3 ms·

My concern is that we aren't going to get much more than what was said in the articles already. I think the beneficial outcome of all of this is that we can id

My concern is that we aren't going to get much more than what was said in the articles already. I think the beneficial outcome of all of this is that we can identify what to look for next time, and hopefully get funding to do that. I also wonder if, as our tracking tech gets better, it would be relatively cheap to land a bunch of sensors on these and have them go on a ride somewhere in space for much cheaper than launching our own and trying to accelerate it to that velocity, even considering the costs of interception.

m4rtink 6y ago
If you can intercept an interstellar object to land something on it you can by definition also just launch the thing to the same trajectory. Unless your payload is advanced enough to use the mass of the object for something (fuel, radiation shielding, construction materials, etc.) there is not much benefit in landing on an interstellar object if you just want to launch an interstellar probe. Maybe actually if you wanted to send a really long range message it could help to put it on an interstellar asteroid - much more likely someone would notice a huge mountain flying through their system than a piano sized piece of metal, even if both hold the same message.
- dysfunction 6y ago
  If you had really good shock absorbers you could intercept at an orthogonal trajectory and have the impact knock you into the desired trajectory... not practical but fun to think about.
  - playerm1 6y ago
    The ultimate egg-drop challenge. I'm imagining some Vehicle Assembly Building-sized cloud of aerogel with a paperclip-size payload at the center.
- throw1234651234 6y ago
  The other argument is mass - most of the sensor could bury itself in the mass for safety. Yes on trajectory, but no on same trajectory, with same mass. Of course, this might be a moot point, because other than hiding from some radiation and micro-scoping impacts, as well as leaching resources (which we aren't really advanced enough to do), there is no benefit.

m4rtink 6y ago

If you can intercept an interstellar object to land something on it you can by definition also just launch the thing to the same trajectory. Unless your payload is advanced enough to use the mass of the object for something (fuel, radiation shielding, construction materials, etc.) there is not much benefit in landing on an interstellar object if you just want to launch an interstellar probe. Maybe actually if you wanted to send a really long range message it could help to put it on an interstellar asteroid - much more likely someone would notice a huge mountain flying through their system than a piano sized piece of metal, even if both hold the same message.

dysfunction 6y ago
If you had really good shock absorbers you could intercept at an orthogonal trajectory and have the impact knock you into the desired trajectory... not practical but fun to think about.
- playerm1 6y ago
  The ultimate egg-drop challenge. I'm imagining some Vehicle Assembly Building-sized cloud of aerogel with a paperclip-size payload at the center.
throw1234651234 6y ago
The other argument is mass - most of the sensor could bury itself in the mass for safety. Yes on trajectory, but no on same trajectory, with same mass. Of course, this might be a moot point, because other than hiding from some radiation and micro-scoping impacts, as well as leaching resources (which we aren't really advanced enough to do), there is no benefit.