> Voyager benefitted from a particular alignment of the planets to get multiple slingshot boosts from gravity wells.

What exactly does that get us? It gets further into space faster? It travels faster? Cheaper to launch?

I mean if it just means it leaves the solar system 20 years faster or something then it seems like cheaper launches far outweigh those favorable conditions.

The delta-v for a mission like this is pretty incredible. Voyager 1 is still traveling at about 17km/s away from the sun. That's not much less than when it left Earth despite traveling so far away from the Sun... only because of the special gravity assists it did on the way out. There are some things that even money can't solve :)

Compared to a planet, a spacecraft is almost negligible in both weight and capability to accelerate in space. Ion engines are pretty cool though; Maybe we can do it today but it will take a lot longer to get there. Of course, if it takes too long, we may not have a viable spacecraft by the time it gets there. Furthermore, even if do have a viable spacecraft, we might not have the knowhow to work with the technology that we sent in the first place.

Trying to wrap my head around that speed. It could go the distance of the Earth to the moon in a little less than 6 hours and 20 minutes.

You need a lot of speed to go into space really fast.

When you fly your spacecraft really close to a planet and let it get influenced by its gravity, you let the planet transfer some of its massive amounts of kinetic energy into your spacecraft, which can add to its kinetic energy (and also help the spacecraft change direction)

You're essentially stealing some kinetic energy from planets to sling your spacecraft faster.

Looks like once you escape earths orbit at 11km/s, you still need another 30km/s delta-v to then escape the solar system

I thought it was 12 km/s. 30km/s is what’s required to fall into the sun, which is considerably more than escaping the solar system.

Why do we need any additional speed to escape the solar system?

Because the Sun has its own gravity well you need to get out of. Lots of things could be fast enough to escape the pull of the Earth but not the Sun (like all the other things besides Earth that orbit it)

I love the fact that one of them has launched radially and another tangentially, it will be interesting to look at the orbit of each Voyager when they finish a full rotation around the Sun.

This is the Project Lyra [1], where a UK-registered not-for-profit company suggest sending a spacecraft to catch-up with ʻOumuamua object that pass thru solar system in 2017, by using orbital mechanic. Spacecraft set off at right window would speed up using gravity assist maneuver [2] around objects in the solar system and save a lot of fuel to hopefully reach 'Oumuamua in 26 years

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Lyra

[2] - https://vid.pr0gramm.com/2023/12/11/99b60d87a3679fe0-vp9.mp4

related thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38598284