3 ms·
Nevermind the issue of how you either (a) transmit back over 4 light years or (b) pull off a return trajectory with just a few grams of equipment. It's easy to
by TallGuyShort 11y ago
Nevermind the issue of how you either (a) transmit back over 4 light years or (b) pull off a return trajectory with just a few grams of equipment. It's easy to poke holes at ambitious projects, so I look forward to seeing what they can come up with, but man - this would be phenomenal compared to Apollo, even given how far we've come.
- brianwawok 11y agoWhy return? I bet you can find a lot of volunteers for a one way mission, especially if you offer to follow them with supply trains every year or so.
- TallGuyShort 11y agoEven if this is possible, it'll probably be prohibitively expensive to do constant resupplies when you won't know for years if previous trips have worked. A manned mission or a resupply mission would also be orders of magnitude beyond the masses they're talking about, which strains credibility even further.
- brianwawok 11y agoI am pretty sure you just sent out a new boat of supplies every year make it or not. Worse case the mission fails and the next mission has 20 supply ships in orbit waiting for them. I have no idea on the minimum mass required to send supplies, i.e. if you can recycle 99% of the water you need, would only need a few drops per day. If you can only recycle 50%, you are going to need a bunch.
- TallGuyShort 11y agoNah - they're already pushing some theoretical limits by talking about planetary levels of energy. You're talking about just throwing money at doing that many times in a row with no proof of success.