NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Cel nav in space
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2005 Jan 4, 23:04 -0500
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2005 Jan 4, 23:04 -0500
On Jan 4, 2005, at 9:05 PM, Frank Reed wrote: > They could measure stars' positions relative to the axes of the > spacecraft. The goal was to get the spacecraft's absolute orientation. > Orientation is critical for rocket firings. Very early in the history > of space flight, people considered these instruments for actual > position fixing, but it's pointless (an amusing intellectual puzzle > nonetheless). > You could also measure the "altitude" above the earth. I don't know that it was pointless to use a sextant for position fixing; rather, there were more efficient methods.
