Starseed is a proposed method of launching interstellar nanoprobes at one-third light speed.
The launcher uses a 1,000 km-long small-diameter hollow wire, with electrodes lining the hollow wire, an electrostatic accelerator tube, similar to K. Eric Drexler's ideas. The launcher is designed to accelerate its probes to 1/3 the speed of light, about 100,000 kilometers per second, at something on the order of 100 million gravities of acceleration.[1]
Keeping the launch tube straight enough to avoid the probe hitting the tube walls is a major challenge. The launcher would have to be set up in deep space, well away from any planets, to avoid gravitational tide effects bending the tube too much.
The proposed starseed probes would be extremely small (roughly one microgram) nanomachines and nanocomputers. The required launch energy per probe would be low due to the low mass, and many nanoprobes would be launched in sequence and rendezvous in flight.
starseed, launcher, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jstor, july, 2. This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Starseed launcher news newspapers books scholar JSTOR July 2023 Learn how and when to remove this message Starseed is a proposed method of launching interstellar nanoprobes at one third light speed The launcher uses a 1 000 km long small diameter hollow wire with electrodes lining the hollow wire an electrostatic accelerator tube similar to K Eric Drexler s ideas The launcher is designed to accelerate its probes to 1 3 the speed of light about 100 000 kilometers per second at something on the order of 100 million gravities of acceleration 1 Keeping the launch tube straight enough to avoid the probe hitting the tube walls is a major challenge The launcher would have to be set up in deep space well away from any planets to avoid gravitational tide effects bending the tube too much The proposed starseed probes would be extremely small roughly one microgram nanomachines and nanocomputers The required launch energy per probe would be low due to the low mass and many nanoprobes would be launched in sequence and rendezvous in flight References editReference to Starseed concept in paper from 2010 International Planetary Probe Workshop Starseed Launcher For other uses see Starseed disambiguation nbsp This spacecraft or satellite related article is a stub You can help Wikipedia by expanding it vte Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Starseed launcher amp oldid 1167887038, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
