It’s definitely harder to decay the orbit into the sun directly than it is to get to escape velocity. But to play devil’s advocate, there is probably a way to get them into the sun while being a similar cost to escape velocity. All you need to do is burn prograde to a super high aphelion, ride all the way out there to Pluto or whatever and then do a small retrograde burn to bring your perihelion inside the sun’s photosphere. When you then get back towards the sun years later you would slam into it with a sick velocity that I think would be worth the decades-long wait.
It’s definitely harder to decay the orbit into the sun directly than it is to get to escape velocity. But to play devil’s advocate, there is probably a way to get them into the sun while being a similar cost to escape velocity. All you need to do is burn prograde to a super high aphelion, ride all the way out there to Pluto or whatever and then do a small retrograde burn to bring your perihelion inside the sun’s photosphere. When you then get back towards the sun years later you would slam into it with a sick velocity that I think would be worth the decades-long wait.
Alternatively you do like the Parker Solar Probe and do 7 Venus flybys, bleeding off a little speed each time with an inverse gravity assist.
Not an expert, but I’ve read it’s easiest to use jupiter to bleed off enough velocity to fall into our sun.
Yeah it probably is, my comment was really about raw deltaV numbers without using gravity assists.
Haven’t you basically done everything needed to escape the solar system by the time you do the burn to turn back again?
Yeah, you would only need to burn a little bit more on your initial burn, that’s why I said the cost would be similar.
Fair. Your way is certainly more epic.