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Questions tagged [interstellar-travel]

Questions regarding travel on a cosmic scale, from one star to another.

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Interstellar travel by lightsail – what are the main factors of the trajectory uncertainties?

Lightsail (solar sail or sail accelerated by lasers) is a theorized as realistic way for interstellar travel. Breakthrough Starshot is the most prominent example. Let’s assume we have a thin enough ...
Heopps's user avatar
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5 votes
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How do you "make" a soliton? (recent peer-reviewed theoretical work in FTL travel)

I've just read an Article on the new approach on Warp Drives Dr. Erik Lentz describes. Instead of creating a bubble with negative energy density, he describes a Soliton in spacetime, which he ...
Mat NX's user avatar
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Breakthrough Starshot's 100 Gigawatt laser array - what's the current thinking how this might work?

In the article Breakthrough Starshot tricks out massive telescope for planet hunting there is casual mention of a "phased array of lasers in the 100GW range" that will propel a gram scale spacecraft ...
uhoh's user avatar
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4 votes
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What is the required laser intensity to ionize interstellar gas in front of a Bussard ramjet?

In a Bussard ramjet interstellar gas is collected using a large magnetic field to be fused and used as reaction mass. While a number of papers have explored the constraints on the magnetic field, what ...
Anders Sandberg's user avatar
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Help: Specific Quote for Interstellar Spaceship

I know that this quote exists, i just don't know who said it or the specific language. The quote goes something like this: If we ever decided to send a manned spaceship (generational ship) to ...
John Faurbo's user avatar
2 votes
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Could a “solar gravitational synchrotron ” use solar thermal rockets to "powerslide" spacecraft out of the solar system?

Could a “solar gravitational synchrotron ” use solar thermal steam rockets to launch spacecraft out of the solar system? Solar thermal steam rockets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_rocket have ...
Woody's user avatar
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2 votes
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Detecting light leakage from starshot-like probe

Would we be able to detect the light "leaking" around a light sail, from a startshot like probe, which is launched from a nearby star system towards Earth?
fibonatic's user avatar
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2 votes
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Did anyone suggest theories on the sounds voyager 1 captured from 2012-2013?

I was watching this on the JPL Youtube channel and it doesn't have much context other than 2 minutes of footage, and cuts to slides with some information, but not a lot of information. I'm wondering ...
Magic Octopus Urn's user avatar
1 vote
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240 views

How much D2O does it take to power an interstellar generation ship O'Neill cylinder for 10,000 years?

Did I do the math right? I'm using full precision but write only 2 sig figs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion#Criteria_and_candidates_for_terrestrial_reactions ...
darsie's user avatar
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