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Hawking backs interstellar travel project


Waspie_Dwarf

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Hawking backs interstellar travel project

Stephen Hawking is backing a project to send tiny spacecraft to another star system within a generation.

They would travel trillions of miles; far further than any previous craft.

A $100m (£70m) research programme to develop the computer chip-sized "starships" was launched by the billionaire Yuri Milner, supported by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Interstellar travel has long been a dream for many, but significant technological hurdles remain.

But Prof Hawking told BBC News that fantasy could be realised sooner than we might think.

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I've always thought that all these billionaires could spend their money on interesting projects instead of spending only on themselves.

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I've always thought that all these billionaires could spend their money on interesting projects instead of spending only on themselves.

Investing in interesting projects is how most of them got to be billionaires in the first place.

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Investing in interesting projects is how most of them got to be billionaires in the first place.

I would kindly disagree in most cases. To become a billionaire one must follow the conventional rules that earn money. There may be innovation involved, but this innovation is still aimed at profit. I think more good could be done if the 1% would consider unconventional projects without $$$ profit for themselves as the main goal.

That Russian billionaire who spent 400 million $ on his yacht was a drop in the bucket for him, and he didn't miss that money he spent. I would think 400 million could have been used more usefully to aid humanity in some way.

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I thought most of our billionaires already did spread their money around. They just did it without shouting about it.

Back on to the good Professor. How much long do you all reckon we're going to have him for and who will be his replacement Man to Ask?

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I've always thought that all these billionaires could spend their money on interesting projects instead of spending only on themselves.

A lot of these billionaires do: The Giving Pledge

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Lockheed Martin's Ben Rich would be laughing his *ss off :D I mean 30 years, yeah, but in the FUTURE? :D

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from our point of view it would still take 30,000 years for it to get there. also we would never no if it arrived, since it wouldn't have the power to send back a signal. our current tv and radio signals only reach out about 2 light years.

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from our point of view it would still take 30,000 years for it to get there. also we would never no if it arrived, since it

wouldn't have the power to send back a signal. our current tv and radio signals only reach out about 2 light years.

Read the article.

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from our point of view it would still take 30,000 years for it to get there.

Since the entire point of the original artiole is a suggestion that we could produce vehicles capable of reaching a star within a generation this is clearly nonsense.

also we would never no if it arrived, since it wouldn't have the power to send back a signal.

Also nonsense. We have these things called radio telescopes. They are capable of detecting very faint radio signals.

our current tv and radio signals only reach out about 2 light years.

Even by your standards of just making stuff up this is rubbish.

Radio signals don't just go a little way and then stop. The continue, essentially forever but get fainter according to an inverse square law. That means if you double the distance then the signal is only a quarter the strength. Triple the distance and the signal is a ninth of the strength. However, given a powerful enough receiver (say one of those radio telescopes I just mentioned), you would be able to detect radio signals from Earth well in excess of 100 light years (Marconi made his first tarns-Atlantic transmission in 1901).

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
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In any case won't happen with a Minotaur engine. Possible thinking outside the box only, exploring theories like bending space by creating distortional space time waves. In other words this;

soccer-ball-in-net.jpg

Edited by qxcontinuum
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That would be a great way to get data back. Too bad people couldnt make the trip.

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from our point of view it would still take 30,000 years for it to get there. also we would never no if it arrived, since it wouldn't have the power to send back a signal. our current tv and radio signals only reach out about 2 light years.

Going at 20% of speed light will not take 30,000 years to cover 4.37 light years. There is something seriously wrong with your maths. Edited by Rlyeh
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Going at 20% of speed light will not take 30,000 years to cover 4.37 light years. There is something seriously wrong with your maths.

By all means of respect, Daniel has something seriously wrong with many things, objective reality and basic physics, just mention two. And construction of pyramids, apparently. He should really stick to the religious parts of the forum. I am not terribly impressed with his escapades there either, but I guess some more leeway is offered.

Cheers,

Badeskov

Edited by badeskov
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We have these things called radio telescopes. They are capable of detecting very faint radio signals.

In just thirty years are we really going to be able to design radio transmitters weighing no more than a gram or two that can transmit signals over a distance of four light years? I find that very difficult to accept.

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In just thirty years are we really going to be able to design radio transmitters weighing no more than a gram or two that can transmit signals over a distance of four light years? I find that very difficult to accept.

In sixty six years we went from our first heavier than flying machine to landing on the moon. I try not to underestimate the human ability to create new technology when the will and the money are there.

Besides it's not necessarily about the power of the transmitters but about the sensitivity of the receiversite back here on Earth.

And all this is ignoring the massive leaps currently being made in laser based space communications.

Only time will tell if we can do it but if we don't try we will never know.

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Since the entire point of the original artiole is a suggestion that we could produce vehicles capable of reaching a star within a generation this is clearly nonsense.

Also nonsense. We have these things called radio telescopes. They are capable of detecting very faint radio signals.

Even by your standards of just making stuff up this is rubbish.

Radio signals don't just go a little way and then stop. The continue, essentially forever but get fainter according to an inverse square law. That means if you double the distance then the signal is only a quarter the strength. Triple the distance and the signal is a ninth of the strength. However, given a powerful enough receiver (say one of those radio telescopes I just mentioned), you would be able to detect radio signals from Earth well in excess of 100 light years (Marconi made his first tarns-Atlantic transmission in 1901).

no that is physics. you travel at the speed of light your clock slowly advances. the clock on the planet quickly advances. this was measured on the moon flights. star trek gets around this with the warp field. star wars just ignores it.

Edited by danielost
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I would be grateful to be put right, but if the destination is 4.37 light years away and you aim to travel at a maximum of 20% of the speed of light then travel time would be around 22 years appx. Then allowing the time required to reach maximum speed, and possibly slowing down at the destination, the 30 year travel time makes perfect sense. The micro computer doing the journey would log the time elapsed as less than the 30 years, especially during the 20% of light speed but it would still be 30 years to us here on earth - or am I missing something crucial here? Serious question.

Edited to correct grammar.

Edited by Susanc241
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In sixty six years we went from our first heavier than flying machine to landing on the moon. I try not to underestimate the human ability to create new technology when the will and the money are there.

Besides it's not necessarily about the power of the transmitters but about the sensitivity of the receiversite back here on Earth.

And all this is ignoring the massive leaps currently being made in laser based space communications.

Only time will tell if we can do it but if we don't try we will never know.

Humanity has advanced in some areas in leaps and bounds, but the achievements often hide the fact that the improvements in technology are not always that massive. You have given rocket technology as an example so I will use that to make my point. The specific impulse of the engine used in the V-2 missile was 210 seconds. The specific impulse of the engine to be used on the Space Launch System is 430 seconds. That is only a doubling in almost three quarters of a century. The reason for that is there is a physical limit to how efficient a chemical rocket engine can be.

The transmitters on Voyager 1 produces 20 watts, and the probe is currently 17 light hours away. At 4.4 light years, Alpha Centauri is about 2,200 times further away. If Voyager 1 was at that distance, using the inverse square law, the signal would be about five million times weaker than it is now. Perhaps in thirty years we will have increased the sensitivity of radio telescopes by that much. Have we increased the sensitivity of radio telescopes by that much over the last 30 years?

I don't doubt we could make a transmitter - whether radio or laser - that could send signals from Alpha Centauri. What I doubt is that we could make a powerful enough transmitter that weighs only a gram or so.

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I know no-one can say for sure, but is there much danger of hitting "something" travelling that distance ? Would a few molecules be enough to kill it ?

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I would be grateful to be put right, but if the destination is 4.37 light years away and you aim to travel at a maximum of 20% of the speed of light then travel time would be around 22 years appx. Then allowing the time required to reach maximum speed, and possibly slowing down at the destination, the 30 year travel time makes perfect sense. The micro computer doing the journey would log the time elapsed as less than the 30 years, especially during the 20% of light speed but it would still be 30 years to us here on earth - or am I missing something crucial here? Serious question.

Edited to correct grammar.

No you are not missing something. :tu:

Humanity has advanced in some areas in leaps and bounds, but the achievements often hide the fact that the improvements in technology are not always that massive. You have given rocket technology as an example so I will use that to make my point. The specific impulse of the engine used in the V-2 missile was 210 seconds. The specific impulse of the engine to be used on the Space Launch System is 430 seconds. That is only a doubling in almost three quarters of a century. The reason for that is there is a physical limit to how efficient a chemical rocket engine can be.

The transmitters on Voyager 1 produces 20 watts, and the probe is currently 17 light hours away. At 4.4 light years, Alpha Centauri is about 2,200 times further away. If Voyager 1 was at that distance, using the inverse square law, the signal would be about five million times weaker than it is now. Perhaps in thirty years we will have increased the sensitivity of radio telescopes by that much. Have we increased the sensitivity of radio telescopes by that much over the last 30 years?

I don't doubt we could make a transmitter - whether radio or laser - that could send signals from Alpha Centauri. What I doubt is that we could make a powerful enough transmitter that weighs only a gram or so.

There is also the question of generating the power to run the transmitter on the spacecraft. The Voyager spacecrafts had 3 RTG's, ech weighing 37,7 kg (113,1 kg total). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MHW-RTG

Solar cells won't work in interstellar space and nuclear power has lower limits to its size, so I don't see how you could power a radio transmitter with a power supply that only weighs a few grams ?

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