Getting to Alpha Centauri in 16 years via Laser Propulsion

a reply to: stormbringer1701

Maybe their version of YT would claim proof of their version of Nibiru

so for kaptyen's star you'd need to know its travel path and velocity accurately to 12.8X2 years. you'd need that because its apparent locational fix is already 12.8 years out of date so you have to project not only 12.8 years into the future but the travel time of the beam so another 12.8 years after that and still be accurate enough to not whiff the probes too far away from the star to accomplish their mission.

I think it could be done but its not so easy as one would first think and it gets worse the farther away the target star is.

OTOH the laser beam cross section gets bigger the further out it gets so it might not be as big a proble...i guess it depends on just how big the "spot" is at 12.8 LY.

a reply to: stormbringer1701

Compared to what they are already doing that part is simple.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: stormbringer1701

Maybe their version of YT would claim proof of their version of Nibiru

Starred!

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: JadeStar

The new rovers take selfies. The new probes take selfies. That is the world we live in.

They should.

It keeps the taxpayer happy even if the scientific value is minimal. If it keeps people interested in the mission then selfies are a must

a reply to: JadeStar

It's the Kardashian era. Like you I just want the science, it's a hard sell though to people. If selfies gets the funding then it's gotta be done, still sad.

ETA: Even on ATS I see people demanding to defund NASA until every person on all of Earth is clothed and fed.

another sign of the kardashian era:

CW Leonis

The poor innocent star had the misfortune to become an urban legend sometime in 2008.

Google Sky dumped lots of astronomical data into its sky view, to make it more interesting than just looking at white specks on a black background. Since CW Leonis is pretty much invisible by ordinary light, Google opted to use a false color infrared image. This used data from the IRAS infrared space telescope, which unfortunately had severe issues when it imaged the star. The innocent star became a huge ugly multicolored blob with two long tails that were scanning artifacts (basically lens flares).

Later in 2008 some clown who was either a True Believer conspiracy theorist or a troll in search of lulz went to WikiSky and labeled the object 'Nibiru'. Well, it is a wiki after all.


Nibiru is an imaginary planet that far too many credulous conspiracy theorists believe passes by Earth every 3,600 years, allowing the ancient astronaut god-like inhabitants to invade us in their flying saucers and enslave the entire human race. Thanks to that show-oaf on WikiSky throwing gasoline on the fire, to this day there are periodic outbreaks on conspiracy forums about how CW Leonis is comin' ta getcha and the end is nigh.

antenna tech progress leads to things like this. this is for chatty mars probes but something similar could work for star probes.

www.space.com...

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
And then how many years to get information back? It's a hard sell to fund something you won't get any results for 40 years.

If you've setup your interstellar WiFi network, you just radio the data back.

You could even do science along the way.

Not a problem.