How Close is a Close Shave?

[Hal]

The Captain spoke quietly from his station in the ship's bridge. He said
"Helm - I want you to plot the shortest course between here and Omicron
IV. Keep it within safe limits, but I want the closest shave you can
achieve to the primary: Omicron." The Navigator gave his usual unpeturbed
"Aye Aye Sir" and began to work out a close shave plot on his navigation
board. After spending nearly 10 minutes on plotting the course, he
informed the ship's captain that the course was laid out, should he direct
the helmsman to follow the plot?

My question is simple enough. If you are using a plotting system for any
of the Traveller game systems - just how close can a ship approach any
given "sun" without suffering damage or extended life support issues such
as keeping cool?

Anyone think they can answer this one?

 

[Andrew Boulton]

The star's gravity well may be more of a problem, depending on how fast your drives are.

 

[Hal]

I've got formulas that I can use to determine escape velocity based on mass of body. That will likely tell me whether or not a ship has problems with the primary sun's gravity well

 

[Anthony]

As the ship will be accelerated by gravity when passing near the sun, they'll be continually over orbital velocity (and probably over escape velocity), so that's not a real problem, though it does mean that the ideal path won't be exactly straight.

 

[ElHombre]

i'd guess it depends on how much heat and radiation the hull in question can stand. so... short version, pull a number out of a hat. try 5 diameters or so.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Well, I was going to say 100d... until I realized you were talking manuever drives....