History Main / SpaceshipSlingshotStunt

[[folder:TableTop Games]]
* ''{{TabletopGame/Starfire}}'', Nexus magazine #2 article "Incidents from the First Terran-Khanate War". When a Terran ship first encountered a ship of the Khanate of Orion, the Terran commander was under orders to obtain information about the other side before leaving. He altered course to make a tight high-speed parabolic course around a nearby Khanate planet so he could scan it and use the planet's gravity to return to the warp point at maximum speed. He had to fight (and destroy) a Khanate ship while performing this maneuver.

* In ''Brake'' by Creator/PoulAnderson, a torchship on runaway course out of the solar system has a choice of doing a slingshot around Jupiter which might take them back to Earth in a few years, but not before their food runs out, or an even riskier course of using the friction of the planet's atmosphere to brake their speed, then hope their negative buoyancy is enough to prevent them sinking into the gas giant before they're rescued.

Of course, pulling a successful Slingshot maneuver would require some precise maneuvering and calculations, but often in fiction, it's entirely possible for the AcePilot to just eyeball it.[[note]]It also requires either the slingshot to be around an object orbiting a more massive object, or a decent amount of thrust during the slingshot. In the former, the energy to escape comes from the orbiting body. In the latter, it's the "Oberth effect" – the same amount of rocket fuel gives you more energy if you're already moving faster.[[/note]] Because the pilot is just that good.

Invariably, when the move is first suggested, almost everyone is incredulous, and it ''always'' fools the enemy. Almost like no one has ever heard of a slingshot maneuver before, or is able to spot when the other side is about to perform one. And, of course, the maneuver is always used as a last-ditch desperation maneuver, rather than a standard tactic or move.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''Anime/IrresponsibleCaptainTylor''. Emi and Yumi get caught in a gravity well on their maiden flight, so Kojiro talks them through this manoeuvre, only to find their course intersects with an asteroid field on the other side of the planet.
* Both the Earth and Martian forces in ''Anime/AldnoahZero'' make use of slingshot maneuvers during space combat, but that's not the impressive part. The impressive part is Slaine firing off two volleys of bullets at a seemingly anonymous patch of sky before the battle, only for the bullets to slingshot around the Earth [[spoiler: and come down to shoot his ally Saazbaum InTheBack at the climax of the episode, with just enough time between the volleys for Slaine to explain his treachery to the disbelieving Saazbaum]].

[[folder:ComicBooks]]

* In one of the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' comics Leela did this with the Planet Express ship to avoid being late to class, unfortunately destabilizing the star she sling-shot around.
* An aquatic version in ''ComicStrip/PrinceValiant'', involving Val's trireme becoming caught in the whirlpool Charybdis from Myth/GreekMythology. One of their rowers turns out to be a fisherman from the area in his day job, and he advises them to row ''with'' the current, which allows them to accelerate out. [[spoiler:They later make use of this to wreck the entire Roman navy in a WronskiFeint.]]

[[folder:Film]]
* In the ''Film/LostInSpace'' movie, time travel has taught Professor Robinson that they can't escape the gravity of the collapsing planet -- but he figures out that they can escape it by diving through it as it's breaking up. Another character (Major West) does the driving, though. Earlier the Jupiter 2 was supposed to slingshot around the Sun on its' way to Alpha Prime, but Smith's sabotage sent them falling into it instead forcing them to make a BlindJump.
* ''Film/{{Apollo 13}}'': The service module is too damaged to fire for a direct abort, and the lunar module engine doesn't have enough power. Only a slingshot maneuver around the moon, assisted by the lunar module engines, can get them on a course for home.
* Inverted with the aerobraking maneuver in ''Film/TwoThousandTenTheYearWeMakeContact'', used to reduce the Leonov's speed so it can enter Jupiter's orbit. Not that it's any less dramatic with a fire-enshrouded spaceship tearing through the upper atmosphere.
* ''Film/KamenRiderXSuperSentaiSuperHeroTaisen'' has ''Series/KamenRiderFourze'' and [[Series/TokumeiSentaiGoBusters Red Buster and Blue Buster]] piloting the Double Rocket Drill Go-Buster-Oh around Saturn to slingshot around and deliver a [[FinishingMove Rider Kick]] onto Big Machine.
* In ''Film/{{Interstellar}}'', the ''Endurance'' slingshots the black hole Gargantua in order to get up to the speed needed for the onward flight to Edmunds' planet.
* In ''Film/TheMartian,'' the Hermes spacecraft performs a gravity assist maneuver around the Earth so it can quickly return to Mars, then have to do another round Mars so they can return to Earth. Unfortunately because of this they can't stop to pick up our protagonist, who must launch into an orbit high enough to be intercepted by the Hermes (much higher than originally planned). The concept is apparently so novel to the NASA scientists that the man who suggests it has to physically act it out.
* In ''Film/{{Passengers|2016}}'' the ''Avalon'' makes a slingshot maneuver around the star Arcturus, mostly to provide SceneryPorn for the movie.

[[folder:LiveActionTelevision]]
* ''Series/StargateSG1''
** A slingshot maneuver around Jupiter is attempted by O'Neill and Teal'c in "Tangent," but the attempt fails as the rockets they used (the pair of Sidewinder missiles their SpaceFighter prototype is armed with) lacked thrust.

[[folder:Pinball]]

[[folder:RealLife]]

* In ''Film/TheMartian,'' the Hermes spacecraft performs a gravity assist maneuver around the Earth so it can quickly return to Mars, then have to do another round Mars so they can return to Earth. Unfortunately because of this they can't stop to pick up our protagonist, who must launch into an orbit high enough to be intercepted by the Hermes. The concept is apparently so novel to the NASA scientists that the man who suggests it has to physically act it out.

* This is a major plot point in ''Literature/TheMartian'': The so-called Purnell Maneuver involves slingshotting the Hermes so that it can get to Mars before Watney starves; [[spoiler: NASA initially rejects the plan because it risks the lives of the Hermes crew, but Purnell sends Vogel the flight path and the crew mutinies.]]

* Parodied in one ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode, in which Zapp Brannigan does this while piloting [[WhatWereYouExpectingWhenYouNamedItX the Titanic space-liner]] for pretty much no reason.

* In the ''Film/LostInSpace'' movie, time travel has taught Professor Robinson that they can't escape the gravity of the collapsing planet -- but he figures out that they can escape it by diving through it as it's breaking up. Another character (Major West) does the driving, though.
** Earlier the Jupiter 2 was supposed to slingshot around the Sun on its' way to Alpha Prime, but Smith's sabotage sent them falling into it instead forcing them to make a BlindJump.
* RealLife: ''Apollo 13's'' service module was too damaged to fire for a direct abort, and the lunar module engine didn't have enough power. Only a slingshot maneuver around the moon, assisted by the lunar module engines, could get them on a course for home. Granted, they were already on a semi-slingshot course, but since they'd left the 'free return trajectory' from earlier missions and would have missed Earth without it, it still likely counts. Depicted in the ''Film/{{Apollo 13}}'' movie.

** It's worth noting, however, that Gargantua is ''not'' an UnrealisticBlackHole. It is very realistic, and the way the ''Endurance'' pulls off the maneuver is pretty much how it ''should'' be done when done with a black hole, simplified for the audience.
* In ''Film/TheMartian,'' the Hermes spacecraft performs a gravity assist manoeuvre around the Earth so it can quickly return to Mars, then have to do another round Mars so they can return to Earth. Unfortunately because of this they can't stop to pick up our protagonist, who must launch into an orbit high enough to be intercepted by the Hermes.

* Integral to the pilot of ''Series/{{Farscape}}''. Proving the feasibility of this maneuver is the whole reason John went into space with ''Farscape One''. By the conclusion of the pilot, he proves his theory using Moya, with Aeryn Sun piloting and him doing the calculations on the floor, using the maneuver to escape the Peacekeepers. He performs the maneuver several times throughout the series, trying to recreate the accident that sent him to that part of space. The only thing he knows is that it involved this maneuver and a solar flare.

* Gravity assists are common in ''Literature/{{Aeon 14}}'', being a relatively realistic SpaceOpera franchise, but in ''A Path in the Darkness' the turn around Estrella de la Muerte (what the cast names Gliese 1061/LHS 1565 after being sabotaged while passing it) is unusually harrowing: ''Intrepid'' is already severely damaged by the saboteurs and has to harness a sunspot cluster's magnetic field to accelerate, which causes a solar eruption and damages her still further.

* ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' starts this way. They attempt to slingshot around a black hole but sabotage leaves them stranded in orbit so close to the black hole that from their point of view a few seconds went by, while a whole 300 years passed in the rest of the galaxy.
* Integral to the pilot of ''Series/{{Farscape}}''. Proving the feasibility of this maneuver is the whole reason John went into space with Farscape One. By the conclusion of the pilot, he proves his theory using Moya, with Aeryn Sun piloting and him doing the calculations on the floor, using the maneuver to escape the Peacekeepers. He performs the maneuver several times throughout the series, trying to recreate the accident that sent him to that part of space. The only thing he knows is that it involved this maneuver and a solar flare.

** In ''Backwards'', the crew are stranded on Backwards Earth and have to wait ten years until WhenThePlanetsAlign so Starbucks can slingshot around them and go through the Omni Zone and back into their own universe.

* ''Franchise/DansUneGalaxiePresDeChezVous:'' The crew attempts this in Season 2, the scientist however explain how dangerous it is to pull off a gravitational slingshot and to top it off it sends them straight into an asteroid field. The first attempt is a failure because the scientist keeps insulting and yelling at the radar operator and pilot (even trying to pull the pilot off the seat in a fit of neurosis) . A similar attempt is proposed but using twin stars for the gravity pull in Season 4 and end almost killing the crew because of the heat. In both cases it's not used to escape danger but simply to travel faster.

** A semi-regular appearance during the [[Literature/NewJediOrder Yuuzhan Vong War]] where the maneuver is called a ''[[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Solo_Slingshot Solo Slingshot]]''. Implying Han Solo was the first to do it.

* ''Franchise/DansUneGalaxiePresDeChezVous:'' The crew attempts this in Season 2, the scientist however explain how dangerous it is to pull off a gravitational slingshot and to top it off it sends them straight into an asteroid field. The first attempt is a failure because the scientist keeps insulting and yelling at the radar operator and pilot. A similar attempt is proposed but using twin stars for the gravity pull in Season 4 and end almost killing the crew because of the heat. In both cases it's not use to escape danger but simply to travel faster.

* ''Franchise/DansUneGalaxiePresDeChezVous:'' The crew attempts this in Season 2, the scientist however explain how dangerous it is to pull off a gravitational slingshot and to top it off it sends them straight into an asteroid field. The first attempt is a failure because the scientist keeps insulting and yelling at the radar operator and pilot. A similar attempt is proposed but using twin stars for the gravity pull in Season 4 and end almost killing the crew because of the heat.

* ''Series/BlakesSeven''. In a couple of episodes a "fast orbit" is used to evade a Federation patrol while the Liberator is handing around above a planet, implied to be this trope though thanks to NoBudget for special effects the audience has to TakeOurWordForIt.

* The ''Galileo'' spacecraft, which was disposed of in the Jovian atmosphere in 2003, used slingshots from Venus, Earth, and Earth again to gain enough velocity to reach jupiter. The ''Cassini'' spacecraft (which was controlled to crash into Jupiter in Sep 15th, 2017), has taken this trope UpToEleven making two flybys of Venus, one of the Earth, and one of Jupiter to boost her towards Saturn, as well as using Titan's (Saturn's largest moon) gravity to change her orbit, allowing exploration of the Saturnian system. The ''Rosetta'' mission which used four gravity assists (Earth, Mars, Earth and Earth ''again'') to catch the comet 67P.

* The ''Galileo'' spacecraft, which was disposed of in the Jovian atmosphere in 2003, used slingshots from Venus, Earth, and Earth again to gain enough velocity to reach jupiter. The ''Cassini'' spacecraft, currently orbiting Saturn, has taken this trope UpToEleven making two flybys of Venus, one of the Earth, and one of Jupiter to boost her towards Saturn, as well as using Titan's (Saturn's largest moon) gravity to change her orbit, allowing exploration of the Saturnian system. The ''Rosetta'' mission which used four gravity assists (Earth, Mars, Earth and Earth ''again'') to catch the comet 67P.

In RealLife, gravity assists are a well-known and often-used phenomenon and have far wider applications (and limitations) than those depicted in fiction. TheOtherWiki does a good job explaining the ramifications.