Ok, we found a new Earth nearby. Next question is: how do we get there? The amazing challenge to get mankind to become an interstellar species and how we could potentially get there. The different technologies involved and the key challenges to overcome. Welcome to teh next chapter of mankind.

1. THE NEXT CHAPTER
FOR MANKIND 2:
INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL
NIC WEISSMAN
Visit www.nicweissman.com

2. Background
3 October 1942 First vehicle to cross the Kármán line (100 km/~62 mi above the
Earth's surface) and thereby enter outer space
Germany V-2 rocket, military program
21 August 1957
First intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)
USSR R-7 Semyorka/SS-6
Sapwood
4 October 1957 First artificial satellite
First signals from space
USSR Sputnik 1
3 November 1957 First animal in orbit, the dog Laika USSR Sputnik 2
2 January 1959 First firing of a rocket in Earth orbit
First reaching Earth escape velocity or Trans Lunar Injection
First detection of solar wind
USSR Luna 1
4 January 1959 First artificial satellite to reach the Moon vicinity and first artificial
satellite in heliocentric orbit
USSR Luna 1
7 August 1959 First photograph of Earth from orbit USA (NASA) Explorer 6
13 September 1959 First impact into another world (the Moon)
First delivery of national (USSR) pennants to a celestial body
USSR Luna 2
12 April 1961 First human spaceflight–(Yuri Gagarin)
First human-crewed orbital flight
USSR Vostok 1
16 June 1963 First woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova) USSR Vostok 6
3 February 1966 First soft landing on another world (the Moon)
First photos from another world
USSR Luna 9

3. Background
21 July 1969 First human on the Moon and first space launch from a
celestial body
USA (NASA) Apollo 11
23 April 1971 First space station USSR Salyut 1
24 January 1986 First Uranus flyby (closest approach 81,500 kilometers) USA (NASA) Voyager 2
19 February 1986
First consistently inhabited long-term research space
station
USSR Mir
14 February 1990 First photograph of the whole Solar System USA (NASA) Voyager 1
24 April 1990 Optical orbital observatory USA (NASA) ESA Hubble Space Telescope
4 July 1997 First operational rover on another planet (Mars) USA (NASA) Mars Pathfinder
20 November 1998
First multinational space station,
Largest man-made object built in space to date
Russia(FKA) USA
(NASA) Europe
(ESA) Japan
(JAXA) Canada(CSA)
International Space Station
6 March 2009
Kepler Mission is launched, first space telescope
designated to search for Earth-like exoplanets
USA (NASA) Kepler Mission
25 August 2012 First manmade probe in interstellar space. USA (NASA) Voyager 1
12 November 2014
First man-made probe to make a planned and soft landing
on a comet (67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko).
ESA Rosetta

4. Interstellar challenges
Travelling to other stars poses humongous challenges:
• Distance
– Drive with enough speed to get there in reasonable time
– Voyager 1 (fastest spacecraft sent) would need 80.000 years to reach closest
star
– Proxima Centauri is 10.000 times further away that the last solar system planet.
• Power
– Accelerating one ton to one-tenth of the speed of light requires the total amount
of power generated by humankind in a year in the whole Earth.
– Energy has to come from:
• stored fuel (increasing load further)
• harvested in space (see comments on Bussard)
• projected across immense distances
• Interstellar medium.
– Gas and dust can severely damage spaceships travelling at fast speeds if not
properly shielded
– Radiation is now known to be quite high in outer space, compromising long term
health of astronauts.

5. Interstellar challenges
• Time
– Wait 50 principle: If a mission will take more than 50 years maybe it
should not be started, as future developments could enable faster
travel and a future ship might be able to overtake and older mission
making it obsolete and useless.
– If time is long for astronauts, how can we send them to another star?
• Time Dilation
• Suspended animation
• Embryo colonization
• Generation ship
• Extended lifespan
• Mind uploading
• Communications
– Obviously x2 speed of light. so, 8 years to send a message and receive
an answer from Alpha Centauri, the closest star

6. Propulsion 1
1. Liquid/solid fuel rockets
• Everything we have achieved so far, thanks to them.
• We couldn’t have walked on the Moon or send Voyager to the limits of solar system without them
• Apollo mission payload was 3%. Rockets are very large, expensive and extremely inefficient.
• We took them as far as we could.
• Their maximum speeds make them inadequate for even solar system exploration
2. Ion thruster
• Wikipedia: Electrostatic ion thruster is a design for ion thrusters, highly efficient low-thrust
spacecraft propulsion running on electrical power. These designs use high-voltage electrodes to
accelerate ions with electrostatic forces
• Electrostatic ion thrusters have accelerated ions to speeds reaching 100 km/s. In 2006, ESA
successfully tested of an improved electrostatic ion engine with speeds of 210 km/s.
• They need a power source. We can build more powerful thrusters, but they will need consequently
more power, which is a problem in space.
• They will improve for in space, but not nearly enough for interstellar

7. Propulsion 2
3. Solar sails
•Wikipedia: Solar sails are a form of spacecraft propulsion using the radiation pressure (also called
solar pressure) from stars to push large ultra-thin mirrors to high speeds.
•Solar sail allow low-cost operations and long lifetimes as they have few moving parts and use no
propellant
•Some studies indicated that large and light solar sail launched against the sun could return with
speeds of more than 100 km/s (x10 vs faster probes)
•This will only work if we can build very light sales. Nanotechnology opens the door for this. Carbon
sails supports very high temp, which is important to enable high accelerations and are light and
resilient.
•Solar sails don’t have to be shielded. Space dust (typical about 1 micron) will make super small holes
(about 1.5 microns)
4. Solar sails with beams
•Wikipedia: Light sails could also be driven by energy beams to extend their range of operations,
which is strictly beam sailing rather than solar sailing.
•Beamer is the costly part of this concept, but you can have one, you can use it to launch many
probes. Analogy to the effort of building a bridge compared to the effort of crossing a river with a boat.
•“Solar sails will be the first starships”

8. Propulsion 3
5. Bussard ramjet
•Wikipedia: Bussard proposed a ramjet variant of a fusion rocket capable of reasonable interstellar
spaceflight, using enormous electromagnetic fields as a ram scoop to collect and compress hydrogen
from the interstellar medium. High speeds force the reactive mass into a progressively constricted
magnetic field, compressing it until thermonuclear fusion occurs. The magnetic field then directs the
energy as rocket exhaust opposite to the intended direction of travel, thereby accelerating the vessel.
•Since original proposal we discovered that we are in a region of space that doesn’t have enough
hydrogen. Although this was a promising concept, it is now considered as a no go.
6. Fission rockets
•Developed 40 years ago, never used.
•Wikipedia: NASA was (in 2013) simulating nuclear thermal rocket fuels with the interim goal to
support the Space Launch System. The project could see rocket stages twice as efficient as their
chemical counterparts propelling crewed missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
•In summary: They could be used for solar system, but not enough for effective interstellar drives.

9. Propulsion 4
7. Fusion rockets
•Wikipedia: A fusion rocket is a theoretical design for a rocket driven by fusion power which could
provide efficient and long-term acceleration in space without the need to carry a large fuel supply. The
design relies on the development of fusion power technology beyond current capabilities, and the
construction of rockets much larger and more complex than any current spacecraft. A smaller and
lighter fusion reactor might be possible in the future when more sophisticated methods have been
devised to control magnetic confinement and prevent plasma instabilities. Fusion power could provide
a lighter and more compact alternative.
•We don’t have the tech to control it. In fact, we are not even near.
8. Antimatter rockets
•Wikipedia: An antimatter rocket is a proposed class of rockets that use antimatter as their power
source. There are several designs that attempt to accomplish this goal. The advantage to this class of
rocket is that a large fraction of the rest mass of a matter/antimatter mixture may be converted to
energy, allowing antimatter rockets to have a far higher energy density and specific impulse than any
other proposed class of rocket.
•Even more futuristic than fusion. Big tech challenges both in the production of the fuel and its
containment.

10. Propulsion 5
9. Black Hole ship
•Wikipedia: Theoretical idea for enabling interstellar travel by propelling a starship by creating an
artificial black hole and using a parabolic reflector to reflect its Hawking radiation. (2009, Louis Crane
and Shawn Westmoreland)
•Their study argues on a number of advantages of this concept versus antimatter, fusion or fission.
•It is also futuristic as today we have technology only to create very small black holes for fractions of
seconds.
10. FTL (Faster than light)
•A number of theories/options around faster than light travel are mostly speculative at this stage
•Warp Drive
•Alcubierre Drive or warp drive was theorized as a particular solution of the Einstein equations in
1994 by Miguel Alcubierre.
•FTL travel is achieved by warping space contracting it before the spaceship and expanding it
after while the center of the bubble remains in normal space.
•Exotic matter (matter with negative mass) is required for this concept to work.

11. Conclusion
For every option/solution, 3 questions:
• Physics: Can we do this? Is this
possible at all?
• Engineering: Do we know how?
• Economics: Can we do it with
reasonable amount of resources?
Conclusion
• Short term our best way to progress
seems to be on the solar sails.
Combined with Beamers, solar sails
could even become starships,
although will be slow
• Long term significant advances are
needed. We are not fundamentally
constrained to create FTL drives, but
we are maybe centuries away from
mastering the associated
engineering.

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