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I wonder if you can use atmospheric drag to pull you into the Sun / a different star / Kerbol. Long ago, playing Elite if I remember correctly, you could fly c

I wonder if you can use atmospheric drag to pull you into the Sun / a different star / Kerbol. Long ago, playing Elite if I remember correctly, you could fly close to a star and scoop up a load of hydrogen for later resale. I'd be interested to see a graph of gas density vs tendency to melt spacecraft compared to distance from the core for a typical star.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> wonder if you can use atmospheric drag to pull you into the Sun You can, and I believe this probe will. The Sun’s atmosphere is just much nastier than our own, which means your aerobraking destroys your spacecraft quicker.
anigbrowl 2y ago
It was Elite. Once you had a fuel scoop there was no requirement to dock and refuel any more so it was much easier to be a pirate or privateer. There was a bug (or was it?) in the very PC version where by if you had fuel scoops installed, set your view to looking out the rear of the ship, flew toward a star, and ignored all the warnings on your dashboard, you could fly right through the star. If you were being chased at the time you had the additional satisfaction of watching your pursuers' ships explode as they tried to follow you in.