It's definitely harder to decay the orbit into the sun directly than it is to get to escape velocity. But to play devil's advocate, there is probably a way to get them into the sun while being a similar cost to escape velocity. All you need to do is burn prograde to a super high aphelion, ride all the way out there to Pluto or whatever and then do a small retrograde burn to bring your perihelion inside the sun's photosphere. When you then get back towards the sun years later you would slam into it with a sick velocity that I think would be worth the decades-long wait.
Gravity assist with one of the larger planets to make a very narrow orbit seems to be the most efficient way. But you need the planets to align correctly to have an efficient route.
"I'll launch you into the sun once there is an appropriate transfer window to Jupiter" just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Haven’t you basically done everything needed to escape the solar system by the time you do the burn to turn back again?
Yeah, you would only need to burn a little bit more on your initial burn, that's why I said the cost would be similar.
Why is that - wouldn't you be working against solar gravity? Like you don't have to get them there quickly, just launch them in some orbit that will decay and be taken in?
the issue is not counteracting gravity, the issue is decelerating enough to hit the sun
The curvature of spacetime does wild shit to how you would expect physics to work. If you want to fall into a gravity well, you have to slow down or you'll just slingshot past it.
This sounds an awful lot like the the idea that you can never actually catch up to anything because all you can ever do is close the distance by half.
This sounds an awful lot like the the idea that you can never actually catch up to anything because all you can ever do is close the distance by half.
The reason you need to slow down is because you're starting on Earth, which means you're moving fast enough parallel to the sun's surface that for every foot you fall downwards toward the sun, the sun's surface curves away by 1 foot. This results in the nearly circular orbit around the sun we exist in.
If you start speeding up, the orbit becomes more elliptical, except your aphelion starts raising away from the sun because now you're moving fast enough that you've moved more than 1 foot sideways in the time you've fallen 1 foot downwards.
Slowing down has the opposite effect. If you get your speed down to 0, you'll fall straight down toward the sun as normal with gravity. But you don't need to go all the way down to 0 velocity to enter the sun, you just need to slow down until your elliptical orbit brushes up against the sun's surface. If you then want to speed back up to avoid falling into the sun, you need to do it parallel to the sun's surface. At this point, speeding up toward the sun will actually make you fall into the sun faster.
So basically the problem isn't that you're moving too fast to fall into the sun. By virtue of Earth's orbit, you're moving too fast in a direction away from hitting the sun's surface.
I remember watching a video about that. The gist is that you have to leave earth orbit or something idk.
Instructions unclear. I'm going to the moon on Delta IX.
(Edit: my dumbass just realized it's ∆V, as in velocity. I thought Delta 5 was the name of a type of chemical propellant. Though now that I think of it, it really should be. Damn, and I work for a space company too. At least I'm just in IT).
I legitimately want to be cremated by the sun after I die. Doesn't matter how long it takes.
Wouldn't shooting them into Jupiter be the easiest?
I'm sure I've read a few things about what an impact that big bugger has on trajectories in our solar system.
Intuitively I feel like a push towards Jupiter would be easier than a push to get all the way out of the solar system avoiding Jupiter.
I think I'd rather be launched into the sun over Jupiter. The sun you die pretty quickly as you get closer to it. I can't imagine there's much that could stop heat once you get past Mercury. Jupiter though? Jupiter is fucking spooky. Its core is hot like any molten core, but there's no crust. You'd fall through the sky and just keep falling for hundreds of miles. You'd eventually die from the heat like you would with the sun, but you wouldn't be able to see anything. At some point all you can see is goop. It's like being underwater in the Mariana Trench, but the water is nitrogen, metallic hydrogen, and liquid silicone.
Vay Hek threatening to hurl the Lotus into deep space just doesn't have the same punch, though.
how much to put them into a space suit and a car, strap them to a rocket and then fire them into orbit around Mars ?
I would be happy with just dropping them off a cliff, no need to fuck up the atmosphere any more for that.
A suitably large catapult would deliver the necessary delta-v, not release pollutants into the atmosphere, and would make a satisfying 'sproing thump' noise in doing so.
We could market it as a thrill ride for billionaires.
