3 ms·
Maybe someone with more knowledge/experience can chime in here since I'm fairly ignorant of the Voyager program - was a bit before my time. From what I underst
by scohesc 4y ago
Maybe someone with more knowledge/experience can chime in here since I'm fairly ignorant of the Voyager program - was a bit before my time.
From what I understand the voyager probe(s) did some pretty crazy gravity assists to launch themselves out of the solar system - flying close enough to different planets in our solar system to build up great speed.
Could we not throw a giant solar sail onto a probe and send it out? I guess the acceleration would be smaller and smaller when you get further and further out with the sun being further away, but at least you'd still be gaining velocity, right?
- thechao 4y agoThis is directly addressed in the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.03005 https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.03005
- scohesc 4y agoThank you for mentioning this! I don't have the time and mental resources to browse through these research papers all the time but knowing that what I'm asking is actually in the paper, maybe I'll give it a browse. Thanks :)
- floxy 4y agoIf you like solar sails, you might like: https://youtu.be/NQFqDKRAROI?t=858 https://youtu.be/NQFqDKRAROI?t=858