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Originally Posted by rally
Interesting point,
I wonder what is technologically feasible (and cost effective) these days - just how fast could we actually send something out ?
Is there an upper limit to using gravitational slingshots or could we just use raw rocket power to accelerate them faster ?
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An Ion thruster could theoretically accelerate a spacecraft to around 90km/s and I suppose you could add to this velocity by using gravitational slingshots, though I'm not sure how much. For comparison Voyager 1 reached a top speed of just over 17km/s.
Ion engines are both feasible and cost effective these days and are already used for propulsion on many missions, for example on the Dawn spacecraft currently orbiting Ceres.