Let’s say we have a rocket capable of that, and we point it straight at the Sun — what then? The rocket would need to break through low Earth orbit at 32 kilometers per second, while travelling in the opposite direction of our planet’s orbit. “At this point the Sun’s gravity would pull the rocket (and the villain contained therein) inexorably inward,” Brown wrote. By slingshotting around the planet’s orbit, our rocket could pick up significant speed. We can launch them into an orbit that takes them past the planets,” Brown concludes.