To discover distant worlds, one has to be fast. And sometimes they even have to transcend the boundaries of space and time – because they have to cover enormous distances. Engineers and science fiction authors have come up with some impressive spaceships, from the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars to the USS Enterprise from the Star Strek crew. Stay tuned as we want to introduce the 10 fastest spaceships in the world.
The fastest spaceship ever built is New Horizons that flew to Pluto touching the speed of 58.338 km/h. This speed is not given by the engines, which are used only to correct the trajectory, but by the thrust of the starting rocket plus a small but effective “slingshot effect” caused by the passage near Jupiter.
In fact, as the fussiest people could object, the speed of Voyager 2 with respect to the Sun is now equal to 61.380 km/h, thanks to the slingshot effects caused by the close passages to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Apollo 11, the fastest ever manned spacecraft (about 39.800 km/h), and Helios 2, the fastest ever manned spacecraft (252.000 km/h on the heliocentric course) should also be mentioned.
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