If the idea is to be rid of the person completely, we don’t need to fire them into the sun. Or launch them out of the solar system. They don’t even need to reach earth escape velocity.
Just launch them at the sun. Use whatever method you like. Just get them high enough that after gravity starts to overpower acceleration, there is no chance for survival. Boom! No more person. For the most part.
You’d still be moving some 30km/s around the sun, and need to decelerate from that speed.
Does the velocity of the earth around the sun enter into it if the projectile doesn’t come anywhere close to leaving earth’s gravitational pull? When I said “at the sun” it was just a direction. A gesture towards the spirit of the original “into the sun.” They won’t reach it. They’ll just be a splat mark [insert parabola math here]-ish meters away.
New slogan: Launch all billionaires straight up into the air using one of those circus cannons
I would be happy with just dropping them off a cliff, no need to fuck up the atmosphere any more for that.
A suitably large catapult would deliver the necessary delta-v, not release pollutants into the atmosphere, and would make a satisfying ‘sproing thump’ noise in doing so.
Yeah, but propelling them out of the solar system just sounds like the kind of fake-ending that ends up with the super villain coming back stronger in a decade. Have we learnt nothing from science fiction? You have to destroy your foes whilst you can.
From the https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList
4: Shooting is not too good for my enemies.
7: When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “No.” and shoot him. No, on second thought I’ll shoot him then say “No.”
13: All slain enemies will be cremated, or at least have several rounds of ammunition emptied into them, not Left for Dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.
Back when RT wasn’t shit.
It blows my mind that this was cutting edge, jaw dropping graphics back in the day. A shape-shifting trapezoid with some panicked faces peeking out.
E. Nah now I’m thinking it’s a one dimensional parallelegram.
That shit’s laughable, but then there was Superman III and the trauma it caused:
Launch them into Betelgeuse instead. It’s a bigger target anyway.
If we’re going for a bigger target, let’s go all out and aim for Stephenson 2-18. Go big or go home!
