Posted on 12/12/2016 8:53:17 AM PST by BenLurkin
EEE Spectrum said that in working with KAIST, NASA was pioneering development of "tiny spacecraft made from a single silicon chip that could slash interstellar exploration times."
...
Neel Patel in Inverse referred to ambitions "to create chip-sized spacecraft that could be shot off into space at ultra-high speeds and reach neighboring star systems within a generation's time."
Patel said that out of five interstellar probes (Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, and New Horizons), only Voyager 1 made it to interstellar space.
Making it is not easy. Patel wrote how "deep space is riddled with intense bouts of radiation emanating from other stars and planets, as well as rapid swings in temperature." Interestingly, in their work, an extra gate "repairs transistors through heating."
IEEE Spectrum: For an ordinary silicon chip, 20 years in space is too long, bombarded by radiation of very high energy. The report also said the researchers' idea involved letting the devices suffer damage but then adding an extra contact to the transistors—using this contact to heal the devices with heating.
Patel said, "the research team points to experiments that show radiation-damaged flash memory can be recovered up to 10,000 times over through heating, and DRAM can be recovered almost a trillion times. This is critical for an interstellar mission that could span for several decades."
Their research is discussed in the paper, "Sustainable Electronics for Nano-Spacecraft in Deep Space Missions."
The authors are from the Center for Nanotechnology, NASA Ames Research Center, and School of Electrical Engineering, KAIST, Korea. "An on-the-fly self-healing device is experimentally demonstrated for sustainability of space electronics. A high temperature generated by Joule heating in a gate electrode provides on-chip annealing of damages induced by ionizing radiation, hot carrier, and tunneling stress."
(Excerpt) Read more at techxplore.com ...
Bit hard to see where they’ll put the fuel on a chip-sized space probe.
Maybe they’re betting on the EmDrive.
That is an interesting breakthrough in. IC chip design.
Show me a nano-anything that could, once arriving a billion light years (name your distance) away from this planet that could have the energy to transmit a damned thing back to us.
There is the familiar Friis Transmission equation and the N=kTB formula that they are going to have to deal with, and even under 0K and subcycle bandwidths the problem is hopeless IMO.
Time, bandwidth, noise and noise figure are all variables in what I call TANSTAAFL. Even with infinite gain with zero noise figure, the bandwidth would be so small it would take ages to send back.
Just our luck it lands on an inhabited planet and because it’s so small, someone or something unknowingly steps on it......
how will it communicate? navigate? etc.
This is way more theoretical than practical.
My initial thought, as well. It seems that this would have to be the space-age equivalent of a “message in a bottle” that would have to rely on someone to reply. (Not sure we want to do that...)
I’m thinking this is an application with no clear use searching for funding using the fantastic. I don’t mind somebody making a case for this in front of private investors, but I strongly object this government snake-oil funding approach. Our politicians are just that stupid to believe the practicality of this sh!t.
Very nice, but no mention of a means of propulsion.
Well, self healing electronics would seem to me to have tremendous applicability... that’s a big enough story right there that I would think further research should be funded. These guys are just speculating, I think, on things that could be done with it and the reportage skips the science and reports on only the speculation.
If it is bigggggg enough to get private investors interested, I’m okay with that.
BUT NOT WITH MY TAX DOLLARS when none of it is proven or substantiated beyond the fantastic.
Ultimately, this all is a gambit for government funding.
You’re not supposed to think about that. You’re supposed to get your jollies off on the “nano” aspect of it.
Yes indeed. Especially that Congressman from Georgia. He thinks you can capsize an island...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7XXVLKWd3Q
I know of this idiot very well. West Atlanta IIRC in my state. He is supremely stupid and ignorant. His handlers tried to walk that crap back with all sorts of hemming and hawing, but stupid is as stupid does.
It wouldn't be fuelled.
Rather, it would be propelled, e.g., by an Earth-based (or space station-based) laser cannon.
Regards,
How does an artillery shell "navigate?"
Regards,
touche! lol, BUT if it neither communicates what it finds, or returns with information, it is useless
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