4 ms·

The delta-v required for a trip to Titan, according to this[1], is 28.43 km/s. Optimistically, a fully re-fuelled startship in LEO has ~10km/s of delta-v to spe

• Robotbeat 7y ago
  Starship can do better than that if stripped down to expendable use. About 13km/s: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1111798912141017089 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1111798912141017089 Also, you're reading that delta-v map completely wrong. The red arrows mean you can aerobrake. So it only takes about 4.1km/s to reach Saturn if you start out at a highly elliptical (near escape) Earth orbit and do a large departure burn at perigee. (See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#Interplanetary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#Interplanetary ...the 7.3km/s if the burn is done starting in LEO, minus the 3.2km/s benefit you'd get if starting near c3=0. Or you add up the numbers on your delta-v map that can't be done using aerobraking, and you get the same 4.1km/s delta-v if starting from Earth escape.) ...so a fueled up Starship could send a payload direct to Titan and still have enough propellant to propulsively brake back to Earth orbit immediately after sending the Titan payload on its way. (But that's just one option... Lots of other vehicles could do it if you used refueling or some high performance kick stages or in orbit rendezvous.)
  • QuotedForTruth 7y ago
    So it would work! Thanks for the analysis.