3 ms·

I would really like to see a comparison of this against the idea of sending an array of drones to Oort cloud that could use our Sun's gravitation as a lens to i

• bloopernova 3y ago
  If the imaging drones needed to move, wouldn't that mean a huge amount of delta-v? Or would the drones only need to move a few kilometres between each imaging? I guess if we were at the level of sending drones to the Oort cloud, we'd be able to set up some automated refueling factory/station out there too.
  • onetimeuse92304 3y ago
    You need quite a lot of delta-v to get to Oort cloud and then decelerate, within reasonable amount of time. Once you are there, you need relatively little delta-v to move around, mostly limited by how fast you want to reach your new destination. As to automated refueling... Oort cloud is absolutely enormous. And we are not just talking sending something to one or any point in there, we are talking about traveling all over the place because to image a planet you need to position yourself at exactly right point on the opposite side of the sun and at the right distance from it. I don't think refuiling works. I think what would be much simpler is to locate candidates for imaging and then send disposable drones with the only job being reaching the destination as quickly as possible with all the fuel they have (accelerate/decelerate as hard as possible with some kind of ion engine).