Interstellar Flight: Perspectives and Patience

> those of us with an interstellar bent naturally start musing about ‘sundiver’ trajectories, using a solar slingshot to accelerate an outbound spacecraft, perhaps with a propulsive burn at perihelion. . The latter option makes this an ‘Oberth maneuver’ and gives you a maximum outbound kick.

You can't do a solar slingshot like you can with (say) Jupiter because the sun is essentially at rest with respect to the rest of the solar system. You could still do an Oberth manoeuvre.

> the sun is essentially at rest with respect to the rest of the solar system

But not with respect to other star systems.

If you start in our solar system this doesn't help. You could do a gravity assist from a planet to help with an interstellar trip (like the Voyagers) but not a gravity assist from the sun, starting from one of 'our' planets.

> could do a gravity assist from a planet to help with an interstellar trip (like the Voyagers) but not a gravity assist from the sun, starting from one of 'our' planets

Of course you can. Galileo, Cassini-Huygens and Giotto are Earth-launched spacecraft that used Earth for a gravity assist. If you need to accelerate with reference to the galaxy, you can use the Sun’s motion through it to slingshot.