Solar wind drag of orbiting VOLVO station wagon.

[aerohead]

Out of respect for the ongoing dialogue involving space weather down at the 'Lounge', I performed an academic exercise for solar wind to get in touch with my extraterrestrial side.
I don't live outside the magnetospheric cavity which Earth hides inside, and this type of arithmetic helps me glimpse what a first-order-reality experience with the solar wind might 'look' like.
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Here's the thought experiment and I'm speaking primarily to an American audience, so please excuse the US units )
1) Elon Musk launches a 1978 Volvo 760 Turbo Station Wagon for me into low Earth orbit, at 17,500-mph.
2) A booster will loft the car up to 60,000-miles above ground level (AGL).
3) This places the car outside the magnetosheath cavity which protects Earth from direct contact with the solar wind.
4) As the Volvo emerges from the dark side of the earth, and reaches the sunlight terminator across the planet, it will be facing, head-first, directly into the solar wind, of 2,000,000-mph velocity ( high end of it's range ).
5) Combined with its orbital velocity, the Volvo will experience a 'headwind' of 2,017,500-mph, or, 2,959,000-feet per second.
6) The Volvo has a frontal projected area of 23.25-square-feet.
7) The Volvo's drag coefficient is Cd 0.41.
8) Solar wind density ( rho)= 0.000000000002378 ( as per NASA/ Jet Propulsion Laboratory ).
9) Horsepower = 550-pound-feet per second.
10) Plugging the values into the plasmadynamic drag and power equations yield a drag force of 0.000305-pounds drag, and a horsepower requirement of 0.164528 (0.1226-kW ), or, 122.6-Watts.
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On what would otherwise be a 5,312-hour ( 221-1/3rd- days ) voyage to the Sun, the Volvo would require an impulse engine capable of maintaining three-ten-thousandths of a pound thrust to overcome the headwind, at least until it was overpowered by the Sun's gravitational field, after which it would require a retarding thrust, which varied as it closed on the Sun, if it intended to maintain velocity towards a soft landing on the Sun's 'dark side.'
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Please, there's no reason to try and overthink this.
I had no expectations of what I'd find before running the numbers. I am surprised to see how feeble a 2-million-mph wind can actually be.
I mean it to be simplistic, and stand strictly on only the conditions provided.
My partner in crime, AeroStealth and I do these sorts of mind experiments routinely to help keep us grounded in physics reality. Driving on the moon would be one example.
A pocket calculator is capable of evoking a belly laugh at times.

[freebeard]

Please, there's no reason to try and overthink this.

Like, why did you use a Volvo 760 instead of a 745? ....or a Tesla Roadster?

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Electric_sail
Electric sail - Wikipedia
An electric sail (also known as an electric solar wind sail or an E-sail) is a proposed form of spacecraft propulsion using the dynamic pressure of the solar wind as a source of thrust. It creates a "virtual" sail by using small wires to form an electric field that deflects solar wind protons and extracts their momentum. The idea was first conceptualised by Pekka Janhunen in 2006 at the ...

Surround the [space] vehicle with an electromagnetic bubble and you can sail on the wind.

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Like, why did you use a Volvo 760 instead of a 745? ....or a Tesla Roadster?



Surround the [space] vehicle with an electromagnetic bubble and you can sail on the wind.

I'd recently done a full aerodynamic analysis for our new German member's Volvo 245 and the 760, and the the quanta was right at hand.
I've never seen data for the Lotus Elise, which became Roadster-I. I did think of it immediately, but it was heading the wrong direction.
So, basic laziness!
The electromagnetic bubble is interesting but I'm unsure about the math required for that.
'I'm not a rocket scientist, nor do I portray one on TV'

[freebeard]

Same principle as Tesla's Lightning Protection System.

https://teslauniverse.com › nikola-tesla › patents › us-patent-1266175-lightning-protector
Nikola Tesla U.S. Patent 1,266,175 - Lightning-Protector
A lightning protector comprising an ellipsoidal metallic shell and a grounded conductor of small self-induction, as set forth. 9. In apparatus for protection against atmospheric discharges a cupola-shaped metallic terminal of smooth outer surface, in combination with a grounded conductor of small self-induction and resistance, as described.

https://lps-pacifica.com/wp-content/...8721889461.png

[aerohead]

Okay, thanks!
It looks like an earth ground is a requirement for the 'bubble' to function.
I don't know how we'd do that within a constant stream of highly charged, conductive stream of plasma.

[freebeard]

Not saying that's the best example. Quoth Wikipedia:

Principles of operation and design
The electric sail consists of a number of thin, long and conducting tethers which are kept in a high positive potential by an onboard electron gun.[2] The positively charged tethers deflect solar wind protons, thus extracting momentum from them. Simultaneously they attract electrons from the solar wind plasma, producing an electron current. The electron gun compensates for the arriving electric current.
[snip]
The electric solar wind sail has little in common with the traditional solar sail. The E-sail gets its momentum from the solar wind ions, whilst a photonic sail is propelled by photons. Thus, the available pressure is only about 1% of photon pressure; however, this may be compensated by the simplicity of scale-up. In the E-sail, the part of the sail is played by straightened conducting tethers (made of wires) which are placed radially around the host ship. The wires are electrically charged and thus an electric field is created around the wires. The electric field of the wires extends a few dozen metres into the surrounding solar wind plasma. The penetration distance depends on the solar wind plasma density and it scales as the plasma Debye length. Because the solar wind electrons affect the electric field (similarly to the photons on a traditional solar sail), the effective electric radius of the tethers is based on the electric field that is generated around the tether rather than the actual tether itself. This fact also makes it possible to manoeuvre by regulating the tethers' electric charge.

[aerohead]

Ouch!
At 2-Astrnomical Unit distances from the Sun, the solar wind density is only 1-proton /per cubic centimeter of space, compared to 100 near Earth.