[HN Gopher] Optimal Strategies for Exploring Nearby Stars
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Optimal Strategies for Exploring Nearby Stars
Author : beefman
Score : 30 points
Date : 2021-12-05 19:29 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.centauri-dreams.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.centauri-dreams.org)
| MisterBiggs wrote:
| Really cool thought experiment but it's hard to imagine making
| significant investments on a project that wouldn't produce any
| results until ~250 years. Any project on that time scale and that
| distance from "home" would likely need to be completely self
| sufficient so I would image the project would need a fully
| capable AI and self replication or at least some sort of very
| advanced manufacturing capabilities. Autonomous self replicating
| drones like in universal paperclips are likely the answer.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Yeah, the time scales involved are my go-to counterargument to
| the people who say other intelligent creatures should have
| conquered the galaxy by now.
|
| I suspect that for all realistic lifeforms, given travel at a
| few percent of lightspeed max, the ROI on interstellar travel
| (both on the financial and the individual-sacrifice-vs-benefit
| level) is so bad that you'll essentially only do it when your
| solar system is doomed.
|
| And that takes you from exponential growth down to essentially
| zero growth.
| cerved wrote:
| You'll probably be less disappointed if you read this as a
| paper about VRP using genetic algorithms as opposed to space
| exploration
| MisterBiggs wrote:
| Agreed. I'm actually doing a VRP using genetic algorithms for
| a final project right now. That said I feel like I know
| enough about the problem to know that I don't know enough
| about the problem to contribute to HN about it. Space
| missions are much closer to my wheelhouse.
| lmilcin wrote:
| Of course, even better strategy is to just sit at home and create
| a small fleet of drones that can use Sun's gravity as a lens to
| observe planet surfaces in nearby stellar systems with resolution
| in kilometers per pixel.
|
| At least this could be accomplished within our lifetimes.
| echelon wrote:
| Do you have any reference links? This sounds amazing.
| ant6n wrote:
| This has been talked about on centauri dreams lots of times.
| Example: https://www.centauri-
| dreams.org/2020/12/10/developing-focal-...
| ben_w wrote:
| Enjoy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens
| mkaic wrote:
| Holy cow, this is incredible. How have I not heard of this
| concept before?? Guess I'm one of today's lucky 10,000
| lmilcin wrote:
| 10,000 only applies to a concept that reasonably is known
| to everybody or almost everybody before they die (like
| the fact mentos thrown into bottle of pepsi does funny
| things).
|
| I suspect that only very, very small number of people are
| aware of this mission profile:)
| lmilcin wrote:
| The one downside is that you need multiple missions to
| observe just single target. The mission could potentially
| be modified to be good for more than one target but at the
| cost of length of the mission. The path of drones would
| have two intersect two points that need to be reached to
| observe two targets, but that would require most likely
| less hyperbolic (meaning slower) escape trajectory.
|
| The major benefit is that we don't need to invent anything
| new -- all required technology already exists. And the
| mission wouldn't even be that costly (at least in
| comparison). Just select the target, build (a dozen?)
| drones, shoot them on a right orbit into the Sun's gravity
| well and wait something like 20 years until they reach
| destination.
| mkaic wrote:
| Definitely seems like the kind of thing that would be
| made way more feasible with the advent of Starship
| bringing down launch costs 100x
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