About 10 years ago I posted some very rough estimates of how long it would take to get to various possible ocean destinations at 100,000 mph using 1000 bombs accelerating the ship a 100 mph at a time. Of course there are the 1000 more bombs to slow down, 1000 more bombs to speed back up, and 1000 more bombs to slow back down upon return to Earth. So…4000 bombs. But an Aircraft Carrier catapult accelerates a fighter to almost 175 mph and if that efficiency could be achieved it would cut the number of bombs way down. Possibly even 250 mph….which would mean only 1600 bombs for the whole trip. Slowing down using the nearest gas or ice giant’s atmosphere, available except for Pluto and Ceres, would reduce the number of bombs to 1200. And… filling up the bomb slugs with local ice and even using shielding for the decelerations to Ceres and Pluto and upon return in the vicinity of Earth, and then quickly re-shielding, might reduce the number to 1000.
Luna, launch point.
- Ceres 0.510 km/s approximate travel time 120 days/4 months
Jupiter system 200 days/ 7 months
2. Europa 2.025 km/s
3. Ganymede 2.741 km/s
4. Callisto 2.440 km/s (outside of Jupiter’s radiation belts)
Saturnian system 360 days/ 1 year
5. Mimas 0.159 km/s
6. Iapetus 0.573 km/s
7. Titan 2.639 km/s
8. Rhea 0.635 km/s
9. Dione 0.510 km/s
10. Tethys 0.394 km/s
11. Enceladus 0.239 km/s
Uranian system 2 years
12. Miranda 0.193 km/s
13. Ariel 0.558 km/s
14. Umbriel 0.520 km/s
15. Titania 0.773 km/s
16. Oberon 0.726 km/s
Neptunian system 3+years
17. Triton 1.455 km/s (around a 7 year mission to visit my favorite moon round-trip)
Plutonian system 4+years
18. Pluto 1.229 km/s
19. Charon 0.580 km/s