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How fast can they sling-shot things around sun?

S

SaltyNuts

Platinum Member
I saw 2010 and other stuff. You send your probe, ship, whatever around a planet. It comes in at an orbit that brings it very close to the planet, but it does not crash, and shoots out on the other side, escaping orbit at a very fast speed. How fat depends on the trajectory it comes in at, and the mass of the objection you are banking against to pick up the speed. So take a voyager size probe, and using the sun, if we did the math perfect, and nailed said math perfect, how fast could we shoot that probe out into space? Like .95 speed of light or something like that? Anyone thought about this kind of stuff? We need to figure this kind of stuff out, no stagnate here until our destruction...
 
SaltyNuts said:
Like .95 speed of light or something like that?
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No, at that speed the sun wouldn't exert any meaningful amount of gravity on the object. It'd curve slightly off trajectory, but it wouldn't really 'slingshot'. That happens at lower speeds. I don't know the math, but someone else (orbital mechanics specialist) would.
 
SaltyNuts said:
I saw 2010 and other stuff. You send your probe, ship, whatever around a planet. It comes in at an orbit that brings it very close to the planet, but it does not crash, and shoots out on the other side, escaping orbit at a very fast speed. How fat depends on the trajectory it comes in at, and the mass of the objection you are banking against to pick up the speed. So take a voyager size probe, and using the sun, if we did the math perfect, and nailed said math perfect, how fast could we shoot that probe out into space? Like .95 speed of light or something like that? Anyone thought about this kind of stuff? We need to figure this kind of stuff out, no stagnate here until our destruction...
Click to expand...

It wouldn't really work as well as you think it would. You would get a good rate of speed by slingshotting around the sun, but the pull of the Sun's gravity would eventually slow the craft down significantly by the time it got back to around to Earth orbit.
 
SaltyNuts said:
I saw 2010 and other stuff. You send your probe, ship, whatever around a planet. It comes in at an orbit that brings it very close to the planet, but it does not crash, and shoots out on the other side, escaping orbit at a very fast speed. How fat depends on the trajectory it comes in at, and the mass of the objection you are banking against to pick up the speed. So take a voyager size probe, and using the sun, if we did the math perfect, and nailed said math perfect, how fast could we shoot that probe out into space? Like .95 speed of light or something like that? Anyone thought about this kind of stuff? We need to figure this kind of stuff out, no stagnate here until our destruction...
Click to expand...
[DHT]Osiris said:
No, at that speed the sun wouldn't exert any meaningful amount of gravity on the object. It'd curve slightly off trajectory, but it wouldn't really 'slingshot'. That happens at lower speeds. I don't know the math, but someone else (orbital mechanics specialist) would.
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The only objects that have enough gravitational pull, to be used to sling shot and accelerate an object to near the speed of light, would be a Black Hole or a Neutron Star.
 
Amol S. said:
The only objects that have enough gravitational pull, to be used to sling shot and accelerate an object to near the speed of light, would be a Black Hole or a Neutron Star.
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And far as we are aware is physically possible, only subatomic particles are accelerated to those speeds by said cosmic bodies.
 
[DHT]Osiris said:
No, at that speed the sun wouldn't exert any meaningful amount of gravity on the object. It'd curve slightly off trajectory, but it wouldn't really 'slingshot'. That happens at lower speeds. I don't know the math, but someone else (orbital mechanics specialist) would.
Click to expand...
Going the speed of light going towards the sun would cancel out the speed. To avoid that problem, I suggest going at night with photon torpedoes on standby.
 
I think Star Trek 4 is the biggest load of horse shit ever seen on the big theater screen.

ANYWAYS.....

If something goes too fast around a massive body it just keeps going. It doesnt orbit. It doesnt come back around.
Basic Newtonian physics.
If you want a demonstration, go purchase Kerbal Space Program on steam. Or watch some videos on youtube.
 
IronWing said:
I figured Star Trek 4 was William Shatner's way of suggesting that it was time to stop milking a dead cow.
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Star Trek 4 made the most money. So, if that were his position, he was dead fuckin wrong. And he made two more movies after that, which also turned a profit.
 
Red Squirrel said:
I think 25 metric tons of potassium nitrate packed into a tube to make a solid rocket booster should get you there. You're going to need a lot of struts.
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nope.
hydrogen is the best. (5 km/s )
your way will waste energy converting solid into gas.

and if you build your spaceship in space, a plasma ion drive is best. (15 km/s )
 
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Well the Parker solar probe hit 430,000 mph as it orbits the sun. That’s 120 miles per second or ~0.06% the speed of light. That’s probably the best we’ll do for awhile.
 
Pohemi420 said:
You're not going to return to 1987 and save the Humpbacks. Now stop watching Star Trek IV. 😛
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Oh please!. Kirk and crew had this nailed down in Star Trek TOS. They had to return Capt. Christopher back to his time and get back to theirs all in one shot.
 
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