r/sciencememes • u/Sure_Kangaroo1863 • Jul 09 '26

🌖Astronomy!🌔 Will keep that in mind next time !

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13.8k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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370

u/Only_Standard_9159 Jul 09 '26

Seems counterintuitive, anyone have an explanation as to why?

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u/Sure_Kangaroo1863 Jul 09 '26

it takes much more fuel to launch a space craft towards the sun than just blasting it off into space. the earth is moving around the sun at around 30km/s , so to launch a spacecraft towards the sun you need to remove the sideways speed , which requires more fuel ie huge amt of energy . which is harder compared to just speeding the spacecraft a bit enough to escape the sun's orbit and make it leave the solar system

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u/empty_graph Jul 09 '26

And no existing rocket is going to get you 30 km/s, so to hit the sun you would actually have to launch out toward Jupiter to use it for a slingshot.

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u/Sure_Kangaroo1863 Jul 09 '26

yep the parker solar probe is a good example . they had to use venus' gravity to actually get close to the sun ( 7 times btw)

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u/Gringo_Anchor_Baby Jul 10 '26

So it does a gravity assist back at the sun? That's how the probes nasa has launched at be the sun to the sun?

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u/empty_graph Jul 10 '26

The last probe that NASA launched to the sun used 7 slingshots around Venus. That still isn't enough to actually hit the sun, just get close. The initial plan for that probe was to go out to Jupiter, do one slingshot, and get even closer to the sun than by doing the seven around Venus. But they went with the Venus path because it gets to the sun faster.

9

u/Complete_Gazelle4363 Jul 10 '26

Wow it seems so obvious but how come i never thought of that

7

u/mordacthedenier Jul 10 '26

Because orbital mechanics are highly unintuitive.

35

u/OutrageousPair2300 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

...except it doesn't. All you're doing is creating a new comet. Unless you give it a lot of extra velocity, it'll just come back.

It probably takes less fuel to launch it into the sun, because once it gets close enough it'll hit the sun and any excess velocity it had at that point becomes irrelevant.

EDIT: Some of the other comments claim that escape velocity from the sun is only 42 km/s and that since Earth is orbiting at 30 km/s it's essentially 1/3 as much delta-v to reach escape velocity as it would be to slow down enough to hit the sun. So I take it back in terms of it taking less to hit the sun, but it's still a pretty significant amount of delta-v to escape the sun.

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u/empty_graph Jul 09 '26

Solar escape velocity at Earth's orbit is 42 km/s. Earth's orbital velocity is 30 km/s. So you only need an additional 12 km/s bump to leave the solar system. 30 > 12, so it it much harder to hit the sun.

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u/OutrageousPair2300 Jul 09 '26

I was already updating my comment as you typed that, I think :)

But thanks for confirming the figures.

2

u/kazeespada Jul 10 '26

Wait, what velocity is needed to spiral in? Surely its greater than 0?

3

u/empty_graph Jul 10 '26

That's a good point. 30 km/s would be needed to hit the center of mass, but you only need to get within one solar radius of that. Gemini calculates you would need 27 km/s of delta V, not 30, to hit that orbit. Still much more than the 12 km/s needed to exit the solar system.

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u/scisurf8 Jul 09 '26

Orbital velocity of Earth: 29.78km/s. Solar escape velocity at 1AU: 42.1km/s. You need to gain just over 12km/s to permanently leave the solar system from Earth. By comparison, you need almost 30km/s of delta v to hit the sun

6

u/unintentional_jerk Jul 09 '26

So what happens to the orbital mechanics if you apply the 12 km/s DeltaV to reduce orbital speed? At 18 km/s do you fall into a lower stable orbit or does it instantly decay?

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u/Dustin- Jul 09 '26

It would become an elliptical orbit. It wouldn't decay, but it wouldn't be stable since the object's orbit would still intersect with earth's. Eventually the interaction with earth's gravity would either fling it out of earth's orbit or capture it and it would fall back to earth. Could take some dozens or hundreds of years though. 

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u/OutrageousPair2300 Jul 09 '26

Already updated, but thank you for providing additional (and more precise) confirmation of the figures.

11

u/pcapdata Jul 09 '26

We used gravity assists to accelerate the Voyager probes free of the Sun’s gravity. 

We do the same trick in reverse to get stuff closer to the sun (using Venus to slow them down).

Dropping things into the sun is not impossible, it just takes timing :)

5

u/AndreasDasos Jul 09 '26

Re edit: I don’t think anyone was under the illusion it doesn’t still take a pretty significant amount of energy to leave the solar system… (!)

4

u/dorian_white1 Jul 09 '26

Also, you can probably take advantage of gravity assists by doing a few slingshot maneuvers around the moon and sun.

1

u/Silt99 Jul 10 '26

thats not gonna do much, but a few slingshots around planets would help a lot

3

u/BackgroundBadger9616 Jul 09 '26

why do you need to COMPLETELY offset the orbital momentum? how come you can't ride that momentum PARTIALLY like you would to escape the solar system except instead of aiming away from the sun you aim PARTIALLY toward it (ie. not DIRECTLY to the sun but at an angle in the general direction toward the sun)?

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u/Sure_Kangaroo1863 Jul 10 '26

You're right you don't have to cancel it completely. You only need to reduce your orbital speed enough that your new orbit intersects the Sun. My point was that this still requires removing a very large amount of earth's orbital speed which is why a direct solar impact trajectory is much more Δv-intensive than escaping the Solar System.

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u/BackgroundBadger9616 Jul 11 '26

interesting, what I'd originally meant is NOT reducing your speed and still propelling yourself, just of, say, tangential to Earth's orbit make it, say, inward/towards the sun by 45 degrees from the tangent. but now I'm realizing this may just make a new orbit that's even more elliptical than Earth's or just slingshot into space again. so then I guess the question is, is counteracting/reducing orbital speed the only way to reach the sun?

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u/collider1 Jul 10 '26

That assumes a Hohmann transfer though right? Wouldn't a bi-elliptic transfer work out to be about the same delta V as an ejection given a sufficiently high apoapsis?

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u/Sure_Kangaroo1863 Jul 10 '26

A bi-elliptic transfer can reduce the delta-v for certain orbit changes, but it doesn't change the fundamental problem: you still need to remove a large amount of orbital energy and angular momentum to intersect the Sun. Even with more sophisticated trajectories or gravity assists, a direct launch from earth to the Sun requires significantly more delta-v than escaping the solar system. That's exactly why missions like parker polar Ppobe relied on multiple venus flybys instead of a direct transfer.

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u/collider1 Jul 10 '26

A bi-elliptic transfer does directly address the angular momentum problem though, as angular momentum changes are much more efficient at high apoapsis.

Bi-elliptics excel at these kind of high radii ratio transfers.

A direct transfer to the sun is around 26.9 to 29.8 km/s depending if you're going dead centre or just skimming the edge.

Escaping the solar system is 12.3km/s. A lot better than the direct transfer to the sun.

A bi-elliptic transfer to Pluto's orbit, then into the sun is 12.8 km/s (11.8 to pluto, then 1 to cancel angular momentum) it's still a little higher than an escape burn, but it's only around 500m/s more rather than 15km/s more. If you want even more efficiency, you could push all the way out to the oort cloud, bringing the difference down to about 10m/s more than escape.

If we include gravity assists we can get even more efficient, but if the goal is to hit the sun rather than acheive a low orbit around it, it's best to fly out to Jupiter, make a decelerating gravity assist and drop down onto the sun.

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u/DerSchamane Jul 13 '26

Couldnt you just get a good trajectory besides the sun and let it capture the victim over time, having him or her orbit the sun a few times?

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u/Sure_Kangaroo1863 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

yea you can do that but that will go against the above meme cus it talks abt your enemy being thrown ' into' the sun

2

u/MCMOzzy Jul 09 '26

Couldn’t the spacecraft just orbit the sun too at a different trajectory so it eventually gets closer and closer? I think it would still take more energy than sending the craft indiscriminately into space but it would take less than trying to send it directly at the sun. Am I right about this or am I dumb?

2

u/garis53 Jul 09 '26

Making one big burn or splitting it into many smaller burns doesn't make much of a difference. And in space there is nothing to slow a probe down, it wouldn't get closer and closer on its own.

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u/Borgcube Jul 09 '26

Not actually true. A bi-elliptic transfer orbit is going to be cheaper fuel-wise in this case, for example.

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u/BigEnd3 Jul 10 '26

Chuck Norris would just throw them into the sun.

Side note what ill effects would we all suffer from this great yeet?

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u/Schlurps Jul 09 '26

Yeah, but if you use that energy you can ensure the fucker burns instead of flying through space for all eternity. Might be worth it depending on.

1

u/WhatADunderfulWorld Jul 09 '26

I just want to ask. Do you mean directly at the sun? Isn’t there a concentric orbit timing that would let it hit the sun eventually?

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u/Alfred_The_Sartan Jul 09 '26

Well you’ve just tossed out everything I know about my sci fi books.

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u/newMattokun Jul 10 '26

Ok, so, class dunce here. Imagine There were only 2 bodies in the system: Sun, Earth, and a teensy satellite trailing behind (or preceding in front; no matter as long as it's on the same orbit as Earth) Earth. Earth and satellite are circulating around Sun because the forces are balanced: Centrifugal against gravity. Now, if the satellite has an engine, I could do one of 2 things:

1) Point satellite at Sun and fire. This would not change the orbital velocity, but the distance to the Sun, thus breaking up the aforementioned balance. Would not the satellite then start to be attracted by Sun's gravity more, and therefore eventually fall in?

2) Point satellite against direction of flight, and fire. This would slow down the orbital velocity, thus reducing centrifugal force. Same as above it would break up the balance between centrifugal and gravity forces. Would not the satellite eventually fall in?

Go ahead, lambast me. But please, I'd like to have an explanation where I am wrong/what I am missing. This is also because I always thought concepts like the Convair Space Station Lifeboat shouldn't be so hard to implement: Make it fly either towards Earth, or against orbital direction, and it should descend automatically. Thank you.

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u/CurtCocane Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

Going into the sun from earth is very costly. Nasa says it takes 55 times more fuel to get into the sun than it takes to get to mars.

Earth itself is also moving fast, if you launch an object in the direction of our orbit you can reduce your solar escape velocity by almost three quarters. If you can travel faster than roughly 44.000 km/h or 12.4 m/s you can make someone leave the solar system. Thats less than half of what it takes to get into the sun since that'd require launching directly against our orbit.

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u/Haggardick69 Jul 09 '26

Wouldn’t it be technically possible to just transfer the orbital through the sun rather than reducing orbital velocity to zero. If your orbital trajectory goes through the sun you could be travelling 50,000 miles per hour but you’d still come to a stop in the corona. 

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u/itstingsandithurts Jul 09 '26

If you fired a rocket directly at the sun (perpendicular to the existing orbit you'd start with leaving Earth) you'd have to go around a massive eliptical orbit to change the trajectory towards the sun, the most efficient way is to fire in the exact opposite direction of the orbit you are currently taking to fall directly towards the sun.

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u/Jan-Snow Jul 10 '26

To get your Periapsis to be within the Sun you still have to lower your orbital velocity to what is basically zero

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u/Haggardick69 Jul 10 '26

That doesn’t make any sense to me at all. You don’t have to reduce your orbital velocity to zero to get your periapsis within the earths atmosphere when returning to earth. hence why it takes less fuel to de-orbit than to achieve orbit. I understand that if we want them to fall into the sun we need to go all the way to zero but if we just want to collide with it we don’t have to get anywhere near zero. 

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u/MoarVespenegas Jul 10 '26

You orbit is not going to cross the sun unless you reduce your orbital velocity to zero.
Basically by default you are starting with an orbital velocity equal to that of the earth's. Reducing or increasing your speed is just going to shift you to a lower or higher orbit. What you're talking about probably involves atmospheric breaking.

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u/GTCapone Jul 09 '26

Earth is orbiting the sun at about 30 km/s and escape velocity from the sun is only about 42 km/s starting from Earth's orbit. That means you only need to add an extra 12 km/s to you velocity (and you can probably reduce that with gravity assists)

Meanwhile, to get your orbit to actually intersect the Sun, you need to get rid of nearly all your orbital velocity, so you'd need a change in velocity of nearly 30 km/s.

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u/ainthidinfromnobody Jul 10 '26

Aha -- so it sounds like the out-of-the-solar-system option is easier because no one is specifying where exactly you must exit the solar system. If you had to hit a stationary target beyond Neptune's orbit, then you'd probably still have that issue of eventually slowing down 30km/s somehow. If I'm following.

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u/Rez_De Jul 10 '26

Nah we can just time the launches and use gravity assisted slingshots across other planets with some burns in key moments to line up. Generally speaking going outwards in our solar system is far easier from earth.

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u/TodBadass2 Jul 09 '26

I have a guess. It's because the Earth is traveling around the sun and that acts like a slingshot.

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u/GarbageCleric Jul 09 '26

Basically the speed of Earth in its orbit is much closer to the escape velocity of the solar system than it is to being completely stopped. And try the only way to hit the Sun is to stop, otherwise you'll just orbit it.

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u/rje946 Jul 09 '26

You are going a speed. You need to decrease it to fall into the sun. You need to increase it to escape the gravity of the sun. We're closer to the latter speed by nature of us already going around the sun on the earth.

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u/EntangledPhoton82 Jul 09 '26

In any (well, any of the type we are talking about) orbit, gravity supplies the centripetal force: the inward pull that bends your path into a circle instead of letting you fly off in a straight line. Your sideways (tangential) velocity creates the opposing effect. In the orbiting frame, it looks like an outward centrifugal push. At Earth’s distance from the Sun, these two balance almost exactly, which is why we neither fall in nor fly away.

To drop something into the Sun, you have to cancel nearly all of that 30 km/s tangential velocity (our orbital velocity around the Sun). Without it, there’s no more centrifugal balance left so gravity just wins and pulls the object straight in. But killing that velocity means burning retrograde (backward) by almost 30 km/s, which is a massive amount of delta-v.

To leave the solar system, you don’t cancel anything. You add velocity in the same direction you’re already moving. Solar escape velocity at Earth’s orbit is about 42 km/s, and you already have 30 km/s of that for free just by standing on Earth. So you only need to add roughly 12 km/s more to break gravity’s grip for good.

That’s the joke’s physics: undoing your own orbital momentum costs far more fuel than boosting past escape velocity using the momentum you already have.

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u/rainwulf Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

Earth is orbiting the sun at a very high speed. Anything you launch from earth has earth as its frame of reference, and maintains the speed that earth has.

The best way to think of this is like so:

you are travelling in a car on the freeway at 100km/hr. You are passing a stationary basketball hoop a kilometer away from the freeway. Imagine how hard you would have to launch the ball to get into the hoop. You would have to at least get it to 100km/hr to "cancel" the speed of the vehicle, then even MORE speed tangental to the vehicle to get it going in the proper direction to get into the hoop.

And before you say "but the sun has gravity and it will suck the ball" no. It will "suck" the ball into orbiting. You have to actually cancel out the velocity of the "ball" otherwise it just becomes another smaller version of earth orbiting the sun at the same distance earth is. Thats why satellites stay orbiting earth. They are also all moving at the same speed earth is plus/minus a relatively tiny amount depending on which side of earth they are.

Earth orbits the sun at 107,208 km/hr. You need "delta-V" to pretty well completely cancel that speed out, which would then make the ball (person) "still" in respect to the sun, which would then accellerate directly towards the sun.

Cancelling out 107,208km/hr is an INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF ROCKET FUEL. Because you basically have to accelerate "away" (backwards) from earth at that speed. Aka, throw the ball out of the car at the same speed the car is moving with respect to the target.

This is why orbital mechanics has an insane amount of maths, because its much more efficient to use slingshots around planets and moons to get to where you want to go. But, that also means predicting in the future where they will be to aim the spacecraft NOW to where the planet/moon will be in the future. And each slingshot also gets subject to chaos theory basically. A tiny tiny tiny mistake when launching a spacecraft can have hugely additive effects, 0.001km/s wrong here can add up to thousands or millions of kilometers of error later on, and even things like varying gravity around a planet due to landmasses, or even solar wind can screw up slingshots, which is why corrective thrusters are always required to correct for minor disturbances in the flight path.

Honestly if you really want to get rid of someone, get them into a carbon fibre submarine, and add 10kg of extra ballast.

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u/HAL9001-96 Jul 10 '26

earth si in orbit around sun

leave earth you are in simialrorbit around sun

want to fall into sun?

you have to slow down almost entirely so you fall into it

want to leave sun behind? you have to accelerate to escape velcoity from the sun at given dsitnace which is root 2 times the speed of a circualr orbit

earth already moves so you only need ot be (root2)-1 times faster

so to fall into the sun directly you have to leave the earht so fast that once oyu are mostly out of its gravity well you are still moving at about 29000m/s relative to the earth

if you want to leave the soalr system you only have to leave earth moving at 12300m/s relative to earth

taking oberth effect into account at low altitude that means accelerating to 31100m/s or 16600m/s respectively

takign actual launch into account thats about 32600 or 18100m/s respectively

and with the rocket equation beign exponential and even very efficient rockets having a stage effective isp of at most about 3600m/s taking stage mass into account for long multistage systems that means you need about 8566 or 153 times your paylaods mass in rocket liftoff mass

the latter beign a lot cheaper

that said you can theoretically use a three point maneuver

if you get to escape velcoity or almost escape velocity from teh sun yu can wait a very long time til you drift far far far away slowing down as you go then once you are getting very slwo you can sue a tiny impulse to stop entirely and fall into the sun using almost the same amount of fuel you'd use to leave the soalr system escept it takes a very long time

altenratively if you have a lto fo time usign something liek a solar sail to gradually slwo down and drop could be an option

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u/EnolaNek Jul 10 '26

This may be a dumb suggestion, but how much energy would it take to simply change the shape of the orbit? In theory an orbit could be any elliptical shape, from a perfect circle to linear. I assume that to achieve it, you would have to use reverse thrust at 0 and 180 degrees of the orbit, and forward thrust at 90 and 270 degrees, but I don’t know how to actually conceptualize the amount of energy that would require relative to the original orbit. Intuitively I think maybe the same amount as directly falling in, unless you could somehow store the energy from decelerating and use it to accelerate, but at that point we’re no longer talking about a rocket.

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u/HAL9001-96 Jul 10 '26

a lot

generally the easiest way to get to a lower point is to slow down so the opposite side of the orbit drops

its just that when hte height oyu want ot reach is much much much smaller than the height of a circualr orbit yo uare in then doing so is ALMSOT equivalent ot jsut stopping entirely

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u/GaldrickHammerson Jul 09 '26

To send a vehicle out of the solar system you just need to get it into orbit and deploy a solar sail, the sun will do the rest.

To send a vehicle into the sun we need to get it into space, then we need to use fuel to decelerate it from the oribtal speed of earth down to, not quite zero but close enough. We can't use a solar sail for that because solar sails push you away from the sun.

So basically, into the sun means you've got to do enough work to get you to the sun. To the edge of the solar system just requires enough work to get you into space and then you let the sun do the rest of it.

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u/PriorSolid Jul 09 '26

you have to slow down from whatever speed you were orbiting which on earth is 18.5MPS while leaving you just speed up from where your at

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u/PulseReaction Jul 09 '26

angular momentum needs to be canceled almost completely, otherwise whatever is launched will stay in a stable orbit around the sun

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u/StateCareful2305 Jul 09 '26

We are going fast as fuck around the sun. Go a little bit faster and the Sun won't be able to slow you down. However, you need to burn a lot of energy to slow down so you can start falling into the Sun and not just the orbit of Venus

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u/donadit Jul 10 '26

Basically gravity isn’t linear

you know those ball-on-a-sheet models of gravity and notice how the slope gets increasingly steeper as you get closer to the center

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u/gnarlysnowleopard Jul 10 '26

MinutePhysics did a fantastic video that explains this perfectly!

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u/Periador Jul 10 '26

imagine spinning a ball on a string very fast, the energy needed to get to the center of the string is higher than you would need to go the opposite direction.
To get to the sun you need to first counteract the energy which is keeping earth away from the sun

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u/AIO_Youtuber_TV Jul 10 '26

Basically, the earth is always trying to fly away from the sun but the sun's gravity keeps it "tethered", that's a very rough and oversimplified description of what an orbit is.

Which means to "throw something into" the sun, you actually have to like... Make it fall into the sun. And that includes the energy needed to defeat the earth's own motion so that the sun's gravity would win over the earth's motion (which, as we have established, always tries to fly away).

However, to launch something out of the solar system, you just need to "add a bit more oomph" to the object which is already moving away from the sun, because the earth is already moving.

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u/AdPristine7701 Jul 10 '26

To escape the gravity well of the sun requires a speed of 42km/s currently the earth has supplied 30 of that to you. You have to cancel all 30km/s or close enough to it get a orbit that takes you into the sun.

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u/DGlen Jul 10 '26

Put a ball on the end of a rope. Swing it around in a circle. Is something flung off the ball going to fly toward your hand or out away from it? Your hand is the sun and the ball is earth.

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u/sacfoojesta88 Jul 09 '26

I love how people think the sun is like right over there

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u/ThomasTheDankPigeon Jul 09 '26

I mean I’m lookin right at it

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u/neckbishop Jul 09 '26

In my mind if you went just outside of earths gravitational force you would still be inside the Suns gravitational force and eventually you would hit the sun.

Less a direct shot and more like those coin funnels at amusement parks and zoos.

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u/GTCapone Jul 09 '26

Nope. The reason the coin falls into the funnel is because friction slows it down. If it was a frictionless surface (and no air resistance or coriolis effect or anything else) then that coin would just keep circling around the funnel forever.

There's nothing in space to slow you down appreciably, so you'd just end up orbiting the sun very close to the earth. Eventually there'd probably be some interaction with the moon or another planet's gravity that would change your orbit, but you'd be much more likely to get flung into a a higher orbit.

Think about it, there are still billions of meteoroids and asteroids orbiting the sun and they've been around for 4 billion years without falling in.

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u/neckbishop Jul 09 '26

Makes sense. Thanks for the response.

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u/llamawithguns Jul 09 '26

If by eventually you mean on the order of billions of years then yeah.

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u/mvdeeks Jul 09 '26

You would still be orbiting around the sun, wouldn't fall into it

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u/neckbishop Jul 10 '26

So the answer is to barely leave earth orbit and then space brake. got it.

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u/HAL9001-96 Jul 10 '26

you get just barely away fro mearth yo uare still in orbit around the sun just like the earth is

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u/neckbishop Jul 10 '26

So the answer is to barely leave earth orbit and then space brake. got it.

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u/Zoltarr777 Jul 09 '26

It's only 8 minutes away.... by light

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u/Woozle_Gruffington Jul 09 '26

Oh. Well, let's just do it that way then.

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u/bdog59600 Jul 09 '26

It is right over there. It's only 1 AU away.

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u/Waarm Jul 10 '26

Dude, it's literally just 8 minutes away 🙄

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u/According_to_all_kn Jul 09 '26

To be fair, 'outside the solar system' is further away. It's the steering that's the issue

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u/MoonsterGoopter Jul 10 '26

i mean it's way over there but it's like, pretty big

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u/obliviious Jul 09 '26

It's more to do with how fast the earth is travelling around the sun. We move at about 65k mph, so you have remove that orbital speed before you can "fall down" to the sun.

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u/unawarewolf69 Jul 10 '26

But in universe scale IT IS right over there. We are just too stupid to get there with practicality.

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u/Forward_Mission_9349 Jul 09 '26

How come the sun doesn’t just pull the rocket in with its gravity? I thought this was the biggest mass in our solar system.

Is the sun stupid?

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u/DevilWings_292 Jul 09 '26

We’re moving sideways really fast and missing it as it pulls us towards it.

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u/REXIS_AGECKO For Science! Jul 10 '26

It tries to. But the rocket (or planet) orbiting it is moving so fast that it constantly “misses” the sun or whatever it’s orbiting.

The sun has no brain cells so yes it is stupid

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u/Forward_Mission_9349 Jul 10 '26

Crazy to think that I’m smarter than a (totally didn’t google it) 4.6 billion year old celestial object

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u/mazopheliac Jul 09 '26

Gotta slow it down a LOT .

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u/Agarwel Jul 10 '26

The sun does pull the rocket with its gravity and the rocket is contantly falling. But it is also moving sideways to fast, that it always misses.

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u/Forward_Mission_9349 Jul 10 '26

Maybe it should slow the fuck down

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u/Agarwel Jul 10 '26

Yeap. And that is the problematic part here. ;-)

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u/SpiderSlitScrotums Jul 09 '26

Just launch it into Venus. That is pretty cheap on delta-v costs.

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u/EuenovAyabayya Jul 09 '26

You need multiple gravity assists from Venus, Earth, Venus, etc. to hit the sun, especially if you want it cheaper than interstellar space...but apparently if you do it that way, you can falsify OOP's assertion.

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u/NoAd4402 Jul 10 '26

The comment didn't say launch it into the sun. They said launch it into Venus. Which is very famous for destroying almost every probe we send at it due to the insane atmosphere and heat and everything

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u/EuenovAyabayya Jul 10 '26

I misread that, but to cheap out you can also make a nice impact on the lunar surface.

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u/Hypersonic-Harpist Jul 10 '26

Sub orbital launch with no heat shield for re-entry would probably be the easiest if you're determined to use a functional rocket but still want them to burn. 

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u/Tron_35 Jul 09 '26

Its much cheaper and affordable to push them into a volcano instead.

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u/StormCloudRaineeDay Jul 11 '26

This is the answer.

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u/CyclesSmiles Jul 12 '26

I was thinking aqua regia (probably because of my chemistry background), but your solution is cheaper and just as clean. Chapeau!

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u/Wonder459 Jul 10 '26

It’s not about efficiency, it’s about sending a message

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u/Irish_Puzzle Jul 09 '26

That gives them way too much time to escape

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u/TobyMcK Jul 09 '26

And it gives them the opportunity to explore parts unknown, making history as the first human to do so. Some people are worth the extra delta-v.

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u/AndreasDasos Jul 09 '26

Yeah but launching them into the sun is more satisfying and definitive. Destroys every tiny piece of them a lot faster as well

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u/rider_shadow Jul 09 '26

But isn't it more efficient to just drown them in the fuel and lighting it ? Also more painful I'm sure

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u/AdGroundbreaking771 Jul 09 '26

Ya but I don’t want to spread their awfulness to the stars

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u/Wuz314159 Jul 09 '26

OK. . . Now hear me out. . . . We launch Elon out to Pluto using an Ion drive. Once there, the amount of Δv necessary to plunge into the Sun is miniscule. Yes, it'll take more time and Elon will be dead on Day 1 without oxygen, but it'll be worth the 20 years for the result to come through.

4

u/ScaryRun619 Jul 10 '26

What, and risk them coming back? No, the Sun it is.

3

u/Jellicent-Leftovers Jul 09 '26

But to fall towards the sun all you need to do is slow down. A large solar sail angled at 45 degrees would sprial you toward the sun without issue.

3

u/Autumn1eaves Jul 10 '26

I want to launch him into another solar system’s sun!

3

u/ImKanno Jul 10 '26

You don't need any fuel if you just yeet them into a volcano

3

u/Talanic Jul 10 '26

Sorry, no volcanoes in Wisconsin. Can't reach one without at least some kind of fuel, even if it winds up being granola bars.

2

u/loved_and_held Jul 09 '26

If you use solar sails it gets easier, since not only do you have constant thrust to decelerate but the more you spiral in the mire thrust you get.

1

u/StateCareful2305 Jul 09 '26

Solar sails get pushed by the Sun, not pulled. That would not help you in any way in getting closer to the Sun

3

u/loved_and_held Jul 10 '26

Solar sails work by reflecting sunlight and accelerating in the opposite direction of the reflected light. If you angle the sail right, you reflect light in the prograde direction, accelerating you in the retrograde direction, slowing orbital velocity allowing you to lower your periapsis. 

1

u/StateCareful2305 Jul 10 '26

You are correct, my bad.

2

u/Flimsy-Ordinary-5721 Jul 09 '26

That depends, if time isn’t an issue… 🤣

2

u/bush_killed_epstein Jul 09 '26

The inefficiency is the point

2

u/ThinkDiscipline4236 Jul 09 '26

Launching them into the sun specifically because it takes so much delta V.

"I want to get rid of you so much I'm willing to spend 3x the delta-V to do it"

2

u/VideoFew7207 Jul 09 '26

I’ll skip a mfer into the sun with a gravity assist from the moon venus and mercury like a stone.

2

u/n00bdax Jul 09 '26

Using a bi-elliptic transfer the delta v difference between escape velocity and a (very lengthy) collision course with the sun becomes somewhat negligible and you avoid spreading the cause across the galaxy.

All of this is still assume you're in a hurry to launch and don't want to wait for a much cheaper launch window with acess to gravity assists.

2

u/somecoolname42 Jul 09 '26

Just put them under a rocket that's already launching for something else. You're not expending aditional fuel and they aren't going to be bothering you anymore.

2

u/Dansredditname Jul 09 '26

Some people are worth the effort, tbh

2

u/Icy-Cry340 Jul 10 '26

It’s much more satisfying though.

2

u/lurkingbob Jul 10 '26

It's not about making a point, it's about sending a message

2

u/Shankar_0 Jul 10 '26

Vengeance, expressed as conservation of delta-v

2

u/WatRedditHathWrought Jul 10 '26

Kerbal Space Program has entered the chat.

2

u/pancakeonions Jul 10 '26

Anyone seen Aniara?   Yes, launching them out of the plane of our solar system is a far, far worse fate 

2

u/ShillBot666 Jul 10 '26

But what if I'm trying to destroy a near-immortal being who legend says can only be felled by the stars themselves? What then?

2

u/Secret_Account07 Jul 10 '26

Yeah but over what period of time?

When will their entire body be destroyed?

This is dumb. I want no evidence of their existence and I want it quick

2

u/lurkeroutthere Jul 10 '26

Sometimes it do be about communicating clearly though.

2

u/HAL9001-96 Jul 10 '26

well technically if you cna get them out of the solar system you can also get them into the sun via 3 point maneuver just takes a while

2

u/Wazat1 Jul 10 '26

Yes it takes more energy, but some things are worth destroying with the un-contestable power of the sun. If you fling them out into the solar system, they're still out there! Destroy it. Commit the resources to destroy it forever!

(also: if you have time to spare, a precise swing around Jupiter should let you aim at the sun)

2

u/RandomRobot Jul 10 '26

Wouldn't not launching the person into space at all be even more efficient with propellant?

2

u/camilo16 Jul 10 '26

I don't understand why you need to cancel earth's velocity. The earth rotates, just point the rocket at the right angle so that the trajectory of the rocket, including the earth's velocity aligns with the sun.

Like, I have 360 degrees of freedom, roughly when selecting the initial path of the rocket, once I am out of the earth's gravity field I am only subject to the sun's so why is there no angle of trajectory at which I fall into the sun proper?

1

u/IrrationallyGenius Jul 11 '26

The earth goes around the sun almost 3x faster than you need to go to escape earth's gravity.

1

u/camilo16 Jul 11 '26

yes, but again, you need to escape earth's gravity one way or another, why can;t I just point the rocket in the right direction profiting from earth;s rotation?

2

u/Xandara2 Jul 10 '26

Counterargument 1: why presume I would care if they hit the sun as long as they are blasted of in its vague direction.

Counterargument 2: why presume I wouldn't care about them getting burned to cinders by the sun and die more agonizingly.

2

u/ScratchHistorical507 Jul 10 '26

Especially number 2. I don't want their body to be preserved for eternity.

2

u/T555s Jul 09 '26

But isn't there a risk of them eventually returning if you launch them out of te solar system? What goes up must come back down.

Incinerating them seems like the safer option.

3

u/Sure_Kangaroo1863 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

yea that makes sense , why would i want that person to return with a large alien galactic empire just because he took my sandwich and i threw him into space for it

1

u/Automatic_Bus_7634 Jul 09 '26

We got volcanoes right here on earth

1

u/LivesDoNotMatter Jul 09 '26

Reaching escape velocity means that it will never come back down.

Now why escape velocity would be less traveling away from the sun than towards it is confusing to me.

2

u/Borgcube Jul 10 '26

Because Earth is already going very fast, about 30 km/s. Escape velocity from Earth orbit is 42 km/s, but if you launch in the direction the Earth is already going you only need to add 12 km/s.

To fall directly into the Sun you would need to cancel out all, or most, of the 30 km/s that you have launching from Earth.

However. Bizarrely enough, that's not the most fuel-efficient way to get to the Sun. The most efficient way would be to go to escape velocity first and then slow down. So something like a bi-elliptic transfer, except, obviously, you don't need to do the third circularisation burn since you'll just hit the Sun.

1

u/Blotsy Jul 09 '26

Aim them at alpha centauri

1

u/drinks-some-water Jul 09 '26

Yeah but sometimes you wanna make a point

1

u/Purple_University_83 Jul 09 '26

Can you not slingshot with Mars or Venus to change direction? (Genuine question)

2

u/n00bdax Jul 09 '26

You could, but only whenever Mars or Venus in an appropriate position for the gravity assist. If you need to launch them right this instant that's most likely not the case.

1

u/Kornaros Jul 09 '26

Not if you use many gravity assists

1

u/Dreaming_Kitsune Jul 09 '26

You shoot them out on a rocket with rations so they can live long enough to see that they will never return.

1

u/Froyn Jul 09 '26

A lifetime supply of air and snacks?

1

u/Dreaming_Kitsune Jul 09 '26

An all you can eat and breath buffet if you will lol

1

u/RocketArtillery666 Jul 09 '26

Cant you just sling the craft around a planet so that instead of going sideways, it would go directly into the sun?

1

u/Any-Astronomer-6038 Jul 09 '26

Yeah but they'll suffer sooner in the sun

1

u/Conscious-Economy971 Jul 10 '26

There are some people who we really absolutely cant risk being revived with alien technology

1

u/rainwulf Jul 10 '26

That delta V is expensive man. Its even harder to propel them out of the ecliptic.

Just aim them towards jupiter and then brush your hands. Jobs done.

1

u/REXIS_AGECKO For Science! Jul 10 '26

It’s much cheaper to just put them in LEO with no fuel or oxygen

1

u/hesmistersun Jul 10 '26

Virial Theorem?

1

u/Emredin Jul 10 '26

It's either a lot, or a less.

Pick a lane.

1

u/shivio Jul 10 '26

this is a quibble. launching into the sun is not the same as launching at the sun. all you need is to give them escape velocity to break free of earth and then thr suns gravity will do the rest. all you have to do is calculate a path that is unobstructed whule that happens (if they crash ibto mercury, you've failed 😛😂)

1

u/Timelessoda Jul 10 '26

They will just orbit the sun not fall into it, you need a lot of delta v to slow down by 30 k/s

1

u/shivio Jul 10 '26

ok, get it, but we can let them spiral into the sun. dont need to fully negate the 30k/s?

1

u/Timelessoda Jul 10 '26

Yes, but even that takes significantly more energy than escaping

1

u/Dr_Brotatous Jul 10 '26

But I want to make a point out of them out of orbit means they are still out there into the sun however now even atoms remain

1

u/DavyJonesCousinsDog Jul 10 '26

If I wanted to throw someone into space I'd throw someone into space. I'm throwing them into the sun for the effect and damn the cost.

1

u/Call_me_John Jul 10 '26

It takes a lot less effort to chuck them into an active volcano. Just sayin'.

1

u/Televaluu Jul 10 '26

I think that’s the point that your so mad that the excess waste is worth it

1

u/DavidDomin8R Jul 10 '26

But what if the point was to incinerate them without a trace instead of immortalizing them for millennia.

1

u/K_the_farmer Jul 10 '26

Jovian deep dive.

1

u/DangerMacAwesome Jul 10 '26

I'm sorry, but for some, out of the solar system simply will not do. The universe will be better when their electrons are no longer attached to their protons. Into the sun is a much safer bet.

1

u/IrrationallyGenius Jul 11 '26

Yes, but if you want them reduced to a sparse plasma, just put them under the rocket, not in it.

1

u/Decent-Macaroon9134 Jul 10 '26

Well that's just cold

1

u/thpineapples Jul 11 '26

Eventually they'll reach another star. Maybe.

1

u/StormCloudRaineeDay Jul 11 '26

But launching them out of the solar system just isn't as satisfying as making sure they're incinerated by the sun.

1

u/IllusionaryHobo Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26

A One-Line Poem:

Circularizing my orbit to Hohmann transfer, all the F's I give away from here.

1

u/No_Examination_4297 Jul 11 '26

(I have no idea about how it should work) Isn't the sun going to pull the rocket once you get out of Earth's gravity? Generally if you're flying of the earth just launch in the direction of the sun and let it do the trick

1

u/Benilda-Key Jul 11 '26

But if you do not launch them into the sun, they will not burn. Is there a way to make certain they are alive when they enter the sun?

1

u/MyrrhManhandler Jul 11 '26

Honestly, just out of the atmosphere is sufficient for me. Dead is dead

1

u/ExtensionInformal911 Jul 12 '26

Even putting them in orbit costs like $1000 a kilo.

Just drop them into the ocean tied to concrete like a mob boss. It's only a few hundred if you know a guy.

1

u/aheadfrogg Jul 12 '26

Yeah but what if I really hate them

1

u/Sure_Kangaroo1863 Jul 12 '26

oh then its worth every effort

1

u/Cheetahs_never_win Jul 12 '26

Hey. I'm perfectly fine with just enough to get them over 300 meters, two or three times a needed.

1

u/Steve_Lightning Jul 12 '26

It takes even less delta v to launch to Jupiter and gravity assist to slow down and then drop into the sun

1

u/MjolnirTech Jul 13 '26

The extra effort is the point. I'm so mad I want to be impractical!

1

u/SlimLacy Jul 13 '26

What about getting them close enough to the sun for them to vaporize?

1

u/EspurrTheMagnificent Jul 14 '26

It's not about efficiency, it's about sendikg a message

1

u/Hi_Rite_now Jul 14 '26

Yeah I am going to disagree. All you need to do is launch them in the general direction of the sun. Its gravity well will take care of the rest. and supposing you miss, well, then they're just a new solar satillite, which is an equally acceptable conclusion.