alt Hacker NewsWell voyager depended on a solar system alignment that only happens every 175 years(?) so it'd be a while before we get that same advantage again. The longer it takes the further of a head start voyager gets?
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Mogzol • yesterday at 5:28 PM
The headstart doesn't really matter, anything faster than Voyager will catch up eventually
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phkahler • yesterday at 5:26 PM
Starship could be refueled in orbit. That should then be able to reach those kind of velocities with enough capacity to even include a small 3rd stage inside with the payload.
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That alignment is only necessary to do the Grand Tour, to visit all four outer planets in one mission. Voyager 1 actually didn't do the Grand Tour, it only visited Jupiter and Saturn, you're thinking of Voyager 2. This alignment is also not even necessary to attain the highest speed, Voyager 1 is even faster than Voyager 2.
A flyby of both Jupiter and Saturn can be done every two decades or so (the synodic period is 19.6 years)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour_program