To infinity and beyond, with a swarm of tiny computers costing under $1K each

Boffins believe the future of space exploration may belong to small, affordable probes sailing away under the Sun's power. In a pre-print paper titled, "BLISS: Interplanetary Exploration with Swarms of Low-Cost Spacecraft," authors Alexander Alvara, Lydia Lee, Emmanuel Sin, Nathan Lambert, Andrew Westphal, and Kristofer Pister …

[StLMintNewbee]

Reminds me of when we learned the mars rovers were using beefed up apple G3 processors - forget what they were called. Not the fastest but very reliable.

[Spamfast]

Von Neumann Effect

Don't forget to equip them with the ability to self-replicate.

Berserker Base here we come. (Or Mantrid Drones if you prefer.)

[RockBurner]

Re: Von Neumann Effect

Aggressive Hegemonising Swarm Object anyone?

(Mine's the one with the pen terminal in the pocket).

[b0llchit]

Re: Von Neumann Effect

The return of the army of V'Ger?

[midgepad]

Berkeley Distribution going far

A good Standard, that.

[prandeamus]

"You will be assimilated into BLISS. Resistance is futile."

[Howard Sway]

BLISS : Berkeley Low-cost Interplanetary Solar Sail

Good job they didn't call it the Berkeley Spaceship Distribution.

If they only cost $1000 each, why not offer to let people pay $1000 to have their name and face engraved on one before it sets off to the wild black yonder and cover the costs? I reckon loads of people would sign up for this.

It might be a bad idea though, if the thing got stuck in the interstellar gas take-in port of an alien spaceship. They would know who to blame when they came angrily looking for revenge.

[Falmari]

Re: BLISS : Berkeley Low-cost Interplanetary Solar Sail

What a brilliant idea --->

[H in The Hague]

CubeSat volume

"... are smaller than a 10 cm3 1.33 kg (3 lb) CubeSat.""

According to the linked NASA information CubeSats are 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm = 1000 cm3 (not 10 cm3), or 1 litre,

[ravenviz]

They (including Stephen Hawking RIP) keep on going on about tiny probes going to the stars. How on, er, Earth are they going to get enough energy and signal focus to communicate back with us Terrans?