[api]

Would it actually be a straight line?

Going from e.g. Earth to Mars does not consist of aiming for Mars and firing your rockets. It consists of hitting a parabolic transfer orbit and then doing another burn to place yourself in Mars' orbit -- or just heading right in if you've got the heat shields and retropropulsion for that. Basically you do orbital mechanics like Wayne Gretzky: you don't go to where the planet is, but where it's going to be.

Would interstellar flight be that different? Wouldn't you be executing a "transfer orbit" about the galactic center? Or is the effect of galactic-scale gravitational pull negligible there and you just end up basically going straight from A to B?

Edit: turns out this came from an actual subreddit dedicated to this star!

https://www.reddit.com/r/KIC8462852/

Subscribed!

[bitJericho]

The galactic center is 100,000 lightyears away. Going from a location to another 1000 lightyears away via the galactic center would make the trip 200 times longer. A 10,000 year journey would thus take 2 million years. It's probably better to jump from point A to B, then.

[kuschku]

no, @api is right - you're orbiting the galactic center for a while.

Similar how transfer from earth to mars works via a solar orbit.

So, yes, you have to include orbital mechanics, not just straight lines.

[bitJericho]

I didn't say there's no need to consider orbital mechanics. I said taking a route through the galactic center is not a realistic scenario.

[api]

I didn't mean through the center, just orbiting it. Look up a Hohmann transfer. I was just saying it wouldn't be direct.