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I don't see a date announced for launch, and I see a lot of technology that needs to be invented for this to be feasible. How likely is it to happen within the

I don't see a date announced for launch, and I see a lot of technology that needs to be invented for this to be feasible. How likely is it to happen within the next 10 years? I'm just thinking about my old roommate, a space science postdoc, who told me about all these cool propulsion projects that sounded very feasible. That was—sheesh—20 years ago, and I keep waiting for any of them to be real.

Sharlin 2y ago
It's just a question of funding. There's nothing that's needed to accelerate small enough probe on an escape trajectory at a few hundred km/s except plain old chemical rockets with enough stages. If we can accelerate a >500 kg probe to 20 km/s, we can certainly use an extra stage with 400 kg of propellant to boost a 1 kg probe to much higher velocities. And nobody talked about the next ten years. The GP said "fifty years", which is way too long a time span to have any certainty whatsoever as to what will happen. GP's assertion was 100% ludicrously overconfident.
- karaterobot 2y ago
  Just a note: I responded directly to a comment that said it could be built with today's tech, let alone 10, 20, or 50 years.
  - Sharlin 2y ago
    Ah, yes, it was my own comment :D Sorry for the confusion. What I meant was that bog-standard chemical rockets work just fine for ~100 km/s if the payload mass is low enough and you use enough stages.
  - Sharlin 2y ago
    But note that "within a decade" I meant "within a decade from launch".