- "The minimum distance to Mars is 33.9 million miles" The path we're talking about is not this straight-line distance; it's a much longer trajectory that look

- "The minimum distance to Mars is 33.9 million miles" The path we're talking about is not this straight-line distance; it's a much longer trajectory that looks closer to this [0] (probably longer than the one in this particular diagram). Part of the reason is vector velocity addition with Earth's orbital velocity; part of it is that the electric acceleration phase is not instantaneous—rather it's very, very slow. [0] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mars-transfer-trajectory-comparison-Orbits-are-to-scale_fig4_357553420 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mars-transfer-trajectory...