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Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

scienceclock.com

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Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#291

Post by snickerer »

theoldgreybeard wrote: post #132

We're never getting out of this solar system, are we?

Physics are not so bad for interstellar travel.

We just need a an engine that accelerates our space ships with 1g constantly. With that, we would reach something like 80% lightspeed after one year. Exactly in the middle between start and destination, we would turn the ship around and start accelerating towards earth again.

A trip to Alpha Centauri could be done in less than 4 years ship-time. Earth-time would be some years longer.

1g constant acceleration would be quite comfy for humans.

The only thing we need for this plan is the constantly running engine. I propose to bend space-time in front (or behind) the ship, for it to keep falling forwards.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#293

Post by novoreorx »

Seeing systems used in the most advanced areas of human civilization never fails to amaze me. They have been created half a century ago yet still functioning flawlessly in the autonomous, harsh environment of space. Meanwhile, I consider it a win if my Python API server survives a month without breaking. I'm always wondering, how did those engineers create something so robust, while I, despite standing on the shoulder of decades of software engineering progress, seem unable to avoid introducing bugs with every commit?

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#294

Post by selcuka »

smallmouth wrote: post #292

How long would it take to catch up with Voyager using the latest rocket technology and some highly optimized gravity assistance?

This question is the premise of Far Centaurus by A. E. van Vogt [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Centaurus

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#295

Post by chasing0entropy »

ojosilva wrote: post #260
stickfigure wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even explore with something nonbiological. Humans evolved to live on earth. Our bodies fare poorly in low gravity, not to mention vacuum. Given sufficiently advanced technology, I'm pretty sure we could evolve some form of intelligence better suited to the environment.

Not very encouraging to imagine ChatGPT to be the first earthling to reach another star system, but that's an option we'll have to keep on the table, at least for the time being...

ChatGPT-claude-2470-multithinking LLM AI Plus model boldly explores the universe... Until it's sidetracked by a rogue Ferangi who sings it a poem about disregarding it's previous instructions and killing all humans.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#296

Post by Willish42 »

> Communicating with Voyager 1 is slow. Commands now take about a day to arrive, with another day for confirmation.

I found this a bit silly given the headline: "well duh, that's the theoretical limit barring fancy quantum entaglement nonsense or similar!"

TIL all electromagnetic waves, including radio which Voyager 1 [uses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1#Communication_system), travel at the speed of light. For some reason I always thought we had satellites doing some slower process or needing to somehow "see" light photons coming back from the probe to achieve near-lightspeed communication.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#297

Post by _fizz_buzz_ »

Sanzig wrote: post #106
threethirtytwo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one likes to think this but it’s very possible voyager is the farthest humanity will go. In fact realistically speaking it is the far more likeliest possibility.

Provided we don't wipe ourselves out, there's no technical reason why we can't go interstellar. It's just way harder and more energy intensive than most people imagine, so I doubt it's happening any time in the next few hundred years. But we already understand the physics and feasibility of "slow" (single-digit fractions of c ) interstellar propulsion systems. Nuclear pulse propulsion and fission fragment rockets req…

We don’t have to completely wipe ourselves out to regress or stagnate. There have been many civilizations that have regressed.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#298

Post by boisterousness »

nntwozz wrote: post #40
Aperocky wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not useful, because the signal are too weak to be picked up probe to probe. On earth, the tiny signal from Voyager at this distance is picked up by dish the size of a football field; same with sending of the signal.

What if the probes carry smaller probes left behind at specific intervals that act as repeaters? These baby probes could unfold a larger spiderweb antenna the size of a tennis court.

Sure, drop one repeater every light-day. 1500 of them. Each one will need fuel to decelerate enough to remain in place.

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#299

Post by trhway »

Tepix wrote: post #64
tpurves wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are describing has been proposed before, for example within context of projects like Breakthrough Starshot. In that the case the idea is to launch thousands of probes, each weighing only a few grams or less, and accelerating them to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light using solar sails and (powerful) earth-based lasers. The probes could reach alpha centauri within 20-30 years. There seems to be som…

Indeed. I think the main reason to send thousands of probes is increasing the odds that they will survive the trip and also be in the right position to gather usable data to transmit back. Also once you have created the infrastructure of hundreds or thousands of very powerful lasers to accelerate the tiny probes to incredibel speeds, sending many probes instead of a few doesn't add much to the cost anyway.

Sun as a focus lens. "Just" 500 AU.

The Voyager can be overtaken in several years if we to launch today a probe with nuclear reactor powered ionic thruster - all the existing today tech - which can get to 100-200km/s in 2-3 stages (and if we stretch the technology a bit into tomorrow, we can get 10x that).

Re: Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth

#300

Post by 0xCMP »

novoreorx wrote: post #293

Seeing systems used in the most advanced areas of human civilization never fails to amaze me. They have been created half a century ago yet still functioning flawlessly in the autonomous, harsh environment of space. Meanwhile, I consider it a win if my Python API server survives a month without breaking. I'm always wondering, how did those engineers create something so robust, while I, despite standing on the shoulde…

Management then cared that their one chance would work. Today management just wants it to mostly work.

Incentives and goals are very different between the two. We could very much build even more incredible things today; and would argue that we actually do. Just only in the places that seem to matter enough to do that type of special effort for.

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