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NASA Begins Planning For An Interstellar Mission In 2069 (nypost.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the reaching-for-the-stars dept.

Long-time Slashdot reader cold fjord writes: During the 2017 Geophysical Union Conference, scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory revealed that they are planning an interstellar exploration mission for the year 2069. The goal is to send a probe to Alpha Centauri, some 4.3 light years away. NASA is working on technology to allow a spacecraft to reach 10% of the speed of light, which might allow them to reach Alpha Centauri in as soon as 44 years.

A number of technologies are being explored, although there are many practical hurdles. The New Scientist adds that the 2016 NASA budget directed NASA to study interstellar travel that could reach 10% of the speed of light by 2069.

3 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. That would be pretty useless by Solandri · · Score: 5, Informative

    The goal is to send a probe to Alpha Centauri, some 4.3 light years away. NASA is working on technology to allow a spacecraft to reach 10% of the speed of light, which might allow them to reach Alpha Centauri in as soon as 44 years.

    First, warp drives do not exist (yet). You cannot instantly jump to 10% the speed of light and spend 44 years coasting to Alpha Centauri. To travel 4.3 light years with a constantly accelerating technology would require you to hit 20% the speed of light, not 10%. If you constantly accelerate up to 10% the speed of light by the time you reach the destination, then it'll take you 87 years to traverse 4.367 light years, not 44 years.

    Second, you don't want to be accelerating the entire trip. Otherwise once you reach the destination, you're traveling way too fast for the trip to be of any use. Assuming the Alpha Centauri system is about the same size as our solar system, a probe reaching it at 20% the speed of light would pass through the entire system in a little over a day. It's stupid to travel 44 years just to have one day of science gathering. To be useful, you need to accelerate to the halfway point, the decelerate to the destination.

    This means the trip of 44 years would require hitting 20% the speed of light by the halfway point - it would need twice the acceleration of a mission which hit 20% at the destination. So combined with the 10% vs 20% speed of light error, you actually need to develop a technology with 4x the acceleration of a mission which would arrive at Alpha Centuari at 10% the speed of light.

  2. Nope. by gerald.edward.butler · · Score: 3, Informative

    Quantum entangled particles DO NOT permit sending of information faster than light. You still have to send a "light-like" signal to know the results of the entanglement.

  3. Re:Actually thats a drug induced haze, not a PR st by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

    So it'd have to be a robot mission.

    Duh. Both the summary and TFA make it clear that this would be a probe, not a manned mission. It would be a flyby, passing through the Alpha Centauri solar system in minutes, since slowing down and going into orbit would require exponentially more fuel. The proposals are for a probe the size of a pack of cigarettes, or even the size of a postage stamp, driven by a laser boosted sail.

    The proposed budget is ~ $100M. A manned mission would cost many many trillions.