“Breaking orbit” still leaves you in almost the same orbit around the sun as the earth. You need to slow down a lot to bring the periapsis of the orbit within the suns surface.
Comment on Launches
Etterra@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Huh. I would have thought that once they break orbit that the sun’s gravity well would do the heavy lifting pulling.
Daxtron2@startrek.website 5 days ago
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Imagine that you’re standing on a train and have a baseball. If you throw the ball off the train, the ball will still have momentum in the direction of the train’s movement.
If you want to throw the ball to a friend the train just passed, you have to be able to throw the ball faster than the train is moving or it will never reach them.
Deepus@lemm.ee 5 days ago
Now all im imagineing is a ball floating mid air and it’s beautiful
jokersteve@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Mythbusters did this! (Well, the ball fell to the ground, but for a split second it looked like it was hovering after being shot out of a cannon.)
Deepus@lemm.ee 5 days ago
Oh nice. Im re-watching then on youtube at the moment so will have to keep an eye out for that one.
dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee 5 days ago
The vessel would still have a lot of speed after escaping earth’s orbit, so the trajectory would become a large orbit around the sun. You still have to slow down by about ~30km/s (or ~100 000 km/h) to make that orbit intercept with the sun’s surface.
FiskFisk33@startrek.website 5 days ago
once you break out of earth orbit you are now in an orbit around rhe sun, similar to earths.
Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world 5 days ago
If you care to learn orbital mechanics, Kerbal Space Program is a great teacher.
kamen@lemmy.world 5 days ago
That one’s been sitting unplayed in my library for a very long time. I guess it’s time to give it a shot.
snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works 5 days ago
And if you want more complicated orbital mechanics there’s a ksp mod: Principia which adds n-body orbital mechanics over ksp’s relatively simple patched conic orbital simulation.