3 ms·

....we have never hit anything at interstellar distances, which are several orders of magnitude farther than interplanetary distances.

Retric 5y ago
I didn’t say we have, just that we can. The closest Star is ~268,770 AU where voyager 1 is only 152.6 AU. However, being able to target a probe within 50 feet at 150AU, means hitting a planet sized target at 4.25 light years. Building a probe large enough and fast enough to do significant damage at the other side is the hard part, not targeting. Calculating where a planet sized object would be by the time our probe got there is a different story.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  Voyager is not traveling a relativistic speeds. We could definitely defend against someone sending voyager at us.
  - Retric 5y ago
    That’s moving the goalposts. I said we could hit a planet at those distances not that we can create a relativistic impactor.
    - edgyquant 5y ago
      No it isn’t since the whole topic here is that any civilization capable of accelerating an object to relativistic speeds and hitting a target from light years away is capable of defending against one. We can send voyager to target an object on the other side of the solar system but we are also perfectly able to defend against a potential voyager. Just because you now claim to not be addressing the actual goal at hand doesn’t mean I moved the goalpost; if anything you’re now implying you did.
      - Retric 5y ago
        Voyager 1 isn’t a weapon so defending against it is kind of a meaningless argument. The Parker Soar probe is aiming for 0.064% the speed of light and covered in scientific instruments and shielding. So that’s arguably a solid baseline of what we could do in terms of speed. Even at those speeds we are still talking 8,000 years to the closest planet making it a poor weapon. Still, I doubt we could detect a barrage of incoming 0.0005c weapons designed for minimal levels of stealth in time to do anything about it.

Retric 5y ago

I didn’t say we have, just that we can. The closest Star is ~268,770 AU where voyager 1 is only 152.6 AU. However, being able to target a probe within 50 feet at 150AU, means hitting a planet sized target at 4.25 light years. Building a probe large enough and fast enough to do significant damage at the other side is the hard part, not targeting. Calculating where a planet sized object would be by the time our probe got there is a different story.

edgyquant 5y ago
Voyager is not traveling a relativistic speeds. We could definitely defend against someone sending voyager at us.
- Retric 5y ago
  That’s moving the goalposts. I said we could hit a planet at those distances not that we can create a relativistic impactor.
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    No it isn’t since the whole topic here is that any civilization capable of accelerating an object to relativistic speeds and hitting a target from light years away is capable of defending against one. We can send voyager to target an object on the other side of the solar system but we are also perfectly able to defend against a potential voyager. Just because you now claim to not be addressing the actual goal at hand doesn’t mean I moved the goalpost; if anything you’re now implying you did.
    - Retric 5y ago
      Voyager 1 isn’t a weapon so defending against it is kind of a meaningless argument. The Parker Soar probe is aiming for 0.064% the speed of light and covered in scientific instruments and shielding. So that’s arguably a solid baseline of what we could do in terms of speed. Even at those speeds we are still talking 8,000 years to the closest planet making it a poor weapon. Still, I doubt we could detect a barrage of incoming 0.0005c weapons designed for minimal levels of stealth in time to do anything about it.