The Exploratory Imperative

by | Jul 8, 2015 | | 19 Comments

If you're a long-time reader of this site, you doubtless share my fascination with the missions that are defining our summer -- Dawn at Ceres, Rosetta at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and in the coming week particularly, New Horizons at Pluto. But have you ever wondered why the fascination is there? Because get beyond the sustaining network of space professionals and enthusiasts and it's relatively routine to find the basic premise questioned. Human curiosity seems unquenchable but it's often under assault. 'Why spend millions on another space rock?' was the most recent question I've received to this effect, but beyond the economics, there's an underlying theme: Why leave one place to go to another, when soon enough you'll just want to go to still another place even more distant? The impulse to explore runs throughout human history, but it's shared at different levels of intensity within the population. I find that intriguing in itself and wonder how it plays out in past events....

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End of an Era in Planetary Exploration?

by | Jul 7, 2015 | | 24 Comments

While both Alan Stern and Glen Fountain admitted to having anxious moments over the weekend when New Horizons went silent, it became clear at yesterday's news conference that those moments were short and quickly subsumed with ongoing duties. Stern is principal investigator for New Horizons, and the man most closely identified with making the mission a reality, while Fountain is project manager for New Horizons at JHU/APL in Maryland. It was Stern who pointed out that the spacecraft has been in safe mode a number of times already. Nine times, as a matter of fact, since launch, although as of yesterday we are back in the realm of normal operations. So the circumstances were not unfamiliar even if this safe mode came so close to destination that it raised inevitable concern and a flutter of worry on Twitter. Stern said he was in the control center six or seven minutes after getting the call that something was wrong. It also turns out that this was the first safe mode occurrence in which...

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New Horizons: A ‘Timing Flaw’ Scare Resolved

by | Jul 6, 2015 | | 12 Comments

You get to expect the unexpected when writing about space probes, but somehow what New Horizons did to my weekend completely blind-sided me. Running a routine check of email before (I thought) sliding into the rest of a relaxing work break, I found messages about the glitch on the Pluto-bound spacecraft. Sunday turned into an all-screens-on exercise in checking multiple feeds and waiting for news. The problem with New Horizons brought to mind a short story I wrote many years ago about an unmanned probe sent to Epsilon Indi on a 90-year journey. The probe is within a month of encounter when all goes silent and Earth controllers can only wait to see what happens. The point of the story (it was called "Merchant Dying," published in Charlie Ryan's Aboriginal Science Fiction in the July/August 1987 issue) was that spacecraft going to another star are going to need autonomous repair capabilities we can only dream of today. New Horizons is a long way out, but we can still work with it...

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The Spacecoach Equation

by | Jul 3, 2015 | | 38 Comments

My view is that the spacecoach, the subject of renewed discussion below by Brian McConnell and a design he and Alex Tolley have created, is the most innovative and downright practical idea for getting crews and large payloads to the planets that I've yet encountered. It's low-cost and uses ordinary consumables as propellant, dramatically revising mission planning. Brian and Alex have continued refining the concept, as explained below in Brian's essay on a modified version of the rocket equation. Have a look and you'll see that planning long duration missions or missions with larger crews becomes a much more workable proposition because more consumables translate into more propellant. Could the spacecoach be our ticket to building a space-based infrastructure, with unmistakable implications for even deeper space? by Brian S McConnell The spacecoach, first introduced here in Spaceward Ho! and A Stagecoach To The Stars and on spacecoach.org, is based on the idea of using consumables...

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Thoughts on DE-STAR and Laser Sailing

by | Jul 2, 2015 | | 24 Comments

Last week we looked at DE-STAR (Directed Energy Solar Targeting of Asteroids and Exploration), an ambitious program for developing modular phased arrays of kilowatt class lasers. The work of Philip Lubin (UC-Santa Barbara), DE-STAR is envisioned as a way to scale up a space-based system for asteroid mitigation. And in a new NIAC grant, Lubin will study an off-shoot called Directed Energy Propulsion for Interstellar Exploration (DEEP-IN) as a way of driving tiny 'wafer' probes on interstellar journeys. Reading about these ideas, Jim Benford responded with the comments below. A plasma physicist and president of Microwave Sciences (Lafayette, CA), Dr. Benford's work on microwave beaming to sailcraft has included laboratory experiments at JPL with brother Greg that I've written about in these pages. Here are his thoughts on DE-STAR's beaming methods and the issues they invoke. by James Benford The calculations presented by the DE-STAR group are basically a revisit of the work of Bob...

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Methane Detection as New Horizons Closes

by | Jul 1, 2015 | | 9 Comments

As I write, we're thirteen and a half days out from the Pluto/Charon encounter. New Horizons will make its closest approach to Pluto at 0749 EDT (1149 UTC) on July 14. All of which has had me reading Pluto-related science fiction that I missed along the way, including most recently Wilson Tucker's "To the Tombaugh Station." The story, which ran in the July, 1960 issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction, is a murder investigation that includes a journey to the station of the title, which had been established to investigate a 'Planet X' still further out in the system. Isaac Asimov has an essay on Pluto in this issue as well. Image: The cover of the July, 1960 Fantasy and Science Fiction shows a generic moon landing scene by artist Mel Hunter. But if you look at it with our post-1978 (discovery of Charon) eyes, it could be seen as an imaginative take on a Pluto landing, with the Earth on the horizon being replaced by Charon. Given the prominence of "To the Tombaugh Station" on the cover, I...

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Charter

In Centauri Dreams, Paul Gilster looks at peer-reviewed research on deep space exploration, with an eye toward interstellar possibilities. For many years this site coordinated its efforts with the Tau Zero Foundation. It now serves as an independent forum for deep space news and ideas. In the logo above, the leftmost star is Alpha Centauri, a triple system closer than any other star, and a primary target for early interstellar probes. To its right is Beta Centauri (not a part of the Alpha Centauri system), with Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon Crucis, stars in the Southern Cross, visible at the far right (image courtesy of Marco Lorenzi).

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If you'd like to submit a comment for possible publication on Centauri Dreams, I will be glad to consider it. The primary criterion is that comments contribute meaningfully to the debate. Among other criteria for selection: Comments must be on topic, directly related to the post in question, must use appropriate language, and must not be abusive to others. Civility counts. In addition, a valid email address is required for a comment to be considered. Centauri Dreams is emphatically not a soapbox for political or religious views submitted by individuals or organizations. A long form of the policy can be viewed on the Administrative page. The short form is this: If your comment is not on topic and respectful to others, I'm probably not going to run it.

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