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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't a big part of the problem that the voyager slingshot is one of the best you can get, and it's a once in multiple-lifetimes event? Even if we launch a new deep space probe as best we can they're gonna be real slow?
New Horizons is faster than Voyagers and did not require an alignment.
It continues to irritate me that There aren't any other functioning deep space probes besides New Horizons (launched in 2006, and which flies at a slower speed than Voyagers). One new operating deep space probe in nearly 50 years is just embarrassing. I mean yay space telescopes and everything, but we seem to have given up anything that isn't a state-of-the-art prestige project. I was hopeful about projects like Brea…
Crazy to think how much time has passed since that flyby.
Also, one of the program managers was on The Moth podcast describing the panic when new Horizons rebooted days before the flyby.
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft launched on January 19, 2006, and performed its historic flyby of Pluto on July 14, 2015. This journey took 3,463 days (approximately 9.5 years).
3,932 days July 14, 2015–April 19, 2026
Imagine deploying your bug fix and having to wait two days to find out if it worked!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
New Horizons is faster than Voyagers and did not require an alignment.
It was launched faster but the final speed is slower - it'll never catch up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Horizons#Speed
It continues to irritate me that There aren't any other functioning deep space probes besides New Horizons (launched in 2006, and which flies at a slower speed than Voyagers). One new operating deep space probe in nearly 50 years is just embarrassing. I mean yay space telescopes and everything, but we seem to have given up anything that isn't a state-of-the-art prestige project. I was hopeful about projects like Brea…
Next think about what effort we have done to send a galactic hello. We don't have any deep space probes sent off in the universe constantly sending a hello message. So if all we did was fire a hello message away from earth for 24 hours what are the odds that some alien life picked it up verses they had that day off and missed our signal.
I think this is a much more plausible explanation to the Fermi paradox. If we want to do our part to prove it wrong we need to begin sending a universe hello from earth transmission and run it for not years, not decades, not centuries but from now and for the rest of humanity. Hopefully some other alien civilization has realized the same and they too begin sending a continuous transmission we might get lucky and pick up.
Can we send faster better equipped craft to move past solar system in a year or two ?
The planetary alignment that allowed the Voyager probes to move so fast only occurs every 175 years. Even with this advantage it took them 12 years to get to Neptune. So the short answer is no.
It continues to irritate me that There aren't any other functioning deep space probes besides New Horizons (launched in 2006, and which flies at a slower speed than Voyagers). One new operating deep space probe in nearly 50 years is just embarrassing. I mean yay space telescopes and everything, but we seem to have given up anything that isn't a state-of-the-art prestige project. I was hopeful about projects like Brea…
Isn't a big part of the problem that the voyager slingshot is one of the best you can get, and it's a once in multiple-lifetimes event? Even if we launch a new deep space probe as best we can they're gonna be real slow?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The planetary alignment that allowed the Voyager probes to move so fast only occurs every 175 years. Even with this advantage it took them 12 years to get to Neptune. So the short answer is no.
But without the planetary alignment, can't we just rely on brute force ? Better fuel and bigger engines?
That's it. Nothing to do with speed. We could launch something that goes way faster right now, if someone wanted to pay for it. Hell, we could have done it 50 years ago.
We didn't because it would go in a straight line towards "nothing".
It continues to irritate me that There aren't any other functioning deep space probes besides New Horizons (launched in 2006, and which flies at a slower speed than Voyagers). One new operating deep space probe in nearly 50 years is just embarrassing. I mean yay space telescopes and everything, but we seem to have given up anything that isn't a state-of-the-art prestige project. I was hopeful about projects like Brea…
What else are you looking to see from such deep space? Nothing we launch will ever reach anything anything interesting in probably the life of humanity. Just to get to Pluto in our life times meant going so fast that it could only fly by. Maybe flying around in the Oort cloud might, unlikely though, be interesting.
You can use the sun as a gravitational lens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens
You need to be about 550 au out.
> During a routine, planned roll maneuver on Feb. 27 It's amazing not only are the electrical components still operational, but some mechanical ones as well.