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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.

4 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Communications? by HuskyDog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well one wishes them the best of luck, but it seems to me that going fast enough is only a tiny part of their problems and that getting any sort of useful communications back again is a least as big a challenge.

    Consider the New Horizons mission to Pluto. The spacecraft is large and has a big high gain antenna. Also, it's power source hasn't been sitting around for 44 years. Never the less, data returns to earth at a few hundred bits per second.

    Now consider Alpha Centauri. My quick calculations suggest that it is about 7000 times as far away (can someone confirm that?). Applying the inverse square law gives us a received power level - assuming the same transmit power and antennas - which is 77 dB (49000000 times) lower. Now, I am not saying that it can't be done, and I am sure that NASA have lots of very clever people, but as someone who has spend his career in radio and radar, finding an extra 77 dB is a very challenging requirement!

    1. Re:Communications? by HuskyDog · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Replying to my own post. A few more minutes though suggests that perhaps optical communications might work. I don't know very much about that technology, but preventing the receiving telescope from being blinded by the light from the star would clearly be a big issue to solve. Perhaps one could choose a wavelength where the star is relatively dark?

      Aligning the transmitter sounds tricky, but presumably you could use the same optics to track the sun (which is presumably quite bright when viewed from Alpha Centauri).

  2. NASA planning to spend budget by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    NASA hasn't been relevant for some time now. It doesn't even have space shuttles. The ISS is mainly used as a budget marketing machine, with its occupants focused on playing social media ("oh look, we're watching Star Wars"). In the meantime it's just some stinky connected containers merely in orbit, to do necessary but boring research. NASA seems to be mainly here for itself, for the institution, to get your tax money. Going to Alpha Centauri is in no way relevant or realistic, except to get and spend budget. In the solar system, to future is commercial, and outside, the future isn't national.

  3. Re:That would be pretty useless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What would make it impossible to speed up to 10 (or 20% for that matter) before being halfway? Why can't it hit 10% speed of light at 1% of the route and run out of energy to accelerate more?