Science Memes

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launch him anyway (mander.xyz)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It requires energy to shrink an orbit just as it does to grow it. Since we're launching from Earth, we start with Earth's orbit around the sun, and we have to burn enough to bring the perihelion of our launched child's solar orbit to within the sun itself. We could use Venus or Mercury for gravity assists but the angular speed of the orbit does have to be mostly cancelled to hit the sun

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's still a lot cheaper than instantaneously cancelling angular velocity.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

well the other stipulation was that it has to happen from a single kick

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yes the source of thrust is still cheaper using a launch window. Basically, you don't need to kick directly to the sun you just need the child to land somewhere below a maintainable orbit given their velocity. The closer they get the more gravity will effect them and do more work that we don't have to do.