Is it true that if you accelerate to a certain speed in space you will maintain that velocity as long as you avoid a gravity well, an object of sufficent mass or don't wish to change directions? Trying to remember a half understood theory explained decades ago about space travel. Can you give a Freshman level explination how it all works?
I saw a thing on "Save Our History" today about preserving the original space capsules, boots, suits and even Mission Control. We have more technology in our cell phones than NASA did in our first space flights....food for thought...:o]
You'd have to be between stars to not be influenced by other bodies.
Any path in the Solar System is bent by the Sun's gravity. Picture the planets as various size balls rolling around in the bottom of an empty concrete swimming pool.
If you bounce a ping pong ball off one of them, to get it to the other, you will have to follow a curved path to get there. And if you are going uphill, you will have to aim for a point on the target planet's curved path ahead of where it is, because it will take some time, and you will lose momentum.
The variables are many, and the formulae are complex, but everything is known to many degrees of certainty, so it is still rather straightforward in that respect.