[ExI] Breakthrough Starshot - To The Stars!

[spike]

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Van Sickle
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2016 2:43 PM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Breakthrough Starshot - To The Stars!

 

I know of no examples that are single mission organizations with nothing to do (and thus, no reason for people to continue participating in or remember them) for years at a time.

 

Why would they have "nothing to do?"  The major cost is in engineering and the capital cost of the laser array.  Keep sending probes.  Use the laser array for other uses such as a telescope array, or much slower (and massive) local spacecraft, or super lidar for astronomical uses.

 

Now there is a thought.  Why bother with a payload?  What could you see with a 100 GW laser array and the telescope array that goes with it, using it as lidar?  The "probe" would be 5 times faster.  And you can gather data for far longer than 2 hours.

 

I leave the calculations as an exercise for the students.  Anyone?  Anyone?  Spike?

 

steve

 

 

Steve I have been on vacation without enough bandwidth to pull the petals off a daisy, so I haven’t followed the discussion much.  

 

If we are talking about using a telescope array to focus a laser over a long distance to accelerate a probe, ja the same array can be used to gaze at a distant patch of sky in the direction the probe is being pushed.  You could do both at the same time: photons don’t bother each other coming and going at the same time.

 

I am not sure that is what you meant however.

 

Tomorrow I get the mighty info pipe back.

 

spike

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