Just wait, we’ve made an incredible little kenetic package that uses a couple pinches of accelerant max. The launch platform is larger and more complex than the package itself but it packs a punch. Launch platforms even re-usable Fuck using them as the payload, just send the payload to them. Very quickly. No need to even break orbit.
So we can’t just do the same thing that we do to get something out of the solar system, but “in reverse”? Like a reverse/inverted slingshot? Use the inner planets to brake?
Or how about this, do a slingshot maneuver, but only a single one, that launches it softly straight outwards from one of the planets, in line with the sun. Then just wait until it loses momentum and starts falling straight into the sun. Would that take too long, maybe?
Like if we just dropped something into existence at 1 AU from the sun without any orbital momentum, how long would that object take to fall into the sun?
If you accelerate to a very high orbit, you will have nearly zero velocity at the apoapsis. From there it takes only a very small delta v to reduce your velocity to zero and fall into the sun.
Source: This is how I killed Jebidiah Kerman.
This is the part I don’t understand apparently. Wouldn’t it be pretty easy for the thing so giant that it causes other giant things to circle it suck up a tiny person relatively easily?
If the tiny person wasn’t going so fast that it’s in orbit around the big thing, yeah - all you have to do to get the person to fall in is to stop them moving. The problem is that you have to push them reeeeeal hard to get them to stop moving in orbit around the sun. (That’s what Delta-v means - change in velocity.)
Zero propellant for operating a guillotine
Hear me out, though: rocket propelled guillotine
But consider how cool a guillotine with a rocket would be
An air compressor and some cheesewire might be simpler and lighter…
Isn’t it possible to use some swing-by maneuver around other planets to fly directly into the sun?
Yeah. Check out the path they launched the Parker Solar Probe on. That wasn’t into the Sun, but it was as close as anything we’ve ever sent up.
No idea if this has any real world application, but Kerbal Space Program taught me that launching outwards to a huge planet (Jupiter), one can get a reverse gravity assist to get an extremely narrow ellptical orbit. Then you just need a light retrograde thrust at the apoapsis, and your orbit will intersect with the sun
I need you to understand that when I want someone launched into the sun, it’s not because it is easy, but because it is hard. I want to go to the extra effort and delta v necessary so that we can make it abundantly clear that you, evil horrible cretin, are worth the collective effort of thousands to personally be launched into the sun.
Can we compromise by strapping them to the launch pad directly underneath the rocket before it’s ignited?
I’d be hapoy to see them anywhere on the pad considering the sound pressure can kill at that proximity regardless
But … fire.
True, but we’ve seen lots of things killed with fire. How many things have we really seen obliterated by sound pressure?
But then you miss out on all the time they would spend contemplating how they ended up in that situation, damn millenials trying to kill the record scratch industry.
you miss out on all the time they would spend contemplating how they ended up in that situation
You can leave them strapped to the pad as long as you want before igniting if you want to give them time to contemplate.
Plus, imagine how nervous they’ll be once they start hearing the countdown…
Ok, JFK, calm down.
I get that it’s very difficult to send something directly into the Sun. Couldn’t you just put them into a highly eccentric and unstable orbit that would crash into the sun after several passes?
It’s surprisingly difficult to launch anything out of the solar system due to orbits and the Oort Cloud. Not saying the sun is easy, but in my opinion, it’s definitely more realistic.
I’m assume the reason why is because, in order to go into the sun, 100% of Earth’s rotational velocity has to be counteracted, and it doesn’t for the opposite direction?
What about launching them into Venus? It’s smaller, and closer. Would that save on gas?
~I think I got three-fitty in my center console.~
I prefer the idea of firing them off a cliff with a trebuchet instead. Same end result, far less expensive, and they’re aware the entire time they’re plummeting to their doom. Plus trebuchets are inherently funny.
But I want to picture them burning not freezing or running out of oxygen.
- Please don’t pollute interstellar space with assholes. It’s bad enough that we filled Earth with them.
- If I wanted to be efficient, I’d drop them in an active volcano. If I want someone thrown into the Sun, I WANT SOMEONE THROWN INTO THE SUN.
You can have your cake and eat it. Launch them into a different sun, we can create a congo line of frozen corpses, on their way to Alpha Centauri. Although it might weird any aliens out that might come across it.
Good pitch, I like it.
Yes. It’s surprisingly hard to get something to hit the sun.
What you have to do is slow down. Remember we are orbiting it.
Throw them backwards really hard.
And if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
You’d think a giant mass like that might have some helpful gravity, but we’re all in a stable orbit with a strong angular momentum.
^ This guy efficients.
