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The fastest spacecraft humans have produced is the Parker Solar Probe which when it zips around the sun will reach 430,000 mph. At that speed it would take 173,
by guelo 7y ago
The fastest spacecraft humans have produced is the Parker Solar Probe which when it zips around the sun will reach 430,000 mph. At that speed it would take 173,000 years to reach this planet.
- cycop 7y agoGreat! , do that gravity assist a few more hundred times around the sun and we are there in 500 years.
- jerf 7y agoYou can't do a gravity assist around the sun once you've reached solar escape velocity, because you won't be visiting the sun again. If we could pull that trick so easily, we already would have.
- sandworm101 7y agoWell... you could wrap around another star, or two, and come back to this sun for another assist a la Rendezvous with Rama.
- sandworm101 7y agoIt is also the slowest spacecraft. Speed is relative. To get it going that 'fast' when close to the sun the other half of its orbit is correspondingly slower than earth. When launched it accelerated away from earth at speed, but from the perspective of the sun is was actually decelerating, and was moving much slower that it was when attached to the earth.