[ExI] Breakthrough Starshot - To The Stars!

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Apr 14, 2016, at 9:55 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 6:51 PM, Stephen Van Sickle <sjv2006 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> They have a good page on the challenges involved.  
>> 
>> http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/Challenges/3
> Read it.  It answers some of my objections but not all.  Most notably, how do they keep the project running for the 20 years they estimate (plus time for the signal to get back), such that someone will be listening (and know how to listen) when the signal from the fly-by returns?  (And then there's still, "it's a fly-by; this isn't sustainable, it'll be more thrown away effort for no development gain.")

I bet the cost of receiving signal will be low compared to the other costs. (This is even accounting for it being very low power.) And right now there are several space missions (the Voyagers come to mind, but not just them) that have lasted longer than the proposed one. I don't see this as a showstopper.

I didn't read the full articles, but I'm thinking if these things send back some data from a light year away, that alone will be a treasure trove on what interstellar space is like.

By the way, Dennis May proposed something like this a few years ago, though his was more a gravity probe mission. (To be sure, I don't know if his idea was original. I just heard it from him first.;)

Regards,

Dan
  Sample my Kindle books via:
http://author.to/DanUst
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