• alcoholicorn [comrade/them, doe/deer]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    The Parker Solar Probe has to do 7 gravitational slingshots off Venus to even get within 3.6 million miles of the sun.

    I haven't done the math but get the sense you could do one off Jupiter right into the sun. The idea that you can add mass to a thing near us and make it smaller is fucking insane. Jupiter's implications are mind boggling and terrifying.

    "oops, we accidentally made your rocket 5x bigger, fired it through an incredibly carefully calculated series of orbits, over a period of 8 years. Simple mistake really, happens all the time."

    • barrbaric [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      Yep, though I imagine it'd be pretty trivial to "fuck up" hard enough to just burn through all their fuel during launch, thereby making landing impossible.

      • alcoholicorn [comrade/them, doe/deer]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Yeah, like fucking up a lunar slingshot such that he was in an orbit that couldn't be recovered and would certainly starve to death.

        One might hope he'd think, knowing he was dying in a few months no matter what, about humanity and how he can use his final moments to communicate instructions to use his wealth to destroy the system that imiserated millions to permit his egotistical suicide mission, but I looked up Steve Job's last words to his daughter and they were

        spoiler

        “You smell like a toilet.”

        • bort_simp_son [she/her]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          Which is funny because Steve Jobs stopped showering in the late stage of his life, believing his juice cleanse diet prevented his body from producing odor. People close to him said he smelled like poop from across the room in his final months.

          But yeah, Steve, it's your kid who smelled bad, not you, you perfect god-being you...