Swarms of laser-flown bots visiting a planet light years away – and more NASA-funded projects revealed NASA is funding 13 ambitious projects that could potentially lead to space missions one day, ranging from scanning for signs of life on Mars to exploring a nearby exoplanet with thousands of swarming spacecraft. Under the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NAIC) program, the US space agency supports seemingly wacky ideas put …
Sadly (?), globally destructive nanobots are the work of science fiction. If they weren't, Shirley we would have discovered a half-chewed galactic spiral arm or two by now.
On the other hand, perhaps so-called "dark matter" is made up of lots and lots of paperclips ... be afraid, be very, very afraid.
"Coflow Jet, an aerospace company that builds electric aircraft and is also based in Florida, believes it can fly the first fixed-wing vehicle on Mars."
First step, making sure it has two forms of photo ID, is there three hours before their flight and passes all TSA security checks.
It may not matter. I've seen this sort of proposal multiple times over the years and no one ever seems to suggest ways a probe massing a few grammes, no matter how big the swarm, will, be able to transmit back to Earth in a way that's not drowned out by the local star. On the other hand, who else may be behind the recurring push for this idea that might be able to re-purpose "a laser capable of beaming approximately 100 gigawatts" which, presumable, will need to be able to run continuously, not just a single short pulse between charges.
They might have too much interference as they are doing the flyby, but they will need data storage because the bandwidth at that distance would be far too low to send pictures anyway. So they store all the data and use the star's gravity to change their path. Once they are suitably distant from that star they can begin dribbling out all the data they collected over the next months/years.
Though I wonder if it would be possible at that speed to enter a hyperbolic orbit with the star, and re-enter that system every few years/decades to collect more data.
The idea of using a laser to speed up is that the sail is getting many times standard solar radiation so it can get up to speed. In order to get that from a star the craft would have to get very close - and get hit not just by photons the laser generates but also the solar wind. The charged particles the solar wind is made is likely to shred the solar sail (and the craft itself) long before the photon density was sufficient to slow the craft.
We also really don't know how typical our sun is as far as solar wind, CMEs etc. but there is reason to believe it is more quiet than the average star. Lot of unknowns trying a strategy like that, though I suppose if the craft could sample the solar wind at a distance its onboard AI (since we can't exactly steer it from Earth 4ly away) could make a call whether to try to slow down, and how much, before entering a hyperbolic orbit. Maybe each orbit it takes a few percent of c off its speed and by the time the grandchildren of the launchers are old it could potentially enter an orbit around the most hospitable looking planet.
Assuming it can be powered and remain operational for so long, of course!
They would slow down using the stellar wind generated by the target systems star
Isn't that going to damage the sail, or the craft itself? Trying to slow down from 0.2c using the solar wind would be taking a LOT of hits from highly charged particles, and if the star has a CME in that direction it is goodnight craft.
Where do these tiny bots get the power to beam messages back?
Proxima Centauri.
One tiny bot can't push message 4+ light years but it can push one say a quarter of a LY to a trailing probe which in turn repeats the signal to another probe behind it and so on. Perhaps "swarm" is the wrong description, "column" or "line" might be better but does not sound so dramatic.
You'd need at least 3 types of mini-craft, the ones at the front would be advance observers which would send messages back to the second wave which would be the actual science probes telling them what to look at and the third set would be a long trail behind of message repeaters that have no other function but to enable communications.
How do they slow down?
They don't.
> sensors powered by nuclear batteries that generate electric power from radioactive decay to be used on the Moon, and Massachusetts
I read that as 'the Moon and Massachusetts' and started to wonder what catastrophe had left Massachusetts without the ability to generate electricity or get it from other states. Very likely an experiment going horribly wrong, conducted in secret by those pesky, meddling, left-wing, pinko boffins at MIT and Harvard.
So why is Airbus and ESA funding Perlan Project to get to 100,000 feet on Earth at which point the glider will have parts of wing airflow supersonic? Lower gravity will help but indicates to generate any useful lift Mach 0.5 will be required. Also avoiding Mons Olympus which sticks out of Mars atmosphere.
"Gentlemen, Everywhere humans have gone rats have gone. Get to work on solving the rat problem"
Fauna Bio, a biotech biz based in California, is drawing up plans for a microgravity hibernation device, named STASH, to be tested on the International Space Station. STASH is designed to keep rats in a state of torpor in temperatures held at four degrees Celsius.
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