It’s a thought that may have crossed your mind at some point: what would be the practicalities of firing your enemies into the Sun?..
So the “straight” part is impossible, but otherwise you certainly can. All that matters is “enemies into the Sun”.
You could fire somebody straight at the sun but you’d need to launch them so fast they would be instantly vaporized.
You’re telling me we can slingshot a satellite around the moon and past Jupiter but hitting the sun is more difficult?
‘Difficulty’ here is apples and oranges. Energetically more expensive, but less complicated than slingshotting.
Just fire them at earth-orbit speed in the opposite direction and they’ll fall into the sun.
That’s a fucload of delta-v. just shoot them out of the solar system. It’d be cheaper.
If you don’t mind waiting a few thousand years, you can cut the delta-v requirements in half by traveling to the edge of the solar system first and then burning retrograde at aphelion.
Or do like the Parker Solar Probe did and catch multiple gravity assists off Venus.
traveling to the edge of the solar system first and then burning retrograde at aphelion
Ah yes, the Oberth Kuiper Maneuver: https://xkcd.com/1244
If you’re really hell-bent on burning them up, I suppose you could aim them at some other star.
Or chuck them into an active volcano.
I mean, the idea was to try to fulfill both the “fire them into the Sun” and “minimize ∆V” requirements at the same time, but sure, that’s an option too.
Opposite direction? The earth is traveling at 67,000 mph. Opposite direction will require canceling out that energy first.
