🚀 go-pugleaf

lwahl@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Lynne K Wahl) writes:

>Hmmm... This sounds like an interstellar probe is needed to collect 
>information before a *really* fast spacecraft is launched.  How about
>a .01c speed probe with a small "sail" that would be primarily used to 
>collect interstellar H (for testing) and with magnetic sensors to check
>on the magnetic medium as it goes.  How far from the sun would this
>"Pathfinder" type of probe need to go before getting outside the sun's
>environment?  

>As an exercise, how fast would, say a refueled shuttle ET, one SSME,
>and a 30 ton probe go if launched in a "generic" solar escape orbit? 

Really slowly.

JPL (I think - Ron?) prposed the TAU (Thousand AU) mission a number of years 
ago.  It would have used a nuclear reactor and an ion drive to boost out of
the solar system in about fifty years and check out interstellar space. 
Unfortunately, since it required new power, engines and communications gear it
never got very far.

-- 
Josh Hopkins                                          jbh55289@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu

Q:  How do you tell a novice from an expert.
A:  A novice hesitates before doing something stupid.