Oberth Effect Near Sag A*

[Ibix]

Heuristically, at periapsis it's going to slightly squeeze the ship, since the ship will be oriented tangentially.

"Slightly" depends on ship size and black hole size, so if @Devin-M is considering a flight path via other BHs then that might affect his thinking. That's the only point I was making.

 

[Devin-M]

E is the kinetic energy at infinity

kinetic energy per Kg?

 

[Ibix]

kinetic energy per Kg?

My apologies - it's the total energy per kilogram.

I'll edit my post above.

 

[Devin-M]

Sorry it’s taken me so long. I’m planning to run the numbers with a 5 solar mass black hole and a 1 solar mass black hole - in a conversation I had with Grok, it told me that the 5 solar mass BH could give 0.95c and the solar mass black hole could give 0.99c at a large distance in this scenario (with a .1c approach speed and 0.23c burn). Does that seem reasonable? I’m very curious if when I run the numbers that will indeed be the case.

 

[PeterDonis]

in a conversation I had with Grok, it told me that the 5 solar mass BH could give 0.95c and the solar mass black hole could give 0.99c at a large distance in this scenario (with a .1c approach speed and 0.23c burn). Does that seem reasonable?

Not even close, based on calculations posted earlier in this thread.

 

[PeterDonis]

I’m planning to run the numbers with a 5 solar mass black hole and a 1 solar mass black hole

Note that in the calculations posted earlier in the thread, the mass of the central object (whether it's a black hole or the planet Jupiter or anything in between) doesn't matter in itself. All that matters is the ratio $M / r$ at periapsis.