Hawking, Zuckerberg, Yuri Milner announce plan to send micro robots to Alpha Centauri

[RAMA]

Outlining a plan not much unlike the one I said would be the most likely to spread us/explore into space. It appears Milner will be contributing $10 billion to the project.

"The project will be directed by Pete Worden, a former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center. He has a prominent cast of advisers, including the Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb as chairman; the British astronomer royal Martin Rees; the Nobel Prize-winning astronomer Saul Perlmutter, of the University of California, Berkeley; Ann Druyan, an executive producer of the television mini-series “Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey” and the widow of Carl Sagan; and the mathematician and author Freeman Dyson, of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J."

"By all accounts, Mr. Milner was initially skeptical of an interstellar probe. But three trends seemingly unrelated to space travel — advances in nanotechnology and lasers and the relentless march of Moore’s Law, making circuits ever smaller and more powerful — have converged in what he called “a surprising way.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/s...tarshot-yuri-milner-stephen-hawking.html?_r=1

Can you fly an iPhone to the stars?

In an attempt to leapfrog the planets and vault into the interstellar age, a bevy of scientists and other luminaries from Silicon Valley and beyond, led by Yuri Milner, a Russian philanthropist and Internet entrepreneur, announced a plan on Tuesday to send a fleet of robot spacecraft no bigger than iPhones to Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system, 4.37 light-years away.

http://futurism.com/stephen-hawking-teams-billionaire-build-interstellar-spaceship/

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Is ET pro or anti Apple?

 

[intrinsical]

Its a big freaking waste of money. Here's Bill Nye explaining the size of the actual solar system.

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Using the Bill Nye scale, this project wants to shoot probes smaller than an electron from America all the way to China by essentially shooting them with a laser cannon.The probes have no way to control it's trajectory and yet it has to come close enough to a target no larger than a golf ball before any useful images can be taken. Otherwise, even if the probes make it to Alpha Centauri, all we will get are images of black space.

 

[sojourner]

The bigger problem is actually managing to broadcast a signal from something that small that's strong enough to be detected back on earth.

 

[Ronald Held]

waiting to read a research grade paper with the technical details.

 

[Kemaiku]

The bigger problem is actually managing to broadcast a signal from something that small that's strong enough to be detected back on earth.

Given how weak the signals from the Voyager probes are on just about crossing the edge of our solar system, picking up anything from Alpha Centuari, even given greater broadcast strength from a newer probe, would be next to impossible to gain any useful information from.

It's an interesting stunt to drive up interest in this field, but pointless in actual purpose.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Yeah this is very interesting stuff. It's designed to motivate and interest people I think. I wonder how the signals would fare if we had launched relays or boosters around our solar system to pick up signals from probes we send out..

Would that make a difference?

 

[RAMA]

The initial "research" investment will be $100 million apparently. I doubt they'd be willing to commit that if they didn't think the possible returns would be for the positive. I'll be keeping an eye on this, though obviously it's a long range project.

RAMA

 

[Ronald Held]

The lasers would have other commercial uses.

 

[Dryson]

One way to get people interested is to have them donate a certain amount of money. For a certain amount of money donated to the mission you receive a possible T-shirt with the Mission name on it, etc., with the top donation amount having their name placed onto a data chip and sent along with the mission.

How many names would it take to reduce the velocity of the probe by only a kilometer per hour?

Here as some Kickstarter Ideas I brought up to the Team on Prof. Hawkings Facebook Page.

Another way to get people interested in the mission is to offer various rewards for an amount donated. For example:

Level 1: $20 - A T-shirt with the Mission name on it and your name on the pocket
Level 2 : $45 - T-shirt and Mug with the name on it. Your name on the mug
Level 3: $55 - T-shirt, mug and hat with mission name on it. Your name on the hat.
Level 4: $65 Level 1 - 3 plus a Skype visit with one of the mission planners.
Level 4: $75 Choice of one item from Level 3, Skype visit and reproduced print of the image above.
Level 5 : $100 - Choice of two Level Three items, Skype visit and reproduced print of the above image with Limited Edition numbering.
Level 6: - $125 Choice of two level two items Skype visit and limited reproduction of the above image plus an autographed image from one of the mission team members.
Level 7: $150 Level three item, Skype visit, limited reproduction print plus a autographed reprint of one of Stephens many theories.
Level 8: $200 - Level Seven + Hawking Coin
Level 9: $275 - Level Eight + Mission Team Coin with your name it.
Level 10: $350 - Level Nine + hand painted image of the image above signed and numbered as a limited edition collection piece.
Level 11: $450 - Level Ten + a replica of the craft used in the mission as well as your name encoded on a data chip and sent along with the mission.

For Levels One through Four for an additional three dollars your name would be entered into a drawing to have your name encoded on the chip sent along with the mission. Each Level up to four would have a total of 100,000 names for 400,000 random names picked from the Four Levels to be added to the chip.

Levels For an additional $50 of any level you could also have your name engraved on a plaque with the mission craft and moto as well as having the mission coin and team mission coin mounted on the plaque where the coins could be removed and showed to people or carried as a sentiment of prosperity. Or for $125 you could purchase the Mission Plaque separately. The Mission Plaque would have your name entered automatically onto the mission chip.

Which one would you choose?

 

[Kemaiku]

None, it's a waste of yet more money.

 

[arch101]

The only way to reasonably send signals back would be to drop relay craft all along the way. I must admit, the long-shot idea that I may actually live long enough to see pics of the Alpha Centauri system is VERY compelling.

 

[B.J.]

If we want any of us to live to see that, it's going to need a VERY powerful engine. Four+ light years is an extremely long way away. It took New Horizons more than 9 years just to get to Pluto, and that's (unless I got my conversion wrong) not even .0008 ly! And that was a rather speedy probe.

If they want this to work, they're going to need a *major* breakthrough in propulsion.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

The only way to reasonably send signals back would be to drop relay craft all along the way. I must admit, the long-shot idea that I may actually live long enough to see pics of the Alpha Centauri system is VERY compelling.

That's basically my idea too. I mean with all the probes that we do send out I am surprised no one has considered the idea of dotting relays all over our solar system to catch signals too weak to make it to Earth, boost them and send them home.

 

[sojourner]

Space is REALLY big. It would cost a fortune to set up a "net" of repeaters to boost signals from individual probes. Better spend that money on the probes themselves to make sure they can phone home.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Space is REALLY big. It would cost a fortune to set up a "net" of repeaters to boost signals from individual probes. Better spend that money on the probes themselves to make sure they can phone home.

If we ever have a permanent manned presence on any of the nearby planets or ships out there we are going to need repeaters at some point in time.

 

[sojourner]

Nope, see my previous response. it still applies.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Nope, see my previous response. it still applies.

It does if we keep depending on money........ And yes space is BIG...

 

[sojourner]

Well communism didn't work, so....

 

[Doom Shepherd]

None, it's a waste of yet more money.

Feh. It's private money, and it isn't "wasted" so much as "spent" (not like we launch money into space), so let them blow all they want. Puts it back into circulation for the rest of us.