2 ms·
Not Daedalus, Orion. It was a 1960s research project involving Freeman Dyson and others. Google it. There is a fantastic documentary that I think is on YouTube.
by api 7y ago
Not Daedalus, Orion. It was a 1960s research project involving Freeman Dyson and others. Google it. There is a fantastic documentary that I think is on YouTube.
Orion is kind of shockingly practical. It was forgotten for some time as it was a military research project not NASA or academic.
- nurettin 7y agoDo you acknowledge the fact that interstellar travel entails more than just speeding up and slowing down? Because that's what Dyson would be telling you if he were here.
- Dylan16807 7y agoYou need a nuclear-powered airtight bunker that can sustain dozens of people, but that's also buildable with 70s technology. Once you have propulsion and a ship you're pretty well there.
- m_mueller 7y agoOne of the main unsolved problems is the electromagnetic shielding, both front and back (as you need to turn to decelerate). Even at 0.08c every speck of interstellar dust has enormous impact energy, far worse than the radiation of your own bombs. AFAIK this is unsolved.
- m_mueller 7y agofollow-up: here is what wolfram alpha spits out for a 0.1 grams dust particle hitting you at 0.08c: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%2F2+*+10%5E-4kg+*+(0.08c)%5E2 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%2F2+*+10%5E-4kg+*+(0... it's 35% of the fission energy released by totally fissioning 1g of U-235! i.e. I don't know whether this it's feasible to just have a heavy water & lead shield, as 0.1g is fairly optimistic to be the heaviest particle hitting you. Already at this size we're in range of tactical nuclear weapons.
- nurettin 7y agoYou will essentially kill dozens of people once they hit an interstellar cloud with anything bigger than a sugar molecule at 2/5c.