One hundred years in the future, waste from nuclear power plants has built up to unmanageable quantities. In an effort to get rid of the stuff, a mission is being planned to remove the waste from the Earth in a spacecraft and chuck it into space. Setting aside the fact that it’s probably a really stupid idea to put a large amount of highly dangerous stuff on top of a big column of explosives, the question arises as to where the craft should be sent once it leaves the Earth . Two options are presented: 1) send it into the Sun, or 2) send it out of the solar system. The craft starts out in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, but is free of the Earth’s gravity. If no planetary fly-bys are permitted, and the craft is to remain in the Earth’s orbital plane, which option requires the least energy expenditure?
How can you prove this using Hohmann transfer?
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