cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/18022653
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Even without actively accelerating toward the sun, something starting on earth is already orbiting the sun at about 100,000 km/h. You’d have to cancel that out by accelerating the same amount in the opposite direction just to be able to fall into the sun’s gravity well instead of continuing to orbit. That would take quite a bit of propellant.
why would you be fighting our velocity. you just need to nudge away in the direction it can still be moving with our velocity. that is what an orbit is. again it does not need to be an arrow blasting in a straight line at the sun it just needs to have an orbit that is falling into it.
But even though the Sun has such a powerful pull, it’s surprisingly hard to actually go to the Sun: It takes 55 times more energy to go to the Sun than it does to go to Mars.
Why is it so difficult? The answer lies in the same fact that keeps Earth from plunging into the Sun: Our planet is traveling very fast — about 67,000 miles per hour — almost entirely sideways relative to the Sun. The only way to get to the Sun is to cancel that sideways motion.
yes the problem here is its assuming in short order. alls you need is a decaying orbit. but it won’t go into the sun for hundreds, thousands, etc years. Again these stupid arguments are about shooting like a bow or gun or cannon right into the sun. thats is why what you have ends with “almost entirely sideways relative to the Sun. The only way to get to the Sun is to cancel that sideways motion.” You don’t need to cancel the sideways motion at all. You just need to have the slighest motion toward the sun along with our orbital velocity which is being kept from being pulled awa by the suns gravity. so our sideways moting is currently to small to escape it but that is for our mass. The energy needed is more related to the small size of the object and the relative lesser gravity effect on it from the sun. We put sattelites in orbit around the sun and it would take much less than that as we don’t care about a stable orbit or getting to the sun quickly at all.
Edit: replaced a bad explanation with a very good explanation: Hitting the Sun is HARD
Related, The Most Confusing Things About Spacecraft Orbits is maybe the best primer for basic orbital mechanics for people who haven’t played KSP