Hi Dave,
I tend to concur with your suspicions that the effect is most likely real, this based on my own computations of simple planetary orbits. I have used both single precision and double precision in my simulations. Rounding off errors appeared to be negligible. As far as my own personal observations went I saw little if no difference between SP vs DP. A science program like NOVA recently did a program on how NASA began to use sophisticated gravity assist trajectories in order to shoot satellites out in to further regions of the solar system. The point being, if you have a lot of extra patience the trip can be performed with far less rocket fuel than traditional means. On a related matter, a couple of months ago you may recall I posted on Vort a personal discovery I made concerning what I later learned is actually a derivative of Kepler's 3rd law, that the square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit. I stumbled across a much more simplified observation of the 3rd law: All orbits that share the same orbital period also share the same distance in their major radius. I didn't know at the time whether this observation had been made by others, so I posted my findings out on Vortex. See: http://personalpen.orionworks.com/kepler4thlaw.htm Someone eventually was kind enough to point me to a link that correlated my personal observation with Kepler's 3rd law. Yes, the observation had already been made. Alas, my hope for fame (and bragging rights) had been dashed. Nevertheless, it was fun to discover the fact that some personal observations I had made about planetary motion based on computer simulations I had personal designed turned out to be confirmed as true. I still think the observation should officially be described as Kepler's honorary 4th law of planetary motion. ;-) PS: The Kiplinger letter for this Friday made the comment that China's recent successful rover landing on the moon will fuel some fears in congress that NASA should get a little extra funding boost for planetary research. It will be nothing near the glories of the space race of the sixties. But a modest financial boost never the less. (I love watching the movie: "The Right Stuff.") Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson svjart.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/newvortex/
