Navigating the Solar System Using Pulsars as GPS

universetoday.com ^ | June 20, 2013 | Markus Hammonds on

[BenLurkin]

Just as sailors once used the stars to navigate the sea, space travelers may be able to use the stars to navigate the solar system. Except that this time, the stars we’d use will be dead ones. A specific class of neutron stars known as pulsars, defined by the repeated pulses of radiation they emit. The trick, according to a recent paper, may be to use pulsars as a form of interplanetary – and possibly even interstellar – GPS.

Theories and ideas on spacecraft engines are plentiful. Foundations such as Icarus Interstellar keenly advocate the development of new propulsion systems, with some systems such as the VASIMR thrusters appearing rather promising. Meanwhile, fusion rockets are expected to be able to take passengers on a round trip from Earth to Mars in just 30 days, and researchers elsewhere are working on real life warp drives, not unlike the ones we all know and love from the movies.

[Mike Darancette]

The trick, according to a recent paper, may be to use pulsars as a form of interplanetary – and possibly even interstellar – GPS.

Aren't pulsars a bit far away to be much good for interplanetary GPS?

[elteemike]

Our astronauts have to hitch a ride with the Russians to get to our own ISS...

Navigating the solar system is the least of our space related problems right now and for the forseeable future...

How about our own way to get into LEO first before we worry about navigating to the outer planets?

[cloudmountain]

I was always a firm believer in space travel until I finally read just how far the next ANYTHING is and--how much fuel and time it would take to reach there.
The only choice is to put people into some kind of non-aging hibernation for 400 years to get to the next ANYTHING.
Or we have to discover a new source of fuel. Solar energy is WAY off in the future. At least, that is the latest stuff on space travel. We are just TOO FAR AWAY from everything.

I think that there's a reason for that.

[cloudmountain]

I wouldn't trust a Russian space ship these days.
They get too much of their stuff from China. I don't trust the Chinese to NOT substitute bad stuff for good stuff.
Besides, the Russians are BROKE. My husband and I visited Russia for a few weeks in 2008. It was a poor, sad place.
We visited Sweden and Finland too. It WAS weird wearing sunglasses at 10:00 at night. Mind you the sun stayed on the horizon moving from east to west, but always flat on the horizon. Weird.

If their nights are as LONG as their days during the winter, and they are, I can EASILY understand why they drink. DEPRESSING to live in the dark for so long.

I never saw so many drunks (all men) in my LIFE as I saw in Finland, Suomi, as they call their own country.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin. Extra to APoD members.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks BenLurkin.

---

---

· List topics · post a topic · subscribe · Google ·

---

[cunning_fish]

>>>>Besides, the Russians are BROKE. My husband and I visited Russia for a few weeks in 2008. It was a poor, sad place.<<<<

I know many ignorant Canadians who only visited US and Mexico and they think that Mexico is superior and United States is a fraud and a real 3rd world hellhole (people from BC who drove to Detroit and Flint).

The fact is Russia about as diverse as United States.

[BlueDragon]

Just in time. A new grocery chain has been sending me advertising circulars...

[MHGinTN]

Not at all. Think of riding inside of a sphere. The surface of the sphere has four or more points where the radiation for pulsars strikes the sphere. As you move in the solar system the points on the surface where the radiation hits, change, giving you a means to calculate your location in the solar system in relation to where you want to end up, with the pattern at the objective location mapped for the sphere surface if you were there.

[left that other site]

Then it would be IPS, as the “G” stands for “Geo” which means “Earth”! LOL!

[HenpeckedCon]

Interstellar space travel is impossible, so it’s a moot point.

[Cboldt]

-- I was always a firm believer in space travel until I finally read just how far the next ANYTHING is --

What's mind boggling is that not only is there plenty of "space" or distance or whatever, "out there," "here" is mostly empty space too.

If the nucleus of an atom is the size of a golf ball, the closest electron is a mile and half away.

[cloudmountain]

What's mind boggling is that not only is there plenty of "space" or distance or whatever, "out there," "here" is mostly empty space too.
If the nucleus of an atom is the size of a golf ball, the closest electron is a mile and half away.

I can't even begin to fathom it. Our solar system is MINISCULE which makes the entire universe....who can describe it in any real way? One CANNOT be a scientist and deny God. Impossible.

[SunkenCiv]

;’)