> It still takes a delta-V of ~30m/s to hit the Sun.
That number looks like it should be much much bigger to me.
That number looks like it should be much much bigger to me.
But, you'd never actually do that, the calculations involved assume you have decided to specifically go towards the sun, maybe to get there quickly, but going to the sun is just a means to an end, so you'd actually pull shenanigans to get the same result indirectly for "only" a few km/s of delta V with carefully chosen launch windows. Which is like how it'd be easier to build a bridge from Greenland to Iceland than from Greenland to Spain. "We can't do that" versus "We can't do that either".
Another related fun fact from GP’s is that it’s way less delta-V to hit the sun from Pluto than it is from the Earth… 4.63 km/s according to wolfram: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=hohmann+exit+delta+v%2C...