NASA news: Caltech nanomaterial ‘speeds spacecraft 134,000,000 mph’

/pitbulldogbreed.com ^ | 09/09/2018

[SunkenCiv]

The craft would turn itself or its sails around the halfway point, duh. Actually, they'd probably be furled after the craft hits heliopause.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

"R"

[zeestephen]

Does anyone know how to do the kinetic energy calculation for a micron size speck of space dust striking a sail or a space craft at 134 million miles per hour?

Second question - how do you slow down when you get to your destination?

[dfwgator]

[neverevergiveup]

Cool. So almost 20% of the speed of light. Pretty fast.. Theoretically you could send a probe a light year away in ~5 years.

[PapaBear3625]

How about brakes; what’s the manual give as the “stopping distance” at such speeds?

The sails use light from our Sun to accelerate. They will likewise use the light from the destination star to slow down.

[SunkenCiv]

Is there a “FoldingSpace@Home” project? ;^)

[I-ambush]

You can use computers until the Butlerian jihad.

[raiderboy]

I hope I dont have to pay for this. There is nothing out there and we are dead broke.

[JohnBovenmyer]

Giving the Centauris 17 years advance warning. At least, if any of them have read their Niven and Pournelle.

[PIF]

Yep. 21 years to get to Centauri. Still too slow.

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worse, there is deceleration time to be figured in either by reverse burn or orbital braking.

[KC Burke]

It sounds like I can power it from take off with the flash on my IPhone if I take 17 trillion pictures in a row.

[Vaduz]

At that speed wonder how they can avoid the rocks in space.

[Rurudyne]

I wouldn’t want to hit dust at that speed.

Basically ifthat speed could be obtained we’d be potentially (because slowing down would be just as hard as speeding up and the craft may have been damaged but not destroyed or have had a malfunction in flight) turning out probe into a cosmic event for whatever starsystem was unlucky enough to have it aimed at them.

[Rurudyne]

Lots and lots of praying.

[camle]

I thought the speed of light was 186,000 miles/sec. what am I reading wrong?

[camle]

miles/sec versus miles/hour.. ok...

[JennysCool]

From the source, it appears it was written by pit bulls.

[MichaelCorleone]

Is this a result of 0bama’s Muslim outreach project?

In his speeches mostly about himself lately, surely he would have mentioned that.

What would America do without 0bama’s wisdom?

[beethovenfan]

I’ll get to Proxima Centauri before they will.