Breakthrough Starshot

Grey Havoc

Grey Havoc

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This sounds quite useful actually...

I assume the array could be dialled down in power and used to propel larger in-system probes?

I wonder if the laser array could be used to clear up space debris?

What about ablating near earth comets to change their trajectory on future passes (or would it have to be much more powerful to do that?)

I also wonder if one could propel relay spacecraft and form a breadcrumb like trail of relativist relays in order to increase data bandwidth...?
 
By the way, could you also use such a large field of lasers for this?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_9ac-w4DW8

Perhaps you could build in aerodynamics to ensure that any small vehicle that failed in its ascent diverted a few kilometres while falling back and thus missed the laser field.
 
It's extremely challenging to get probes a few gram heavy to the next star system.
There's nothing really on the horizon that could get a probe there that would be able to sense and then radio back some findings over lightyears of distance.
 
Flyaway said:
If you're in the U.K. the last edition of The Sky At Night to be broadcast was all about this project in relation to Proxima b.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07vxfqp
Click to expand...

A highly fascinating episode. Makes you think if Alpha Centauri has Earth-like planets too since that is a more sun-like star than Proxima.
 
Now we are talking ! When i heard the news a few weeks ago on the radio (our national news service is a bit slow to catch up these things), i thought, 20 Years with a solar sail ?! Wow... they must have invented a whole new type regatta sail model with a space spinnaker. That's an incredibly short time to go to another star system with just a sail versus what i was reading about the minimum duration time needed with the state of the art theoretical propulsion systems just a few decades ago. But then the network neglected the part about the laser. It makes sense now.

So i might actually see what a world in another solar system looks like during my living years (if they accelerate the pace a bit). It will be fantastic if we can get images, hopefully, there will be a breakthrough.
 
Anton Petrov gives an update, looking at configurations, technologies, materials, and timetable. Links in the description. Even if it doesn't happen, it promises major advances in lightsails, communications and metamaterials that could be used, for example, to make lensless cameras.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwPTF_TZvWY&ab_channel=AntonPetrov
 
The challenge is building a probe small enough to get to the target at a reasonable time, yet big enough to send data back home.

This strikes me as the ideal use for nanotech, if we could make that work. Make it so that the probe can turn the lightsail into a radio antenna, for example.
 
Scott Kenny said:
The challenge is building a probe small enough to get to the target at a reasonable time, yet big enough to send data back home.

This strikes me as the ideal use for nanotech, if we could make that work. Make it so that the probe can turn the lightsail into a radio antenna, for example.
Click to expand...
Maybe they can use the other side of the lightsail as a solar panel to use the light from proxima as power to send the data to earth.
Maybe then more power then the power levels from a cell phone as in the current plan.
 
Scott Kenny said:
The challenge is building a probe small enough to get to the target at a reasonable time, yet big enough to send data back home.

This strikes me as the ideal use for nanotech, if we could make that work. Make it so that the probe can turn the lightsail into a radio antenna, for example.
Click to expand...
Why bother with radio? The drone is supposed to be equipped with lasers for both maneuvering and communications.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Mostly because lasers have terrible energy conversion efficiency. Though they have been getting better.
Click to expand...
So what? Their beams are not directly subjected to inverse-square law, which affect radio signals. And their beams are much better in penetrating interstellar medium. Not to mention, they allow much better data compression.

For microscopic probe, there is no point of even trying to use radio. Lasers are much more efficient - and it would be carrying lasers anyway as photon maneuvering drives. It's just reasonable to use them for communication also.
 
The Quiet Demise of Breakthrough Starshot, a Billionaire’s Interstellar Mission to Alpha Centauri | Scientific American


What remains is confusion among even scientists working on Breakthrough Starshot about the project’s status. According to an e-mail from Worden, Starshot’s executive director, who declined an interview for this article, “We have put the program on hold and are working to transition portions to others.”
[...]
it’s a study in the perils of relying on the ultrarich to fund science: when the guy with the billions is ready to move on, the whole project is off.
[...]
In 2019 Manchester was able to go for launch again, successfully deploying 105 ChipSats at once. He showed they could communicate with one another in space, acting as a swarm. The federal government let him fly them only once. “Then the [Federal Communications Commission] decided that we were going to destroy the world with space debris,” he says—which wouldn’t be a problem if they were headed way beyond low Earth orbit, to infinity and beyond.
[...]
“We got less than $200,000 spread out over eight years,” Lubin says. That was much less than NASA put toward Lubin’s directed-energy interstellar work, although Breakthrough’s press-centric approach meant its name was better associated with the project.
Click to expand...
 
Flyaway said:
"The perils of relying on the ultra rich to fund science"
Click to expand...
Truer words have never been spoken.

This is why nations need robustly funded institutions, without regard as to whoever the latest Howard Hughes is. You have to act like they don't exist, and plan accordingly.

Besides, I remember an old Forgettomori web-page called "Laser Stars, Laser Planets" where it was claimed that an asteroid hitting the Sun just so, would induce a laser beam back along its path. Chip craft could thus get a boost from that and/or a fresnel lens--no laser banks needed--just modified sunlight.
 
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Flyaway said:
The Quiet Demise of Breakthrough Starshot, a Billionaire’s Interstellar Mission to Alpha Centauri | Scientific American
Click to expand...
The Long Space Age is a worthwhile read for what drove astronomy and space science before the postwar period. It’s a shame Starshot is defunct, but the long list of canceled government projects should inoculate us against automatically assuming the public purse and bureaucrats are a better source of funding. Both options have their positives and negatives.
 
True--that is why government research needs better funding just in case private funds dry up.

Jared understands that at last:

“No, we’re going to go back to doing what we did before, because we’re going to rebuild the workforce that knows how to do these things.” NASA’s got to have those core competencies back within the agency"
https://nasawatch.com/ask-the-administrator/rebuilding-core-competencies-within-nasa/
Starshot autopsy...declare victory and go home?
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/03/03/starshot-is-a-success-part-i/
On sails
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094576526001347
 
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