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Disclaimer: the entirety of my orbital mechanics knowledge derives from Kerbal Space Program. I cant recommend it enough if you're really interested in building
by aphextron 9y ago
Disclaimer: the entirety of my orbital mechanics knowledge derives from Kerbal Space Program. I cant recommend it enough if you're really interested in building an intuitive understanding for this stuff.
But no, it's not that you would be pulled into the sun. You would simply be in a solar orbit just like the earth, unless you continued accelerating and reached solar escape velocity (~600km/s). You can think of gravity like successively larger "wells" which you must escape from if you want to go anywhere. You can't just point a spaceship at a planet and go there.
- kuschku 9y ago> You can't just point a spaceship at a planet and go there. Disclaimer: You can, you just need so much power it’s like flying with a helicopter from your bedroom to the kitchen, absolutely wasteful.
- a_t48 9y agoThe main question at that point becomes: how can you carry that much fuel?
- Florin_Andrei 9y agoDepends on how efficient the engine is. If you're riding a nuclear rocket, you don't need that much fuel.
- kuschku 9y agoTheoretically? Fusion reactor + ion drive. Throw enough power at those and you can accelerate for a long time.
- isostatic 9y agoOne thing you learn from KSP is it requires less energy to fly into to alpha centauri than fly into the sun.
- mannykannot 9y agoGetting the Parker Solar Probe down to the sun will take 7 flybys of Venus to use its gravity to slow down, over 6 1/2 years. http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/The-Mission/index.php http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/The-Mission/index.php 'Journey to the Sun.'
- pdonis 9y ago> solar escape velocity (~600km/s) That's for escaping from the surface of the Sun. At Earth's distance from the Sun, the velocity needed to escape from the Sun's gravity is only 42 km/s.