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164 points pseudolus | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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FredPret ◴[] No.42475004[source]
If KSP is to be believed, this is shockingly difficult to do
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beAbU ◴[] No.42475235[source]
In order to 'land' on the sun, or any celestial body, you need to get rid of your orbital speed. Higher orbital speed means higher orbit altitude. Landing on earth is comparatively easy, because you can use the atmospheric drag to slow down. It is so difficult to land on Mars because of it's thin atmosphere. Alternatively you need a shitload of fuel to burn to kill that velocity.

Earth's orbital velcity is ~30km/s. So by extension, anything that comes from Earth will at least have that speed. So the probe needs to find 30km/s delta v in order to actually get close to the sun.

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FredPret ◴[] No.42475468[source]
I wonder if you can use atmospheric drag to pull you into the Sun / a different star / Kerbol.

Long ago, playing Elite if I remember correctly, you could fly close to a star and scoop up a load of hydrogen for later resale. I'd be interested to see a graph of gas density vs tendency to melt spacecraft compared to distance from the core for a typical star.

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1. JumpCrisscross ◴[] No.42476652[source]
> wonder if you can use atmospheric drag to pull you into the Sun

You can, and I believe this probe will. The Sun’s atmosphere is just much nastier than our own, which means your aerobraking destroys your spacecraft quicker.