{"id":160381,"date":"2023-03-15T20:26:47","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T01:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/how-a-beam-of-pellets-could-blast-a-probe-into-deep-space"},"modified":"2023-03-15T20:26:47","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T01:26:47","slug":"how-a-beam-of-pellets-could-blast-a-probe-into-deep-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/how-a-beam-of-pellets-could-blast-a-probe-into-deep-space","title":{"rendered":"How a Beam of Pellets Could Blast a Probe Into Deep Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a theoretical concept, but realistic enough that NASA\u2019s Innovative Advanced Concepts program<\/a> has given Davoyan\u2019s group $175,000 to show that the technology is feasible. \u201cThere\u2019s rich physics in there,\u201d says Davoyan, a mechanical and aerospace engineer at UCLA. To create propulsion, he continues, \u201cyou either throw the fuel out of the rocket or you throw the fuel at<\/em> the rocket.\u201d From a physics perspective, they work the same: Both impart momentum to a moving object.<\/p>\n

His team\u2019s project could transform long-distance space exploration, dramatically expanding the astronomical neighborhood accessible to us. After all, we\u2019ve only sent a few robotic visitors to scope out Uranus<\/a>, Neptune<\/a>, Pluto<\/a>, and their moons. We know even less about objects<\/a> lurking<\/a> farther away. The even smaller handful of NASA craft en route to interstellar space include Pioneer 10 and 11<\/a>, which blasted off in the early 1970s; Voyager 1 and 2, which were launched in 1977 and continue their mission to this day<\/a>; and the more recent New Horizons, which took nine years to fly by Pluto in 2015<\/a>, glimpsing the dwarf planet\u2019s<\/a> now famous heart-shaped plain. Over its 46-year journey, Voyager 1 has ventured farthest from home, but a pellet-beam-powered craft could overtake it in just five years, Davoyan says.<\/p>\n

He takes inspiration from Breakthrough Starshot, a $100 million initiative announced in 2016 by Russian-born philanthropist Yuri Milner<\/a> and British cosmologist Stephen Hawking<\/a> to use a 100-gigawatt laser beam to blast a miniature probe toward Alpha Centauri<\/a>. (The star nearest our solar system, it resides \u201conly\u201d 4 light-years away.) The Starshot team is exploring how they could hurl a 1-gram craft attached to a lightsail into interstellar space, using the laser to accelerate it to 20 percent of the speed of light, which is ludicrously fast and would reduce travel time from millennia to decades. \u201cI\u2019m increasingly optimistic that later this century, humanity\u2019s going to be including nearby stars in our reach,\u201d says Pete Worden, Breakthrough Starshot\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a theoretical concept, but realistic enough that NASA\u2019s Innovative Advanced Concepts program has given Davoyan\u2019s group $175,000 to show that the technology is feasible. \u201cThere\u2019s rich physics in there,\u201d says Davoyan, a mechanical and aerospace engineer at UCLA. To create propulsion, he continues, \u201cyou either throw the fuel out of the rocket or you [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":599,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[219,6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physics","category-robotics-ai","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/599"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}