I thought this article about the real life Voyager mission was interesting. Amazing how long it's been going, w/ so few problems.
Voyager (the real-life one)
- Thread starter Tora Ziyal
- Start date
Yeah, I enjoy catching up with the Voyagers. You always hear about it when they make some kind of news, but even without that, about once or twice a year I'll get the bug and go read up on what they've been doing and where they're doing it.
I so wish we had other old missions like this. While I love the adventure and romance of HSF, I've come to accept the idea that with our current resources (that is, the puny portion of our resources allotted to space exploration and study) it is far more practical and advantageous to have dozens, hundreds, even thousands of unmanned scientific missions shooting out in all directions at many different speeds.
Does anyone know the fastest practical speed we could attain for an unmanned spacecraft, while still doing valuable scientific research? I would assume that you can learn something at any speed, but it seems to reason that ideal craft for setting speed records may not be the ideal craft for gathering massive amounts of data.
I would love a mission of 30 (or more) similar spacecraft, all launched within a few years of each other. There would be mission goals for the whole program, possibly mission goals for small "fleets", and certainly mission goals for each craft. Maybe send two of these little guys for a few missions deemed of highest importance, like "Criticality 0". A few of the instruments would be (at least nearly) identical on all craft, but there would also been instruments tailored to each craft's individual of "fleet" mission.
Imagine 30-50 little guys buzzing in every direction sending data back to Earth for possibly hundreds of years. Expensive to maintain? You betcha *wink*. I bet it wouldn't even come to 1/4th of what the shuttle program has cost.
I so wish we had other old missions like this. While I love the adventure and romance of HSF, I've come to accept the idea that with our current resources (that is, the puny portion of our resources allotted to space exploration and study) it is far more practical and advantageous to have dozens, hundreds, even thousands of unmanned scientific missions shooting out in all directions at many different speeds.
Does anyone know the fastest practical speed we could attain for an unmanned spacecraft, while still doing valuable scientific research? I would assume that you can learn something at any speed, but it seems to reason that ideal craft for setting speed records may not be the ideal craft for gathering massive amounts of data.
I would love a mission of 30 (or more) similar spacecraft, all launched within a few years of each other. There would be mission goals for the whole program, possibly mission goals for small "fleets", and certainly mission goals for each craft. Maybe send two of these little guys for a few missions deemed of highest importance, like "Criticality 0". A few of the instruments would be (at least nearly) identical on all craft, but there would also been instruments tailored to each craft's individual of "fleet" mission.
Imagine 30-50 little guys buzzing in every direction sending data back to Earth for possibly hundreds of years. Expensive to maintain? You betcha *wink*. I bet it wouldn't even come to 1/4th of what the shuttle program has cost.
And if they ever get bored out there, there's always the Golden Record - the ultimate mix-tape. 
Just imprint one thing on all future probes: If you come home, do not destroy earth or kill humanity UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.
Rock on Voyager 
Great, until it get scrambled into ".. ... come home, .. ... destroy earth .. kill humanity .... .............."
Great, until it get scrambled into ".. ... come home, .. ... destroy earth .. kill humanity .... .............."
They'll make that decision on their own, after being rickrolled.
