Discarding Stages An Orion’s Arm future history image. A Callisto mission spacecraft discarding spent impulse-magazine stages after completing its Oberth braking maneuver – this is the final stage of vehicle braking required to shed the 50,000 mile per hour velocity attained after launch from Mars. The Oberth maneuver is accomplished by diving deep into Jupiter’s gravity well, performing a tight orbital pass around Jupiter while firing the Orion pulsed plasma rocket against the vehicles orbital direction. The Oberth effect is named after Hermann Oberth, the Austro-Hungarian-born, German physicist and a founder of modern rocketry, who first described the effect – for more information see Oberth effect. Imaged here is the post-firing stage of the maneuver, the Crew-Vehicle and the Orion Interplanetary Stage have separated, the reaction control jets can be seen firing to maintain station-keeping as depleted impulse-charge magazine-stages are discarded to fall harmlessly into Jupiter’s atmosphere for disposal. Terraforming resource-recovery missions to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are by necessity self-reliant ventures, excursions launched into a desolate wilderness far removed from safe harbor, assistance, or rescue. The crewed vessels provide bubbles of shelter, heat, light, warmth, they are self sufficient isolated space faring communities accompanied by two and three support vessels baring all of the machinery tools and supplies to support their 3 year missions. Future History Timeline Context Link: Orion’s Arm Future History Timeline. Backdrop is the NASA/JPL Voyager 1 mosaic of Jupiter’s great red spot as processed by Bjorn Jonosson. As always thank you for your interest, thoughtful comments, and encouragement.