Posted on 03/28/2016 5:23:09 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Figure 9 from “A Roadmap to Interstellar Flight”
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
An American scientist has made a remarkable conceptual breakthrough, a design for a non nuclear relativistic launcher, capable of accelerating thousands of deep space probes per year to 0.25C; fast enough to reach the nearest stars in 15 years. The system is extremely scalable – you could start with a small, low cost proof of concept launcher, and work up to bigger devices, capable of launching substantial probes into interstellar space. The system also has a practical alternative use – the full size version is powerful enough to deflect dangerous asteroids into safer orbits. The design uses mostly off the shelf industrial laser and optical technology.
The abstract of the study;
In the nearly 60 years of spaceflight we have accomplished wonderful feats of exploration and shown the incredible spirit of the human drive to explore and understand our universe. Yet in those 60 years we have barely left our solar system with the Voyager 1 spacecraft launched in 1977 finally leaving the solar system after 37 years of flight at a speed of 17 km/s or less than 0.006% the speed of light. As remarkable as this we will never reach even the nearest stars with our current propulsion technology in even 10 millennium. We have to radically rethink our strategy or give up our dreams of reaching the stars, or wait for technology that does not exist. While we all dream of human spaceflight to the stars in a way romanticized in books and movies, it is not within our power to do so, nor it is clear that this is the path we should choose. We posit a technological path forward, that while not simple, it is within our technological reach. We propose a roadmap to a program that will lead to sending relativistic probes to the nearest stars and will open up a vast array of possibilities of flight both within our solar system and far beyond. Spacecraft from gram level complete spacecraft on a wafer (“wafersats”) that reach more than 1⁄4 c and reach the nearest star in 15 years to spacecraft with masses more than 105 kg (100 tons) that can reach speeds of greater than 1000 km/s. These systems can be propelled to speeds currently unimaginable with existing propulsion technologies. To do so requires a fundamental change in our thinking of both propulsion and in many cases what a spacecraft is. In addition to larger spacecraft, some capable of transporting humans, we consider functional spacecraft on a wafer, including integrated optical communications, optical systems and sensors combined with directed energy propulsion. Since “at home” the costs can be amortized over a very large number of missions. I n addition the same photon driver can be used for planetary defense, beamed energy for distant spacecraft as well as sending power back to Earth as needed, stand-off composition analysis, long range laser communications, SETI searches and even terra forming. The human factor of exploring the nearest stars and exo-planets would be a profound voyage for humanity, one whose non-scientific implications would be enormous. It is time to begin this inevitable journey beyond our home.
Read more: http://www.deepspace.ucsb.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/A-Roadmap-to-Interstellar-Flight-15-h.pdf
NASA spends around a billion dollars per year on GIS climate research. The GIS budget was reviewed in 2011, on the grounds that they are duplicating work done by NOAA/NCDC, but the GIS budget survived the review.
A billion dollars per year would go a long way towards funding a pilot laser launcher program. Given the linear scalability of the proposed system, ongoing funding of this magnitude would allow progressive scaling of the prototype into a full size launcher.
FYI
Gonna be a fast flyby.
Here's the launcher as seen from space.
Such complete bullcrap. Even if they could accelerate a “wafersat” weighing a few grams to 1/4 the speed of light, what would they get from it when it gets to another star system? The antenna couldn’t be big enough to overcome the path loss. They will never see images from such a craft. It’d be a foolhardy project; spending all that money for something they could never hope to heard from.
The only practical use would be inside the solar system, and only after you constructed a laser system at the destination to slow the thing back down. Of course, then it would not have enough time or distance to reach even a fraction of the maximum speed, but it would probably be faster than other existing technology.
Considering it has been almost 50 years since we first landed on the moon and we still haven’t built any moon bases yet, I expect that we could see the thing up and running in about 1,500 years.
Why not use the money from the GIS agency for something that might have a useful purpose,
This does nothing to make Muslims feel good about themselves.
They could launch a string of them in a wireless sensor network, and send information back to earth in a sequential manner through the linear network.
... just a thought.
What data would it be able to read moving at 0.25C?
Hey, if it stops the Monks from blowing up the sun, it’s worthwhile.
I think they are onto something by rethinking what a spacecraft is. We need to focus more on small probes rather than manned expeditions. Cheaper.
An American scientist has made a remarkable conceptual breakthrough, a design for a non nuclear relativistic launcher, capable of accelerating thousands of deep space probes per year to 0.25C; fast enough to reach the nearest stars in 15 years.Of course, their trips through each Solar System would only take hours at most, so a string to each system would be necessary. Alpha C, Proxima C, Barnard's Star...
I don’t know, just a thought.
I need to work on at least five journal articles for my day job so my thoughts on this are brief, at best.
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