/ICOVD_Windmill_0.2beta090120.zip?use_mirror=
 
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n72.75

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it's good to see this project project progressing.
 

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Great news! I'm in the middle of a project that has temporarily left me without the ability to play orbiter, but I'll give it a try when I can. I've been looking forward to this for a long time.:)
 

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Now that the Windmill has her custom autopilot (ala Imagineer)...

The autopilot is still a work in progress.


  • I have not made it work with time acceleration yet.
  • Orbit anti-normal does not work, last I checked.
  • If you attach enough mass to the ship it will be unstable.
  • It will not compensate for an off-center CG.
 

Ursus

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The autopilot is still a work in progress.


  • I have not made it work with time acceleration yet.
  • Orbit anti-normal does not work, last I checked.
  • If you attach enough mass to the ship it will be unstable.
  • It will not compensate for an off-center CG.

Ooh... I shoulda checked on that so I could at least add it to the list of known issues... So she might be in "Early Beta" stage for quite a while...

What the AP does do, it does so nicely...
 

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ehm...

Hi there,
I have downloaded the last release of the windmill and seems not to have the last textures.
I thought I've upload the last set some months ago, but there aren't on the repository.
Now I have to look for them in my hard disk. They must be some where around it

Trokkes
 

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Hi there,
I have downloaded the last release of the windmill and seems not to have the last textures.
I thought I've upload the last set some months ago, but there aren't on the repository.
Now I have to look for them in my hard disk. They must be some where around it

Trokkes

I was wondering when you were going to upload those new textures you'd mentioned, but I figured that maybe you just had a few minor adjustments you still wanted to make.
 

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It looks like the most major of the above-mentioned AP problems has been fixed. (The normal mode problem.) While I look forward to any fine tuning that Imagineer might be able to perform, I think she performs pretty sweetly as-is.

I've made a few tweaks to the panels and expanded the documentation a bit (in ~Orbiter/Doc/ICOVD Windmill/ICOVD1 Testing Notes.txt ).

The changes are in ICOVDWindmill_0.2patch090206.zip, which can be found at on the Windmill 0.2 Beta Download Page. It needs to be installed on top of ICOVD_Windmill_0.2beta090120.zip. I'll post a full package once those missing mesh and texture files show up.
 

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perhaps I overlooked it on the thread, but is there an official place to put your beta testing experiences and/or bugs? Been looking forward for some time to test this craft and I want to do what I can for testing
 

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perhaps I overlooked it on the thread, but is there an official place to put your beta testing experiences and/or bugs?

For now, we can use this forum thread. If the thread gets too flooded with reports, I'll post instructions how to use the bug tracker on SourceForge.
 

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Hi all,

I am very much looking forward to this add-on. I loved using the old Vespucci to do the Grand Tour and even took a stab at modeling a ramjet myself just to learn more about the engineering constraints.

I have only just downloaded it, but let me throw a couple of ideas your way that I ran into when thinking about how to "really" make a ramjet spacecraft. I offer these in case anyone wants to take them up - my modeling skills are VERY basic (I did the Stanford Torus and the Rolling Stone, which involve just basic shapes!) If anyone is interested, I can find the gmax model of my ramjet concept and pass it along.

The first thing was considering the acceleration and docking ports. If you were to accelerate at 1g then anything docked (like a DG) will either 1) be pulling with its full weight on the docking clamp (hanging a DG from a dock on Earth) 2) be torquing around the dock point with its full weight (trying to hold up a DG by its nose on Earth) or 3) be pushing into the dock with its full weight (balancing a DG on its nose on the dock on Earth) depending on the orientation. Since most docks (or spacecraft) probably would not be designed to handle anything near that, I built a little suported landing ring for the docked ships to rest on during acceleration while docked. Torque during maneuvering would be non-trivial in real life, but I figured I could clamp them down to the ring and beef up my virtual docks to handle that with a handwave.:) This might imply some sort of adjustable height docking port if you are using DGs and Shuttle-As. If the windmill is not intended to have very high-g acceleration (like Vespucci) then maybe this is a side note of no interest. I can't tell how big it is yet (I loved docking the big Vespucci to the bigger Stanford Torus!!!)

Second, if we postulate that the ramjet is going to go fast enough to gather fuel (ionized by a laser so as to be funneled magnetically) then we have to consider what happens to all the other non-iodized matter that will miss the magnetic funnel. (No real funnel need exist I think, and I doubt you could build one big enough anyway.) As it is, these particles might be toasting the passengers in the ring. My solution was to build cone-shaped shields made from foamed something (proton-rich?) in front of and behind areas that would be accessed while at high relative velocity which would reduce the incident energy of neutral particles. You can't use metal like lead or gold since the backscatter would be more lethal than the original particles. Maybe multiple layers of angled aluminum louvers? They are needed on both bow and stern for when you do the flip at the halfway point - particles would be coming in past the engine that would roast you when decelerating. Hmm, you might be able to use full fuel tanks to protect the hab areas...

I have an engineering background, so if this type of input would be helpful as you develop the Windmill, let me know. If it is too detailed and you just want a ship to play with, I totally understand that too, so tell me that I am being too technoid!

And in any event, it looks great so far - keep up the good work!!!
 

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Proposed power cycle for ramjet

Anyone know how a futuristic fusion reactor should behave?

Let's see... just off the cuff... the following probably isn't very accurate/complete.

First you add some reaction fuel to the reaction chamber. (How much? Would it need some sort of pre-treating?)

You compress the fuel down with a magnetic field, maybe adding some more as you go along.

You shoot a whole bunch of electricity through the fuel to excite it into fusing together.

In the hypothetical future reactor, enough electricity can be generated from the reaction to maintain the compression field (and the stimulus charge? or is that just necessary to jump start the reaction?) and other ship systems, such as those powerful magnetic field generators at either end of the vessel. I guess we could add a fission power plant if that seems too unrealistic.

To produce thrust, (lots) more fuel is added to the system, and the fused fuel is directed out through the big exhaust port.

When the reactor is not being used for propulsion, the spent fuel is vented through two or more symetrically placed exhaust ports, so that the thrust produced by said venting cancels itself out.

To stop the reaction, one simply stops replacing the spent fuel.

Of course, what I really need are key phases of operation, so I can put something more interesting on the reactor moitoring display than "Startup Sequence: Phase 1... Phase 2... Phase 3..." Though I guess that'd work I can't find anything better.

We currently do have fusion reactors - they just use more energy than they produce. There are a number of ways to do it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power

Let me propose a realistic way given the fuel you will be scooping. The stellar wind is electrons and protons. The protons can be used in the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle) to fuse. If we don't use the protons, there isn't much hydrogen out there to fuse, and even less deuterium or tritium, which is easier to fuse. So basically every four protons that come in go through the cycle and leave as a helium nucleus. The reaction produces gamma rays, so we will need protection from that. The helium could be used as the propellant I think, so we have a net zero mass differential. (I think the temperature of this would make the exhaust plume ultraviolet or deep purple in visible light.)

We need to bring the protons into contact with the carbon (which is consumed and regenerated during the cycle) and produced nitrogen (which is also consumed and regenerated) at 17×10^6 K or so, then keep everything but the helium in the reaction chamber, and vent the helium.

Tricky, but thankfully our descendants have figured this out!

The whole cycle produces 26.77 MeV of energy, which would probably be harnessed as an increase in temperature to run a reactor - maybe we route a portion of the exhausted hot helium over a heat exchanger to get the temperature differential (we need those radiators for the other half of the differential!). Also consider that non-protons coming in (dust, unlucky astronauts, etc) would poison the reaction somewhat, since anything above iron absorbs more energy than it produces when it fuses, and it is doubtful we will really fuse anything other than hydrogen, so we probably lose energy just making that stuff hot. We might postulate a magic non-proton separator/router that bypasses this stuff right into the exhaust plume, probably an annulus along the centerline so as to avoid a net force due to deflecting the mass in one direction.

So, during startup, we probably need to preheat the protons coming in - once we have a high enough relative velocity the need for this would go down somewhat. I'd have to do the math to see if you could ever get rid of the preheat. (If the relative velocity converted into a temperature is equal to your reactor temp then you don't need preheating.) During startup you might need deuterium-tritium to get things fusing. That would initially be a consumable that you could - verrry slowly - replenish by scooping. Tritum is much rarer than deuterium which in turn is rare. I don't know if you could really make deuterium and tritium from protons. You could rapidly replenish deuterium and maybe tritium by scooping a gas giant and refining.

So here is the process as I envision it - please don't take this as truth - I am an engineer, not a physicist! Also, I don't know that you want to simulate all of this - presumably the computer would "do" most of it and just notify you of the state. Criticize away!


  1. Prestart
    1. Engage fission plant (our aux power unit essentially)
    2. Use fission power to build fusion reaction in a tokamak using Z-pinch/magnetic containment. This reaction consumes deuterium-tritium or deuterium and lithium to tritium from stores. (Note if you use lithium that you are out of luck in replenishing this anywhere, so it is a non-replacable consumable. Maybe have it on board in case you haven't replenished enough when it is time to start slowing down.)
    3. Breakeven point plus power requirement achieved in fusion, fission can be shut down.
  2. Fusion fuel net negative
    1. We are burning our on-board fuel so begin to increase relative speed so we can bring in more fuel
    2. Turn on scoop
    3. As the first protons/hydrogen trickles in, use fusion waste heat to preheat it and feed it into the tokamak.
    4. Switch on magic non-hydrogen diversion system
    5. Achieve 13×10^6 K in the reaction chamber
    6. Turn on magic only-helium-gets-out system
    7. Add carbon catalyst
    8. Achieve 17×10^6 K - output energy rises rapidly with temperature increase
    9. Now we are running on the CNO cycle. As the proton and hydrogen intake rate increases, throttle down using our on-board fuel
    10. Achieve fuel net zero
  3. Fusion fuel net positive - now we are taking in more hydrogen than we are using
    1. Begin to divert molecular hydrogen to refinery for refining into deuterium (rare) and tritium (very rare)
    2. Deuterium and tritium stores replenish slowly - I hope in time to be full when we arrive!
    3. Once D-T replenished, shut down refinery
    4. Should more thrust be desired, we can use our hydrogen stores, or we can cruise at intake = outflow with no net mass change
  4. Flip point
    1. At the deceleration point, we flip and get rid of most of the speed we gained
      1. If we have a scoop on the rear end, we turn on that scoop to provide fuel. Fuel gained will be decreasing with our speed so at some point it will not be worth it and we will turn it off.
      2. If we only have a scoop on the front end, we turn off our scoop and run on stores - we will need some other source of deceleration power/mass since we can't carry enough to do so (which is why we were scooping in the first place!)
  5. Orbital insertion
    1. If we are at a gas giant, scoop to refine and refuel - careful of any life forms in the clouds!
      1. Would a magentic scoop work in a powerful magnetic field like a gas giant's?
    2. Reduce fusion fuel until near-breakeven
    3. Restart fission reaction
    4. Shut down fusion reaction
  6. Explore!
 

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For now, we can use this forum thread. If the thread gets too flooded with reports, I'll post instructions how to use the bug tracker on SourceForge.

All right then, here goes. I found a bug, or at least some undefined behavior. Here are the steps to reproduce it.

1. Make a clean orbiter install.
2. Install ICOVD_Windmill_0.2beta090120.zip
3. Install ICOVE_Windmill_0.2patch090206.zip
4. Open the Windmill in Earth Orbit scenario.
5. Go to the engineering panel.
6. Click R2 on the reactor list.
7. Click and hold STOP to shut it down.
8. Click R1 on the reactor list.
9. Click and hold STOP to shut it down.
10. Watch orbiter crash within 5 seconds.

Other than that, it seems very cool so far :). I haven't figured out everything yet, but I've only been playing with it for a few minutes.

Edit: After some more playing, I hereby amend my statement above. It's very very cool :speakcool:.
 
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Ursus

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Let me propose a realistic way given the fuel you will be scooping.

Now somebody posts... :rolleyes:

:welcome:

(I think the temperature of this would make the exhaust plume ultraviolet or deep purple in visible light.)

Yeah! Yeah! Purple! Purple!

We need a purple exhaust texture! (Actually, I think someone has made some; we just need to figure out how to implement them and get perms to include them with the project.)


We need to bring the protons into contact with the carbon (which is consumed and regenerated during the cycle) and produced nitrogen (which is also consumed and regenerated) at 17×10^6 K or so, then keep everything but the helium in the reaction chamber, and vent the helium.

Tricky, but thankfully our descendants have figured this out!

I'd say that maybe the double torus design had something to do with it (exactly how, I'm not sure, but something to do with centrifugal separation), but I've kind of implied that the auxiliary reactors are single torus fusion reactors. Then again... maybe they really are double tori that are just represented as single rings on the status display. For some reason, they're hidden within the RCS pylon structures, so I can't really tell.

The whole cycle produces 26.77 MeV of energy, which would probably be harnessed as an increase in temperature to run a reactor - maybe we route a portion of the exhausted hot helium over a heat exchanger to get the temperature differential

I'd think there would also be a lot of heat radiated out to the reactor walls, depending on how dense the core is. I haven't yet acquired sufficient knowledge of thermodynamics to figure out exactly how much, however.

So, during startup, we probably need to preheat the protons coming in - once we have a high enough relative velocity the need for this would go down somewhat. I'd have to do the math to see if you could ever get rid of the preheat. (If the relative velocity converted into a temperature is equal to your reactor temp then you don't need preheating.)

I'd really like to model hot-fueling eventually (should really shorten startup times, if nothing else), but that'll likely wait for post-1.0 versions.

Engage fission plant (our aux power unit essentially)

I'm using the smaller fusion reactors as APU's right now. One less heavy reactor to carry and one less reactor cycle to model. The only drawback is that we always need to keep at least one going (preferably two, so we have a backup in case one goes down), or there won't be any way to get them started (lack of any way to get reactors started not yet modeled).

Use fission power to build fusion reaction in a tokamak using Z-pinch/magnetic containment. This reaction consumes deuterium-tritium or deuterium and lithium to tritium from stores.

Hmmm... That might be something to consider.

* Achieve 13×10^6 K in the reaction chamber
* Turn on magic only-helium-gets-out system
* Add carbon catalyst

I was thinking some graphite powder added with the initial fuel load would aid in the conduction of the electric current used to ionize the core and would then later act as the CNO catalyst.

*If we have a scoop on the rear end, we turn on that scoop to provide fuel. Fuel gained will be decreasing with our speed so at some point it will not be worth it and we will turn it off.
*If we only have a scoop on the front end, we turn off our scoop and run on stores - we will need some other source of deceleration power/mass since we can't carry enough to do so (which is why we were scooping in the first place!)

We've got a rear scoop, but we also have a magnetic sail, which I've found to be more efficient (at least at certain relative velocities; really ought to experiment and/or do the math to determine where the break-even point is, if there is one, and which method is more efficient on which side of that point) than collecting and burning (elastic vs non-elastic collision model). If the tanks are already full, it's probably better to use the sail.

*If we are at a gas giant, scoop to refine and refuel - careful of any life forms in the clouds!
*Would a magentic scoop work in a powerful magnetic field like a gas giant's?

I don't think it would... at least not very efficiently. Of course, right now, I've got the scoop coded to avoid scooping any atmosphere.

All right then, here goes. I found a bug, or at least some undefined behavior. Here are the steps to reproduce it.

1. Make a clean orbiter install.
2. Install ICOVD_Windmill_0.2beta090120.zip
3. Install ICOVE_Windmill_0.2patch090206.zip
4. Open the Windmill in Earth Orbit scenario.
5. Go to the engineering panel.
6. Click R2 on the reactor list.
7. Click and hold STOP to shut it down.
8. Click R1 on the reactor list.
9. Click and hold STOP to shut it down.
10. Watch orbiter crash within 5 seconds.

Other than that, it seems very cool so far :). I haven't figured out everything yet, but I've only been playing with it for a few minutes.

Edit: After some more playing, I hereby amend my statement above. It's very very cool :speakcool:.

I'm glad you like it.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to reproduce your bug. I presuming you've reproduced it on your own machine. Do you get one of those usually-unhelpful "We're sorry but your program done died" (I can't remember the exact wording) dialogs when it crashes?

Is anyone else able to reproduce the bug?

I might take a look at the source and see if anything jumps out as possibly causing a crash on some machines but not mine. (Hmm... divide by zero?... I can't think of any API calls... Aack, I'll have to look at it, but later...)
 

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I'm glad you like it.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to reproduce your bug. I presuming you've reproduced it on your own machine. Do you get one of those usually-unhelpful "We're sorry but your program done died" (I can't remember the exact wording) dialogs when it crashes?

More details then...

On my machine at least it's 100% reproducible (none of that funny "it only happens when you're not looking" business). Here are the exact conditions under which it happens (as far as I can tell):

- It never happens if at least one of the reactors is at least at the "Compressing Fuel" stage.

- It always happens immediately if all the reactors are off.

- It always happens immediately if 4 reactors are off, and one is at the "Ionizing Fuel" stage, and its top green bar is all the way full.

- When one reactor is at the "Ionizing Fuel" stage, but its top green bar is not full, and all the other reactors are off, it will not crash until the top green bar is full, at which point it always crashes.

- I don't know about the "Fuel Flow started" stage, because I can't start a reactor, and then shut down another by the time it's already at "Ionizing Fuel"

That's the dialog box I get ("orbiter.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close..."). When I ask to see what the error report contains, it tells me this:

EventType: BEX
P1: orbiter.exe
P2: 0.0.0.0
P3: 451d1ff5
P4: ICOVD1.dll
P5: 0.0.0.0
P6: 498d378a
P7: 0000c157
P8: c0000409

I'm no windows guru, so I'll leave it to others to interpret that. Unfortunately I can't tell what BEX means, so it's hard to say whether it was a seg fault, a divide by zero, or what. Also, if you want the mdmp file or the appcompat.txt file, I can upload them for you.

After the error occurs, Orbiter.log shows nothing unusual.

And by the way, I'm curious about one particular stage in the reactor start up. What does "Injecting Pixie Dust" mean :rofl:!?
 

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Now somebody posts... :rolleyes:
Sorry, sorry. I know how that is, but I just found the project!!!

Thanks!

Yeah! Yeah! Purple! Purple!

We need a purple exhaust texture! (Actually, I think someone has made some; we just need to figure out how to implement them and get perms to include them with the project.)

It would be relatively straightforward to make these, I think. I can look into it. Also, since the plume is plasma, it is probably carrying a magnetic field with it, so the plume is going to be 10 or 20 km long I should think. Maybe at the end it shifts spectrum from ultraviolet to infrared - a little rainbow effect?

I'd say that maybe the double torus design had something to do with it (exactly how, I'm not sure, but something to do with centrifugal separation), but I've kind of implied that the auxiliary reactors are single torus fusion reactors. Then again... maybe they really are double tori that are just represented as single rings on the status display. For some reason, they're hidden within the RCS pylon structures, so I can't really tell.
I was thinking centrifugal separation too, though it'll be tricky. The protons are less dense than the helium which in turn is less dense than the CNO. It is all plasma, so you can't just use magnetic separation.

I'd think there would also be a lot of heat radiated out to the reactor walls, depending on how dense the core is. I haven't yet acquired sufficient knowledge of thermodynamics to figure out exactly how much, however.

Don't forget that "heat" is an inexact term. If the plasma is moving fast it is "hot" but if it doesn't actually contact anything (which it had better not since it will erode anything material) it transfers no heat. The photons coming out of the reaction (our radiant component) are at gamma ray energy. I'm not really sure how to handle that. Shielding would absorb the gamma rays, and then we have the radiant heat problem. No shielding and maybe the gamma rays just shoot out into space, but maybe we fry our passengers. Maybe a magic gamma ray reflector? Seems a shame to waste all that energy - maybe we can reflect it back into the reaction area or out the back?

I'm using the smaller fusion reactors as APU's right now. One less heavy reactor to carry and one less reactor cycle to model. The only drawback is that we always need to keep at least one going (preferably two, so we have a backup in case one goes down), or there won't be any way to get them started (lack of any way to get reactors started not yet modeled).

Hmmm... That might be something to consider.

The fission stack might be a backup. Running the fusion as the APU will consume some fuel - depending on the reactor efficiency this could be no problem or a big deal. The reason I though fission was that, if you use a fast breeder fission (liquid sodium type) reactor it would be very safe and you probably could run it 100 years before refueling would be necessary.

I was thinking some graphite powder added with the initial fuel load would aid in the conduction of the electric current used to ionize the core and would then later act as the CNO catalyst.
Mmm, well once you get a fusion reaction you are going to have a plasma anyway, which is conductive/magnetic, so I don't think you need to consider it for that. Up until the CNO cycle takes hold, the carbon would make it MUCH harder to fuse, poisoning the fusion reaction I think.

We've got a rear scoop, but we also have a magnetic sail, which I've found to be more efficient (at least at certain relative velocities; really ought to experiment and/or do the math to determine where the break-even point is, if there is one, and which method is more efficient on which side of that point) than collecting and burning (elastic vs non-elastic collision model). If the tanks are already full, it's probably better to use the sail.
Don't know much about these or how to model them, though I have heard of them. Does it require a planetary magentic field or does it grapple on to the sun's? As the field density goes down at the outer planets what would the effect be on your "mag-brakes?"

Fun stuff!
 

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Drake, you're from CO? Whereabouts? I grew up in north Denver (Thornton-ish, specifically).
 
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