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If there was solid evidence that it was of alien manufacture, we would go get it. No question. Access to something like that triggers 'national security' type r
by johngalt 9y ago
If there was solid evidence that it was of alien manufacture, we would go get it. No question. Access to something like that triggers 'national security' type responses. Projects under that heading have bottomless budgets and high risk tolerances.
- inopinatus 9y agoYou bring it back to your own system. And only then is the device programmed to activate.
- planteen 9y agoWe don't have the technology. The fastest object we have ever made is Voyager 1 at 17 km/sec. It got its speed by flybys of Jupiter and Saturn. Oumuamua is going 26 km/sec.
- 0xdada 9y agoAll we would need is to send a bunch of fuel in parts, dock all of them and fire the strongest engine we have. It _is_ rocket science, but I don't think it's far out of reach if we have the money to spend on resources.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoThat is indeed how you do things in Kerbal Space Program, but back on Earth, it would require at least a few procedural - if not technological - breakthroughs to pull it off. Which is to say - I'm all for it! The sooner we make those breakthroughs, the better.
- codezero 9y agoFor an analysis of possible launch dates / trajectories to intercept, check out this paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1711.03155.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1711.03155.pdf In summary, you're pretty much right. If we could launch in 2017, we could have done it, but I don't think we have any spares of Rosetta or similar intercept missions sitting around.
- planteen 9y agoCool paper. I used to work in the space industry. When I said "We don't have the technology", I meant there is nothing at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6 using NASA's ratings. Current state of the art is TRL 1 or TRL 2. https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/trl.png https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/trl.png
- andybak 9y agoThat image will prove valuable to me. Now - whenever people accuse me of never finishing anything I shall respond that I'm actually achieving TRL2 across a broad front.
- ajuc 9y agoSmall robotic probe accelerated by a few nukes (positioned along the way by conventional ships) hitting a blast shield?
- johngalt 9y agoCertainly it would be impossible for NASA in it's current state. Don't underestimate the gap between a science/jobs program like NASA vs what happens where there is an acute national interest. A derelict alien spacecraft would present an objective that no world power could ignore. Nation states taking enormous risks and spending hundreds of billions would make our current space program look like hobbyist work. In that setting, I would hesitate to say what is impossible.
- dom96 9y agoWhere there is a will there is a way. Exciting prospect.
- ceejayoz 9y agoWe didn't have the tech for nuclear bombs until we decided we wanted to blow up cities. We didn't have the technology to go to the moon until we decided we wanted to go there. A little more than ten years ago the Motorola Razr was the height of mobile phone design. Stuff like NERVA or Project Orion stayed proposals not because they're impossible, but because there's nowhere we really need to get that fast to justify the risks/expense/fallout. "We need to get to this interstellar starship" would change the cost/benefit ratio of developing the tech needed.
- Roboprog 9y agoNERVA was actually prototyped in the 60s, right? Dirty, but something that was known to work.