Apr 17, 2016 11:29
Ioannis Xydous
Posted on: Breakthrough Initiatives
Karen wrote "Then almost all of what NASA has done throughout its history is meaningless..."
This of course is not true. It is not just NASA that achieved much but also the Space Programs of the former Soviet Union. We must not forget this. However, whoever made or still designs Missions beyond the Moon are useless from a logical point of view. Why?
Because they do not have a fundamental clear purpose. Unfortunately humans are generally driven by their egoism, prestige and mostly personal interests (they cannot represent humanity's vision).
Due to these negative aspects of human behavior, our science is 100 years off course and I can prove it!
I will be the last person on the entire Universe who would think to destroy human visions. I like to be pragmatic by putting any visions under a logically consistent frame of mind and always in terms of real purpose, feasibility and long term benefits.
Another most probably unanticipated scenario will be the following....
Apr 17, 2016 11:57
Ioannis Xydous
Posted on: Breakthrough Initiatives
Let us now assume the most successful outcome of the Star Shot Project:
-Withinn the next 30 years and with a little luck some nano crafts achieve to visit Alpha Centauri and take some pictures by sending them back to earth.
-It will take another 5 years these photos to be received on earth (4.7 light years distance from earth if I am not wrong).
-The published data and pictures reveal there is an earth like planet on Alpha Centauri.
-Enthusiasm is spread all over the world.
How we can get there? We can't since we do not have actually the means for the reasons I explained on the previous post. But let us make it a little bit more exciting.
-In the mean time, scientists have discovered a way to travel to the stars with an engine that may achieve a final speed near or beyond the the light speed barrier and absolutely safe (in terms of overcoming acceleration and radiation shielding issues) for humans.
Look around you (meaning what is going on in the world today). Would this discovery actually be published in the name of humanity's vision? I have my doubts. The Great Powers will automatically and before we know it they will censor it.
Let us be not so pessimistic. I have faith on a great and bright future that awaits us all to discover it thanks to the Internet.
Web Site: https://www.ioannisxydous.net.gr/
Paper: https://vixra.org/abs/1604.0039.
Otherwise, our playground will be limited to our earth's garden.
Apr 17, 2016 12:20
Ioannis Xydous
Posted on: Breakthrough Initiatives
"Because they do not have a fundamental clear purpose. Unfortunately humans are generally driven by their egoism, prestige and mostly personal interests (they cannot represent humanity's vision). "
Just to not be misunderstood. The above addresses the events in the entire history in regards to the evolution of science (egoism, prestige and personal interests gave rise to a manipulated evolution of science) that leads eventually to establishment (todays science).
Of course this has nothing to do with the initiatives taken by visionary and rear people like Mr. Milner.
Apr 17, 2016 15:35
Karen Pease
Posted on: Breakthrough Initiatives
"Actually they already know from the Moon Missions. The problem is named "Cosmic Deadly Radiation" and addresses humans. How we cope with that? "
There are far more fundamental problems than cosmic radiation. Like, for example, actually ending up where the planet is going to be at a given point of time so that you actually end up at it rather than empty space. Or finding out what temperature and pressure the surface is that you plan to live on. Really, really critical things.
"Great! Then what? Do you have the means to go and land on Pluto or even Mars."
The purpose of Starshot is not landings. It is initial data gathering. There are many bodies that we know literally *nothing* about. New Horizons utterly transformed our knowledge of the Kuiper belt, and it too was just a flyby.
>> Karen wrote "Then almost all of what NASA
>> has done throughout its history is
>> meaningless..."
>
> This of course is not true. It is not just NASA
> that achieved much but also the Space
> Programs of the former Soviet Union.
You ignored the conditional. My reply was in response to the claim that basic data gathering was meaningless. IF their claim (that data gathering was meaningless) was correct, THEN everything that NASA has done would also be meaningless.
I disagree with the premise.
"Because they do not have a fundamental clear purpose."
The purpose of exploration out of our solar system is exactly the same as the purpose for exploration within our solar system.
"How we can get there? We can't since we do not have actually the means"
There are many proposals for travel to the stars, they become more feasible with time. Your ignorance of them has no bearing on reality. To pick one of many, one could use a generation ship with a fission fragment rocket; that's current technology, no "revolutions" or megascale engineering required. It's just lots and lots of engineering work. Indeed, one of the biggest impediments to putting forth the money to develop them is the lack of available data.
30 years in the future, the task will be even easier.
If your goal is colonization, we've been visiting Mars for half a century and we're still not close to being able to colonize it. The data gathering phase takes a long time. If we want to expand beyond our star system, you can't put off the data gathering indefinitely.
"near or beyond the the light speed barrier"
And here is where I stop listening to you. Goodbye.
Apr 17, 2016 17:53
Ioannis Xydous
Posted on: Breakthrough Initiatives
"There are far more fundamental problems than cosmic radiation...Or finding out what temperature and pressure the surface is that you plan to live on...."
I mentioned the most critical issues in regards to travel. When you solve them, then the other is like a pic-nic.
"My reply was in response to the claim that basic data gathering was meaningless..."
In this regard they are meaningless when you do not have the means to go there .
"The purpose of exploration out of our solar system is exactly the same as the purpose for exploration within our solar system."
Only robots and satellite probes can explore our solar system. Again, you do not get it why there is no clear purpose. The exploration so far in outer space is more an act of prestige and challenge between countries and less of an exploration act in order to be useful for humanity. Under these circumstances since one does not have the means to travel with safety and come back, it is useless and without real purpose such "exploration" attempts.
"There are many proposals for travel to the stars, they become more feasible with time. Your ignorance of them has no bearing on reality. To pick one of many, one could use a generation ship with a fission fragment rocket; that's current technology, no "revolutions" or megascale engineering required. It's just lots and lots of engineering work. Indeed, one of the biggest impediments to putting forth the money to develop them is the lack of available data."
I know very well all those proposals that are not referred to a real breakthrough in transportation and Energy. Again with conventional thinking you go nowhere. It is not called "lack of data", it is called "lack of right Science", unfortunately.
"If your goal is colonization, we've been visiting Mars for half a century and we're still not close to being able to colonize it. The data gathering phase takes a long time. If we want to expand beyond our star system, you can't put off the data gathering indefinitely."
Is not our goal to reach the stars, meaning to colonize other planets and explore the Universe? Let us say you have all the data you wish for about Mars, what are you going to do with them? First of all you have to solve the transportation and Energy problems in order to have a direct connection with mother Earth in terms of supplies and security. The solution to these problems, solves all other smaller things like living in another planet (It is actually a smaller problem).
"And here is where I stop listening to you. Goodbye."
Paper: https://vixra.org/abs/1604.0039
Actually here is where your ignorance start to make its presence.
Apr 19, 2016 21:35
S M ASHEK HOSSAIN
Posted on: Breakthrough Initiatives
First of all, congratulations for proposing such project. Its not for colonization nor for looking an alternative to planet earth rather its our basic instinct of exploration for knowledge - who we are!!! It is so exciting, I sometimes wonder to be born 100 years later to see the progress in scientific innovations (unless we destroy ourselves). Can we launch those nanobots from the mother ship directly towards Alpha Century? Like we have a LASER GUN having one thousand LASER barrels directed towards Alpha Century and we fire that. Much engineering efforts can be discarded by that only if we can solve the POWER problem?
Apr 23, 2016 03:23
Andrew Palfreyman
Posted on: Breakthrough Initiatives
It's fascinating how a physics-educated billionaire, once stirred to action, can shake things up.
One powerful idea, like this new StarChip concept, invites deep examination, and quickly leads from the very particular to the very general. By following the consequences of this one idea, a cascade of possible new developments emerges, all pulling us towards the future at an accelerated pace. It encourages us to send cheap swarms of spacechips to the stars, to build powerful laser beamers on the Moon and elsewhere, to implement a solar gravity telescope (gravscope), to defend ourselves against rogue asteroids, mining asteroids, and more. There are slow, incremental approaches, and there are fast, Hail Mary style missions. Underlying all of this putative future development is the need to be able to launch a multiplicity of large pieces of hardware - laser beamers and the payloads they will propel - at low cost. Low launch costs will turbo boost the space development timeline.
We are encouraged to envision weaving a web of beamer light across and around our solar system.
This enables cheap and rapid transport, for both acceleration from a source-side beamer and braking from a destination-side beamer. The web will grow incrementally outwards and beamers will increase in power and efficiency. It will be like laying down the tracks of an interplanetary railroad.
On one-gee beams we can travel to the Moon, or back from it, in under 4 hours.
Power beams can be used to remotely drill through the icy crusts of Europa and Enceladus to prepare for oceanic voyages of discovery.
Eventually we'll be able to quickly and cheaply install new gravscopes at will at any desired location, which in turn will accelerate exoplanet discovery and observation, which paves the way for viable and interesting interstellar targets. SETI sensitivity will receive a massive boost. To facilitate braking of outgoing payloads driven by our beamer web lying further in, we will need large steerable reflectors out in the Oort Cloud, tethered to massive asteroids to keep them in place. That is a much longer term prospect, but holds great potential.
Cheap launches are the key to all this. Reusable rockets are a good start. Escape Dynamics might have provided yet another intermediate stepping stone with a solution enabled by power beaming technology, but could not attract sufficient funding. However, the real cost savings come when technologies like Skylon and StarTram get deployed. If they can be funded, that is. I see no signs of commanding vision here - yet.
Indeed, can power beaming be funded by anyone but the military, intent on disguising a potent weapon as a steerable train track?
Apr 23, 2016 05:29
Mike Gorman
Posted on: Breakthrough Initiatives
"We are encouraged to envision weaving a web of beamer light across and around our solar system."
Thanks Andrew, that's a great summary of a wold (ours) transformed by elaborations of this new approach to orbital, solar, and extra-solar transport.
"Indeed, can power beaming be funded by anyone but the military, intent on disguising a potent weapon as a steerable train track?"
Yes, is just the sort of conversation I was looking for in the thread 'Policy | Light beamer and relativistic-speed nanocrafts ' https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/index.php?controller=Forum&action=viewforum&id=15&page=1
The overall organisation of this forum seems to be to cover engineering challenges, but fortunately there is a section that relates to policy (and perhaps overall intent and strategy of the project).
A conference attendee has posted that "the genesis of the current beamed sail concept as conceived by Starshot grew out of his [Phillip Lubin] recent “Roadmap to Interstellar Flight,” a lengthy paper submitted to the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society..."
The link to this paper is:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1604.01356
which discusses engineering challenges and provides insight into current and near-term capabilities -- including the photon thrusters on-topic for this forum thread.
A policy consideration would examine not only the misuse of phased laser arrays themselves, but also the misuse of the system to drive multi-megaton projectiles (in terms of their kinetic energy) to targets.
Many people want to come onboard and support the Breathrough Starshot initiative. But there is a need for clear policy statements and fail-safes to ensure the developments of a "DE-Star" technology are not re-directed into misguided "Star Wars" weapons development.
Apr 23, 2016 23:11
michael.million@sky.com
Posted on: Breakthrough Initiatives
Might be better to have a radioactive source emitting alpha particles onto a steerable deflecting sheet which can then be used to move the sail around. Or have radioactive material sprayed onto the sail and then use electrical impulses to twist the sheet so the radioactive particles give directional thrust.
