Optimal way to animate dragging objects through space from a spaceship

Question

So I'm working on a short 5 second animation for a stream alert. I've made a rocket and constrained it with follow path, then used some custom animation to make it appear to (shoddily) fly. I also have an astronaut that I want to be attached to the ship on the outside being drug by his space walk cord. I don't know if blender has an easier method of attaching one object to another with a loose rope to be pulled by an already animated object other than just custom animating the drug object and the rope frame by frame. But maybe I can use my existing constraint path on a cord (simple cylinder) so that it may follow like a snake?

Help?

My current hypothesis is that I should attach my space walk cord to the skeleton of my astronaut and custom animate them to follow the ship. But then if I don't know how to attach the other end to the space ship it won't every stay a constant singular distance away.

I'm also trying to smooth the over all animation, as it seems a bit noisy or erratic. Any tips besides how to drag an object through a vacuum to improve the animation is also appreciated

My project is here: https://pasteall.org/blend/5584f2dbf2004c21abeeb437ad7156af

Answer 1

A cloth simulation of a rope can attach the astronaut to the spaceship, then a simulation will generate the movement for the astronaut. The rope is parented to the spaceship so is it moved with it. The the astronaut is constrained to moved with the end of the rope. The animation below shows the final result.

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Details

1. Create a rope from a cylinder by subdividing along it length. Create a vertex group at the end of the rope.
2. Apply a cloth simulation to the cylinder.
3. Parent the rope to the spaceship.
4. Use the copy location constraint on astronaut and select the rope and the vertex group at the end.

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Blender 2.92 file used to generate the animation. -