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Fun counter-intuitive space fact, it actually takes much less energy to send a space probe out of the solar system than it does to send one into the Sun. To fli
by BitwiseFool 5y ago
Fun counter-intuitive space fact, it actually takes much less energy to send a space probe out of the solar system than it does to send one into the Sun. To fling something into the Sun you basically have to get rid of all the kinetic energy that was given to us from the Earth's orbit.
Even stranger still is the fact that you have more efficiency if you send the probe into the outer solar system first and then try to slow down. The Ulysses probe did this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_(spacecraft)
Edit:
> "To fall into the sun a spacecraft would first have to escape the earth's gravity, and then after that slow down almost completely from the earth's orbital speed of about 30 km/s (~70,000 mph) around the sun. A four-stage, 3,000 ton rocket (about Saturn-V size) could only launch about 150 lbs into the sun on a direct trajectory, and it would probably cost a little more than $1 billion."
> "To escape the solar system and fly off into interstellar space, a spacecraft only needs to speed up from earth's orbital velocity by about 40% (instead of reducing it by almost 100% to fall into the sun). The required delta-v would be about 17-18 km/s."
From a simple HTML page with content written by a college professor, my favorite kind of webpage! https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=43694&t=launching-a-rocket-to-the-sun https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=43694&t=l...
- Melatonic 5y agoNo no no - I think we are all missing the point here - if I learned anything from the Superman documentary series then we should be flinging the toxic waste at a trajectory that makes it go around the sun in REVERSE which will also mean it of course will travel backwards in time. And then for sure we can say that is going to end up as someone else's problem.
- BitwiseFool 5y agoIf we send it back in time we can reverse the half-life too, think of the possibilities!
- Melatonic 5y agoHalf-Life 3 confirmed
- BurningFrog 5y agoHow about crashing it into Jupiter?
- BitwiseFool 5y agoThat's certainly do-able and given that any spacecraft meant to leave the solar system would almost certainly use a Jupiter gravity assist it wouldn't be any more difficult to steer it into the planet itself. However, if we were truly determined to get radioactive waste off of Earth and into space we could put it into an Earth escape trajectory and leave it in an orbit high enough so that it doesn't encounter the Earth again. That would save a ton of fuel. We also have the option of impacting it into the Lunar surface. Radioactive waste is primarily a problem for us here on Earth because we have an atmosphere and a water cycle that causes particles to spread all around the ecosystem. But any waste left on the moon will stay put for billions of years because there's nothing to disturb it.