Like many other people,
I have written a novella about the first mission to another star. My target date was 2040, so I sided with the challenger. Linda Davis, if you're reading this, I want my manuscript back.
Bet 395
Duration 17 years (02008-02025)
Predictor
Tibor Pacher
Challenger
Paul A. Gilster
Stakes $1,000
will go to SOS-Kinderdorf International if Pacher wins,
or Tau Zero Foundation if Gilster wins.
Add your voice to a conversation with the bettors:
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No known laws of physics prohibit spaceflights to the stars. However, conventional technical and scientific wisdom holds that interstellar spaceflight is practically not feasible.
One of the major obstacles are the huge distances an interstellar craft should cover: Proxima Centauri, the closest stellar neighbour to our Sun as known today, is about 4,24 light years away, which is about 6.800 times the distance to Pluto.
To overcome these distances we need new propulsion methods - today's rockets cannot do the job -, new energy supply systems for onboard instrumentation, proper shielding against interstellar material and radiation during a mission, to name but a few difficulties.
Solid technical development is already on the way: now scientists and engineers are looking at realistic missions which would go ten times farther than Pluto in merely 30 years. There are even thoughts about possible near-term technologies which could push the velocity with another factor 10, leading to travel times of around 2000 years for a Centauri Mission. There is also a rapid development in nanotechnology and AI, both enablers for interstellar travel.
Various motivations exist to embark on an interstellar endeavour, including the seemingly ever-existing challenge of the stars and arising fears about possible near-term existential risks for humanity, to list the two extremes.
The Internet has channelled enormous power into collaborative work in a historically unprecedented way. For example, it has already helped in forming of numerous new organizations which aim at long term thinking, inclusive this Long Bet site. Within these, web-based interstellar advocate groups - like Centauri Dreams, the Tau Zero Foundation and peregrinus interstellar - are growing. I believe that such a collective power of Earth's citizenship, together with fast technical development and compelling motivation as mentioned above, will support the birth of the first interstellar mission soon.
The laws of physics as presently understood make interstellar flight a possibility (I believe it is inevitable), but a tremendously difficult one. Barring a near-term breakthrough, we will still be working within the parameters of these laws in 2025, substantially aided by nanotechnology and developments in computer science, to be sure, but still running up against the inexorable limitations imposed upon us by Special Relativity. While I believe a true interstellar mission will be launched at some point, I will argue that it will not be launched within this century, and that when it is launched, it will take advantage of the numerous advances in engineering that will have taken place by that time to allow it. The 2025 time frame is joyously optimistic, and I would support it if I could. But Tibor and I both believe that continuing to work for the interstellar goal -- and continuing to debate it in forums like these -- is worthwhile in itself, and I think we'll both be happy if the loser's money winds up in the hands of an organization that actively promotes these goals.
We agree that:
1) The mission can be a manned or unmanned flyby probe or to be captured by the target star's gravitational field. It will have been designed expressly as a mission to another star, and not an outer-Solar System mission that keeps going.
2) Allowed launch location of the spacecraft is any place in the Solar system within the orbit of Neptune, either from the surface of a solar system body or from any orbital position.
3) As a minimum requirement for the mission the spacecraft shall be capable to deliver data for at least one scientific measurement.
4) Planned mission duration shall be less than 2.000 years.
The statement "widely supported by the public" might be e.g. assessed by an outreach action in which at least 1.000.000 (one million) votes must be gathered in favour of the mission. Voting can start earliest at the announcement time of the mission baseline design; end date of voting is the launch date. The mission team will be responsible to ensure that such a voting can take place; it can cooperate with other projects or organizations to set up the voting procedure. Reasonable effort will be done to ensure that one person should only vote once. Should there be in the meantime a prize contest organized where the prize win conditions are compatible with our betting terms, this will be interpreted to be a wide support as well.
However, we agree that the proviso for the wide support is not a necessary condition to decide the outcoume of the bet.
I have written a novella about the first mission to another star. My target date was 2040, so I sided with the challenger. Linda Davis, if you're reading this, I want my manuscript back.
Even if we had all of the necessary technology today and Congress agreed to fund such an expedition, it takes a long time to get a mission through planning and to its launch date. Take the Kepler Mission, for example. This mission already had all of the necessary technology when planning began in 1999. Kepler is a Discovery mission, meaning that it's total cost is less than $300 million. And it will launch next year, after a total of ten years.
An interstellar mission would cost multiple billions of dollars, and short of a well-meaning billionaire throwing a large portion of his/her fortune at the problem there's no way a launch could happen by 2025.
I think the impetus for the idea of going to star or planet outside the solar system is building, , but the duration of the prediction is too short. If it had been, say 30 years longer, it may have had a chance.
The enormous complexity and cost of building such a craft, would preclude the task being conducted by a single country. I suspect it would take the combined effort of most of the G8. A whole range of complex structural, organisational and technological problems haven't even been solved yet, and would take at least several decades. Look at the debacle related to the siting and costing of the experimental fusion reactor, as an example of a collaborative project involving many countries. Building an interstellar craft would be several orders more complex.
The craft would need to be built in orbit. A space elevator is probably the best bet to get the stuff up there, but materials to built the lift cable, carbon nanotubes have been mooted, may be strong enough to build it, but this will take at least another decade to prove and construction to begin.
The timescale is simply too short. I sincerly hope it will happen though.
The only way this would work is if you determined some way to circumvent the idea that you can't travel at the speed of light. Until we gain a better understanding of quantum mechanics, I doubt some kind of "wormhole" solution will work, meaning we'll have to get there the long way.
And I doubt the public will support this barring some environmental catastrophe that makes Earth unlivable.
NASA is planning to send a man on Mars by 2030 . It would be outrageous to even think that it would send a manned mission out deep spce before that !!!
U won this bet. Dont you check and/or update your knowledge on universe ?
Idiot claim your money for VoyagerI had already crossed solar system ! and it carries a gold plated and protected disc which contains fotage of humans, ther population, music, our size as compared to space craft etc. ect. just in case it encounters intelligent life on its star trek to other stars !!!! REMEMBER IT OTHER STARS AND IT HAD ALREADY BEEN SENT !! CLAIM YOUR MONEY !
- DUSHYANT GOEL
(dushyant.goel@yahoo.com)
okay its not reaching in 2,000 yrs. sorry but, there is noway in 2000 yrs at least 13,000,000 yrs.
I would argue that the first interstellar missions have already launched, and that (with only a little imagination) they meet the conditions of the bet. They are not spacecraft, but rather streams of photons. Think about it: interstellar microwave transmissions probe other civilizations' interest in dialog, and pass numerous stars, thus are "flyby probes" in a sense. They are transmitted specifically for the purpose of reaching other solar systems. They have been "launched" (transmitted) several times from Earth, which is clearly within the orbit of Neptune. Some have conveyed scientific information about Earth, which satisfies the condition that they "deliver data for at least one scientific measurement." They travel at the speed of light, so within the 2,000 year mission duration, will reach stars within 2,000 LY of our own Sun. And they are widely supported by the public, as witness the large number of humans who have submitted messages to the various projects that beam them into space. So, congratulations Tibor, you win!
leaving by 2025 - NO chance, we haven't even managed to revisit the moon in 30 years, so getting an interstellar voyage off the ground in the time stated by the bet is laughable. I wish it were otherwise though.
Some recent (precursor) interstellar studies:
Innovative Interstellar Explorer
This is a NASA "Vision Mission" study, with first optimal launch window considered for 2014. Coasting velocity 7.8 AU/year is planned, with a Jupiter gravity assist; compare this to 3.6 AE/Year of Voyager 1. Key idea for propulsion called radioisotope propulsion (REP): the use of electricity from known deep space power source (RTG) technologies to run an ion engine.
http://interstellarexplorer.jhuapl.edu
The Interstellar Heliopause Probe
ESA Technology Reference Study, finished in 2006.
The Interstellar Heliopause Probe aims to cover 200 AE in 25 years - 8 AE/year, using solar sails.
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=36022
Based on the above, there was a proposal for a joint ESA-NASA Mission (Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 ESA Proposals), unfortunately not selected for further investigation.
http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=41177
Technologies to enable near term Interstellar Precursor Mission
An ongoing Cosmic Study of the International Academy of Astronautics, with a first draft planned at the International Astronautical Congress 2009 in Korea.
Recent findings on brown dwarfs may lead to speculations that our interstellar target is perhaps nearer than thought - if we treat brown dwarfs as stars.
Read more about hunting brown stars in Paul Gilster's excellent review:
Brown Dwarf Observations and Speculations
I can think of one way for an interstellar probe to be launched by 2025 and that's a high energy launch using a very close fly-by of the sun by a solar sail. A "solar-fry-by" would get a small probe to proxima in less than 2000 years, with no knew physics needed. Of course getting public support is the most unpredictable part of this whole thing. but it's doable.
Solar sailing
One recent proposal (2008 Sep) is the beryllium hollow-body solar sail with an estimated solar system escape velocity round 400 km/s by Matloff et. al:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.3535
For a good start on Solar Sail concepts go to Paul Gilster's Centauri Dreams here.
Electric sail
The recent (2004-2006) invention of Pekka Janhunen is developing quickly. Here is the entry page to Solar electric sailing, with numerous further references there. Note that the theoretical limit of the technology is quoted as 400-800 km/s.
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ESTCube-1, an Estonian Student Satellite Mission, will measure the electric sail force.
Good news on Solar Sailing!
Japan's Space Agency JAXA is planning to launch IKAROS to test Solar Power Sail, more here: http://www.jspec.jaxa.jp/e/activity/ikaros.html
and The Planetary Society is going ahead with the LightSail project, details here: http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/solar_sailing
Launches are planned for 2010 for both projects!
The Planetary Society's LightSail project is here:
http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects/solar_sailing/
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