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Space

Spacecraft Made From Ultra Thin Foam Could Reach Proxima Centauri In 185 Years (newsweek.com) 155

Posted by EditorDavid from the interstellar-solar-sails dept.
An anonymous reader quotes Newsweek: A hypothetical spacecraft made from an extremely thin layer of a synthetic foam could technically make it to our closest neighboring star Proxima Centauri in just 185 years, scientists have said. If Voyager were to make the same journey, it would take around 73,000 years, according to NASA.

In a study that is due to be published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, René Heller from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Germany, and colleagues, propose the spacecraft as a precursor to interstellar travel — beyond our own solar system. They estimate a prototype would cost around $1 million, while the launch of an interplanetary mission would be around $10 million.

The spacecraft would be made from aerographite. This is a carbon-based foam that is around 15,000 times more lightweight than aluminium. It is versatile and light enough that it could be used to create solar sails — "which harness energy from the sun for propulsion, a process called solar photon pressure... In most cases, photons would have little impact on an object. But if the target is an ultralight material, such as aerographite, then the target can actually be pushed to significant speed," he said.

"We found out that a thin layer of aerographite, with a thickness of about 1 millimeter (0.04 inches), can be pushed to speeds that are sufficiently high to let it escape the solar system. Once it has gained an initial push from the solar radiation pressure, it will simply float through space...."

Heller said these spacecraft could travel far faster than any probe ever sent by humans before.
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Spacecraft Made From Ultra Thin Foam Could Reach Proxima Centauri In 185 Years More

Spacecraft Made From Ultra Thin Foam Could Reach Proxima Centauri In 185 Years

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  • At 4300 miles per SECOND... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cirby ( 2599 ) on Saturday August 01, 2020 @04:45PM (#60355917)

    ...hitting anything more massive than a puff of gas would turn it into a cloud of fragments.

    And, even in the ultra-high vacuum between stars, there's enough little bits and pieces floating around to do that, over the course of several light-years.

    • Would it though? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Saturday August 01, 2020 @04:57PM (#60355951)

      hitting anything more massive than a puff of gas would turn it into a cloud of fragments.

      Why wouldn't it simply puncture a hole in the extremely thin material? It seems like it's so thin, there is very little surface area to propagate any kind of shock wave from an impact...

      I'd be more worried about potential micro-collisions subtly altering course over such a long time and distance. In the middle of the journey since it's just floating, it seems like it would not be able to course correct without some heavier gear than just the big sail.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by cirby ( 2599 )

        Only if the thing it hit was a very small, very dense object, and only if there was only one or two hitting it.

        The other problem is that the material they're using would necessarily be incredibly stiff for its size, and incredibly stiff things tend to not do very well with high-speed impacts.

        • Only if the thing it hit was a very small, very dense object, and only if there was only one or two hitting it.

          Wouldn't anything out in interstellar space be very likely tiny and rare though? Running into any sizable anything much less a lot of it seems like it would be extremely unlikely.

          The other problem is that the material they're using would necessarily be incredibly stiff for its size

          I don't think that would be the case being so thin, the whole thing would be so light the panels would not have to be

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by Rockoon ( 1252108 )

            Wouldn't anything out in interstellar space be very likely tiny and rare though?

            ..because thats how space works. The smaller something in it is, the more rare that something is!

            Or, you can use your brain instead of being a mouth breathing ignorant. More planets than stars, more moons than planets, more asteroids than moons, ....

            Its the rule of numerous small and its NOT FUCKING NEW AT ALL.

            • I have to say, your strange, confusing and kind of ignorant rant which ignores the basics of solar systems does not make me more interested in your newsletter at all and I would not like to subscribe. :-/

            • More planets than stars, more moons than planets, more asteroids than moons, ....

              Its the rule of numerous small and its NOT FUCKING NEW AT ALL.

              And all next to nothing compared to the space they occupy.

            • Wouldn't anything out in interstellar space be very likely tiny and rare though?

              ..because thats how space works. The smaller something in it is, the more rare that something is!

              No. No, that is not at all how that works. It isn't even close enough to shake loose an explanation, either. You declared the universe to be a solid.

              • Of course it's solid - if space were a vaccuum you wouldn't have all those piu-piu noises of laser cannons and loud explosions during every single outer space battle ever committed to film between two starships! :)

                sci-fi wouldn't lie for dramatic effect, surely.

                • *sigh*

                  You're trying to be smart, but you forgot that:

                  1) those aren't lasers, you're confusing etymology with meaning; you can see them move from one side of the screen to the other, so you have no excuse for this mistake

                  2) firing projectile weapons that use an explosion to force the projectile out of a barrel would make noise in space, just a different noise.

                  3) explosions make sound in space. If you don't have sound, you don't have an explosion. The timing of who hears it when is very different, but there i

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • You have a Hollywood sense of what space is like. Even in the inner solar system, the odds of an accidental collision when traveling across the asteroid belt are astronomically small (one in a billion or so). The Oort Cloud is even more ridiculously sparse - it's vastly larger and not confined to a plane. You'd need to make a real effort to touch an object there.

            • "Filled with": no. The volume of space the Oort Cloud exists in is huge: from 2,000 out, to 200,000 AU. For all practical purposes, that can be treated as a sphere on the order of radius 100k AU, which is to say a volume (10**5)**3 = 10**15 times the volume contained within Earth's orbit. Whatever mass there is out there is spread out over that region, with a mass of the outer Oort Cloud estimated at 5xEarth, concentrated in chunks of around 1km**3 (taking this data from the Wikipedia article you referen

            • and it is most decidely filled with NOT tiny things, in fact just the opposite its filled by big icy things which is where we believe our long period comets come from.

              Complete hogwash, it isn't like that at all, read a fucking book for once in your damn life. That is stupid and simplistic.

              It is a dust cloud. A very thin dust cloud. It isn't "filled" at all.

              • ok, if you're so certain, and this is in a book, how about a citation?

                • Wikipedia is over there somewhere. You shouldn't be so credulous that you need people in a conversation to tell you where to find information. If you do that, people will fill your head with various things. Instead, learn how to use books. Then you'll be able to find the book, in order to look up the information.

                  In fact, he even linked the wikipedia above, that he didn't understand. It says, for example, that the outer Oort cloud has "neighboring objects tens of millions of kilometres apart" and a combine

          • Wouldn't anything out in interstellar space be very likely tiny and rare though?

            We really do not know. And therein lies the real value of such a probe: Probing the interstellar medium.

            Even if it doesn't get to Alpha Centauri in operable condition, knowing how it was destroyed, or the rate at which such craft are destroyed, or the mean distance one could travel, is very valuable data and will likely help pave the way to design the next generation of interstellar craft.

        • Why does it have to be stiff? It's a solar sail. It can flex.

      • Assuming deviating 100 million miles on arrival making any (unlikely camera pics) pointless, you'd need an orthogonal mph shift of 62 mph to deviate that far in ~180 years.

        Not very likely.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      It is an expendable vehicle, but useless for interstellar travel. The costs here are not in the craft, but in the support on earth to maintain the mission. No one is going to authorize such a mission.

      Voyager gave us the first real data on the edge of our solar system. It has maybe 5 more years of life and is 300 years from where we suspect the thing called the Oort Cloud is. What every exploration of space has indicated is that reality is often divergent in some significant way from hypothesis. Voyager re

  • What are we waiting for?

    Seriously. We've shat out four trillion dollars in federal spending in just the last four months, with another 1-3 trillion coming soon. Ten million is like the car dealer refusing to give you the complementary air freshener after you put down $50K on a new pickup.

  • Just Do It (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Saturday August 01, 2020 @04:54PM (#60355943)

    If all you need is $10 million, just Kickstart it and promise to send along an etched object with all the backer names on it.

    I wonder if that includes the launch costs to get it into orbit?

    • Why? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Saturday August 01, 2020 @05:59PM (#60356065) Journal
      What's the point of sending something like this that cannot report back whatever it finds at Alpha Centauri? It's great that we are now at the point of being able to send objects to neighbouring star systems but, until we can send a probe that can report back what it finds there, there does not seem to be much point.

      The other issue is whether we'll get there faster by waiting for better technology. Voyager was launched ~50 years ago and would have taken 73,000 years. Today we can launch an empty shell which will take 185 years. In another 50 years time, it is entirely possible that the travel time will have dropped by far more than 50 years.

      • Why not? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

        What's the point of sending something like this that cannot report back whatever it finds at Alpha Centauri?

        Your lack of desire to have something like this flying through interstellar space, is as baffling to me as my desire to se it out there is to you.

        People leave me flyers for stuff on my door all the time. There is still some value in sending stuff out and letting others know we are here, so they can come find us.

        But basically, it's just cool to have it out there...

        Let the court of Kickstarter decide,

        • Given it will take 184 years, and given the increasing technology and space exploration technology, this probe will make an excellent target for the 17th generation probe sent over 112 years later to report back on.

        • letting others know we are here, so they can come find us.

          4 light years is outside delivery range for most takeout.

        • There is still some value in sending stuff out and letting others know we are here, so they can come find us.

          Then why not send some photons? They are a lot cheaper to manufacture, they travel a lot faster and they will be a lot easier for anyone out there to detect.

          If someone on Alpha Centauri had the same idea as this and set a tiny, lightweight plastic shell to our solar system it would pass right through without us ever noticing: space is big. We would have far more chance to pick up a broadcasted radio signal thanks to projects like SETI but even this is far from easy.

          I want to get out into the galaxy a

      • What's the point of sending something like this that cannot report back whatever it finds at Alpha Centauri?

        What the article didn't mention was this large, flat surface was also going to serve as a intergalactic billboard for Prime Two-Day Shipping.

      • You would send one a year. Or even one a month.
        They would receive the signal from the previous one and repeat it to the trailing one.

        • How are you going to make a battery that meets the order-of-a-gram weight requirements and that can last over a century? There is no solar power in interstellar space.
      • They had the same question, but don't have a solution yet:

        Heller said the biggest challenges of building an aerographite spacecraft would be to construct something thin enough while also maintaining its structural integrity—especially during the launch into space. They would also have to build tiny, gram-sized, on board electronics that could transmit information back to Earth.

      • In another 50 years time, it is entirely possible that the travel time will have dropped by far more than 50 years.

        Dyson already did that some 60 years ago.

  • Transmission received... (Score:3)

    by Crookdotter ( 1297179 ) on Saturday August 01, 2020 @04:59PM (#60355955)
    Just needs to pull a 7,000 km diameter radio dish and a nuclear plant to deliver a radio signal back to Earth and it's set to go!
  • This seems pointless. 185 years to send a piece of foam to another star? Why?

    • Indeed, that was my thought as well. Without a payload - a scientific collection package, it's basically useless.

      For a probe to be useful, I think that it'd need, at a minimum, a transmission system to send findings back home, and probably a telescope system to do local survey work. Might want a few landing probes as well for any planets.

      We can't, yet, make that stuff that lightly, nor so durable that it can be expected to work after 2 centuries in vacuum.

      Plus, of course, in the intervening 2 centuries or

      • Voyagers and Pioneers are close to 70 years old and work perfectly fine.

        • Actually, no, they don't "work perfectly fine" anymore. They still work, but are on the ragged edges of failure, even for their limited mission set at this point. A lot of their equipment has outright failed.

          And you still need to figure that they're only at 1/3rd of the necessary endurance.

          So, no, we don't have the proven ability to build them at the necessary lightness and endurance for such a mission.

    • Re:Even if you could... (Score:5, Funny)

      by NEDHead ( 1651195 ) on Saturday August 01, 2020 @07:18PM (#60356217)

      ET Foam Home

    • Like all thought experiments, if you can't manage to think up a reason to do it, you're just not capable of the thoughts involved.

    • So that /. can herald its arrival with a news item, but instead of composing an all-new item, they will reprint this story about the proposed launch, and my teenage clone can post a comment about lazy editors printing a 185-year old dupe!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      to inflict foam on *their* oceans, instead of ours--of course!

      hawk

  • 60 days to Mars is remarkably fast. The fastest trip from earth to mars was Mariner 7, which took 128 days. The most recent trip in 2011 took 204 days.

    Speed is essential, as Mark Watney/Matt Damon can tell you. ;D

  • Pointless "thought experiment" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tiqui ( 1024021 ) on Saturday August 01, 2020 @06:24PM (#60356121)

    Many things make this a joke in the real universe we live within. First, and as others have pointed out, such a flimsy vehicle would not be structurally sound enough to withstand the trip - consider hitting even a particle of sand at those speeds. That's far from the only issue however. For the probe to have any value it would need some sensors, a computer, a radio for sending data back home and getting commands from home, systems for orienting the spacecraft and its antennas, etc. This all adds mass, and there needs to be structure linking the solar sail to that mass and spreading the load. That structure has mass too. Then you need to add heaters to keep the systems warm enough in deep space so that systems do not fail for thermal reasons. Then you need to add power supplies for those systems and the heaters, and fuel for the engines used to orient the spacecraft, and more structure to support all that...

    Of course, then you need a computer that will run without failure for 185 years. We all know Windows won't do that, but even Linux fanatics have no empirical evidence that their fave OS will run for 185 years without issue. Will modern semiconductors run for 185 years? There's no data on that, but we DO know that modern lead-free solders are guaranteed to fail in far fewer years (look up "tin whiskers").

    Remember: You cannot use solar power in deep space, and batteries need a power source to charge them.... so you either need some fuel source that you burn to generate power or a nuclear power source - both have significant mass - and that means more structure which adds more mass...

    Then consider the size of the antenna on the spacecraft: if there's no antenna, then there's no data returned to Earth and therefore no point to the proposed mission. Consider that for probes within our solar system, a large dish is needed on the probe and a massive dish at a place like the Goldstone site [wikipedia.org] is needed. A probe in interstellar space might well need a Goldstone-sized dish and an array of such dishes, possibly in a grin on the moon or in orbit might be needed at our end - a signal that's usable might be that weak at those distances. There are a huge number of unknowns here, and none of them likely will go in favor of making this idea easier to implement.

    I've only scratched the surface here; the point is that this is not a serious proposal and those proposing it know it. They clearly did not launch it as an actual scientific thing but as a pure day dream fantasy that's valuable only in a college dorm room beer-fueled bull session.

    • I always wondered about how much power is needed to communicate back from that far? Somebody smarter there combine Shannon-Hartley with today's receivers capabilities and predict power/antennae system to communicate form that far (at reasonable speed)?

      • Well, the Mars orbiter uses a 2kw radio [wikipedia.org] so if we extrapolate just that it would need to be (25.7 trillion miles / 59.7 million miles)^2 or 430,000^2 x 2000 or a measly 370 terawatts. Now we could use lower data rates and better receive antennas (like the best radio telescopes) to cut some of that power, but it’s still going to have to be massive to broadcast 4 light years. One possibility could be to use ultra fast pulse lasers to get the required beam energy albeit with a terrible data rate.

        • I can read the message now: ...---...

          • Pretty much. If you did a ultra short high speed fly by and had the next ten years to transmit the data it may be the easiest method. It’s kind of how we handle probes in the outer solar system today.

        • In theory the data bandwidth of a channel is proportional to signal-to-noise ratio. So possibly by lowering data rates the power required is lowered. But is there a practical limit though? (I suppose at some level and distance the density of photons go low enough that they start missing the receive antennae but practically the current receivers would have problems before that despite being cooled to lower the thermal noise.?).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ichijo ( 607641 )

      If you don't expect to be able to track it all the way to its destination, it lowers the cost considerably.

    • The go to power source would be a RTG just like conventional probes use today. Plutonium can get about half a watt per gram of fuel with a half life of 87 years. No data on making one last two centuries, of course, but it’s not far past what we already know how to do. Note that this could only power a sensor load, radio, etc for the flight duration but can’t supply sufficient power to accelerate on its main journey.

    • It doesn't have to communicate back from deep space. It would be fine waiting until it arrives to fire up the electronics.

      Communicating back isn't the only option. It would be interesting to communicate forward. It could arrive at the star, and just start up a low power beacon... just enough for whoever might be listening to locate the thing. Like Voyager, leave some instructions for how to call us back if they are interested.

      We'd probably never hear from it again, but for the price it would be an inter

    • We'll build all the machinery needed into an asteroid, and then fling that out of the solar system. In a little while (on a cosmic scale) it will pass through another solar system, do its measurements, and startle the natives.

      The asteroid provides a platform to build on, and you can use as much mass as you like with redundant systems and everything. It also provides shielding from impact, especially if you could pick a long, thin one, and orient it with most of its mass in front of the instruments, relative

  • Not interesting without instruments (Score:4, Interesting)

    by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Saturday August 01, 2020 @06:38PM (#60356147)

    We could also send a gold nucleus at near the speed of light if we wanted to. I think the threshold for interesting is when the object has some way so send some information back.

  • Aside from other important technical considerations, unless we have faster-than-light (preferably instantaneous) communications over distances measured in light-years, 'theoretical' is about as far as such an idea goes. In a minimum of 370 years, the human species may not even be around anymore to receive any data or pictures from such a probe. Hell, in 185 years, we may not be here, or our civilization may have collapsed.
    Sadly, without faster-than-light everything, ideas like this are in the realm of scie

  • Meh. I don't know where NASA gets its data from, but even cruising at warp 5, Voyager would only take 5 days to reach Alpha Centauri from Earth.

  • Show me a foam that wont disintegrate long before 185 years.

    • I have a dense Styrofoam cooler I keep in the trunk, my parents used to keep it in their car since they bought the cooler around 1980. Except for some dings from being in a trunk for 40 years, the foam it is made of has not deteriorated one bit except the orange top is a bit faded, but if u nick the orange top, underneath the surface is still the original color.

      Most foams today are made either cheap and disposable or environment friendly, if you avoid that it can be made extremely durable.

    • It's a carbon tube graphite foam.

    • Disintegrate? From what? It's not like it's going to be sitting out in the rain and snow and sunlight (at least it won't be in significant sunlight for long).

      • Temperature extremes, vibration, impacts, etc. Its not like getting it off of earth and to a point where it can sail through space is a gentle process, it has to ride a controlled explosion or two first. And its not like space is a super clean place, its not really an empty void. When you are travelling at great speed in a brittle structure it doesn't take much to cause a lot of damage, once that damage starts there will be nothing to stop it.

  • If the price to pay is that it will get there so fast that it will have but a few hours, at best, to make panoramic observations, and a few seconds for close up ones, the whole thing is far less appealing. Another issue is that chances are that within the next 185 years we'll develop means to make the trip much quicker. I.e. launch it now, and it will probably be left behind by a faster vehicle in 100 years time.
  • How many parsecs is that?

  • This solar sail keeps getting brought up regularly like some snake oil.
    Despite numerous attempts it hasn't proven to work and prominent scientists have suggested the idea is wrong. https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/... [arxiv.org]
    It really looks like this is a scam, someone is convincing suckers to invest in this idea.

  • Back in the 80s, they were saying a 50g probe with a 50 km solar sail would reach 1/4 light speed by the edge of the solar system.

    That's not a hundred year journey.

  • Proxima Centauri bans single use plastic spacecraft, citing pollution.

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