More - My lifetime Interstellar travel

 

More - My lifetime Interstellar travel

 

 

What is this about?

This is not sci-fi but my defined engineering fiction or eng-fi, different as no new science is assumed and hence a meaningful time estimate is possible. It is about going to the nearest star and living long enough to see it in my lifetime.

Humans travel interstellar, without discovering new sci-fi things like wormholes or significant breaks in warp drive. That it can be so in my life is to live to 2090 or more given no further progress is assumed in the next 80 years, the minimum expected healthspan growth by current technology, as this letter https://aaqg-arunarya.blogspot.com/2023/01/spanish-living-to-2090.html shows, based on this essay https://aaqg-arunarya.blogspot.com/2023/01/latest-link-on-recommended-anti-aging.html.

 

And when does it happen given aging retardation?

I write only engineering fiction, different from sci-fi, based only on existing science, and can hence lay down time estimates based on the challenges to top-quality engineers. I estimate between 100-year anniversary of the sputnik launch in 2061 and the centenary celebration of the moon landing in 2069. 14–20-year mission to the nearest star including the light return of data of 4 years. I will be there.

 

Why is chemical propulsion, despite muskian reuse, bad?

Rocket equation,  https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-56852104cc5542d450eb04e290160a7f as derived from energy and momentum preservation. It shows that the increase in velocity is proportional to the log of the mass of the rocket ejected, despite any technology but an anti-matter engine rocket! Any rocket, including fusion, will fail to even get a substantial light speed fraction! So I used to think a problem will be solved after the next million years -with a long time to collect the required amounts of anti-matter. But there already are three ways, to send camera missions! And 1 to send humans by end of the century.

2 are to side-step rocket equation by ejecting no mass from the rocket. One is to find anti-matter in tonne quantities.

1. Break-thru shot method

The entire spaceship, camera, and signal return electronics and antenna are miniaturized to a 1-2 gm size. Next, a spaceship goes to the target area of a huge laser on earth, Several thousand copies of the spacecraft will be accelerated in the same trip. Each spaceship has a large sail (material or magnetic) that is targeted by an earth-based laser, like in chili. Human-less chip spaceships can easily tolerate 10,000 to 100,000 *g accelerations and can be sent to alpha-0century within a day! At least 1 in a thousand will survive - a molecular concentration of 1 per sq.m is expected. And various things can improve chances.

2. Anti-matter bodies are found in the solar system.

That is likely given that one camera of NASA has detected some anti-matter molecules in its scans. Sun has been likely producing a few nano gm of anti-matter per year for 5 billion years. If they were collected somewhere, likely because the telescope does not see extinction events over decades, maybe it is found!

3. This is a new amazing method based on dynamic soaring. Gliders flying between two streams at different velocities can switch back and forth between them and go much faster than either stream to 850 mph, never mind no fuel! Birds can fly in loops and get substantial boosts.  The albatross can go 5000km per week, doing it has been documented, repeated fact! Near sea level, the air is calm, and the wind blows frequently at 300 feet! Sun blows solar wind slower at the top and faster at the equator. 

Now for the science. Kinetic energy is 0.5 *m  * square(v). Using the Rocket equation,  one can show that a chemical rocket needs the mass of the rest of the universe to go to the nearest star! But what if most of the energy is from an astronomical event of a two-speed stream, that is independent of mass and is not carried by a rocket! In fact, part of the rocket has some mass to be ejected at very high speeds! Now energy is boosted further, at very high speeds only for a faster boost! One can get to 1% of light speed relatively quick by the solar wind. Boost to 50% of light speed happens in heliopause and one has a lot of fast loss mass then to make the rest of the gap in 1-2 years. Lots of mass to speed up to 50%  times light speed.

At those speeds, even collision with molecule-level dirt will be fatal. However, magnetic barriers can defend us from these kinds of troubles. Indeed, there is a vast level of engineering and money needed. But the science is there! Not required for a claim of solar and interstellar travel break-thru.

Another thought is to spray some previous dirt in the forward direction, destroy any oncoming small junk and reclaim the spray by a screen deployed at the forwardmost point for reuse by respray ahead!

 

What new things can come with bio-immortality and this break-thru?

The nearest star is Proxima century, having a slightly bigger planet than the earth planet in the gold-i-lock zone, and is under intense observation from the JWST web telescope, which says the best target for it is tidily locked to the star, like the moon is to earth, with no relative spin. So the same side faces the sun.

The part facing the sun is very hot and the other side is in perpetual darkness and very cold. Even such places can have new life close to the divider and JWST can look for artificial lights - very badly - but seems to have found them(James Webb Telescope Detected Artificial Lights On Proxima B https://www.blog.sindibad.tn/james-webb-telescope-detected-artificial-lights-on-proxima-b , also ALMA detects artificial light on Proxima B https://seriesstories.com/james-webb-telescope-detects-artificial-light-on-proxima-b/)! Ultimately we await the successor telescopes in 2035 and a robot camera's journey to the planet. 

Why are you afraid of USA competition?

A'nt and welcome friendly competition to NASA. It validates multi-decade free entry and some hand-holding. Even NIAC supports this direction. Why do I call on our Astroscientists?

1. It is doable.

2. Much cheaper than the USA.

3. Needs and delivers miniaturization of all components - electric, electronic, photonic, mechanical, propulsion, etc. Every such technological progress has immense co-benefits.

4. Will have virgin applications in our solar system, whether or not we win the interstellar competition. The one most wished for is asteroid mining.

And why should NASA get all the glory?

Indian Astro-scientists can do a project cheaply, once the government agrees to chip miniaturization production, already a project of separate great importance. Never mind interstellar, quick robot spacecraft gives us a useful lovely shot at solar planets, billions of Kuiper belt objects, and even trillions of Oort cloud denizens.

What does this project mean to you?

Neptune in 1.5 years, anyone? Bus service between earth and mars! Anyone who predicts I will be bored for the next 1000 years is nuts! Long-lived trees equal life for me. Uploaded life means 10000 years and the defeat of all other modes of death and travel at lightspeed unbored universe travel. Optical unbored quick travel is for a million years. It is a big universe out there. Optical travel could be billion or trillion years. That is enough time to think about the next quadrillion years. Stars would begin to die without replacement then. Traveling to other muli-verse objects keeps you busy quadrillion years living off black holes meanwhile.