Someone should send the entire wo.m database on a satellite to Proxima Centauri to serve as the last trace of humanity when we’ll be long extinct and eventually the Sun will engulf us
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I’ve been really interested on how one could arrive at Proxima reasonably quickly
One option would be to use an electric sail (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_sail ) which could get you going 20 km/s without gravity assists!!!
…………which is just under 0.00008% of the speed of light, if I’ve done my math right.
That would still take (I think) approximately just under 12500 years to get to Proxima.
With powered flybys (which I haven’t done the math on) you could theoretically get even faster, however.
Correction: It would take just under 5,300 years, I think.
Also, solar sails could maybe let you go faster when you’re closer to the sun, and you could use an electric sail at the same time as a solar sail.
Also, powered flybys are more effective when you have higher thrust. Solar and electric sails are very low thrust, so you may want to have some sort of chemical rocket engine on board as well.
Just found out about Q-drives: https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2020/03/27/introducing-the-q-drive-a-concept-that-offers-the-possibility-of-interstellar-flight/
Well it would be very interesting to work out a system to send it, but even if you did that, we wouldn't have the funding to actually send it there :/
Time to set up a gofundme
and i doubt the trump administration would like to keep or increase nasa’s budget
I’m in the UK and I’m French I could perform a little bribery to obtain said funding :3 (also good luck being in the USA if that’s where you are)
I’m lucky I’m not American
(I hail instead from the land of igloos, beavers, moose, monopoly money, apologies, war crimes, and maple syrup)