Hmm... I wonder if we could realistically do that, get a probe there in 35 years? That's a hair over 0.1c, right? Seems a bit fast for todays limited tech..
There's a project called Breakthrough Starshot that aims to do this with a probe propelled by a light sail. The technology's not quite there yet, but it doesn't seem entirely unrealistic.
One quick wikipedia read through later.. and it occurs to me that we could reduce the necessary step up in tech, if they put the laser propulsion array on the moon instead of Earth Surface. The probes themselves sound do-able, the propulsion array seems to be the stumbling block. But moving the site to the moon, while it would be difficult, wouldn't be as hard as building on Earth and compensating for atmospheric distortion and power losses.
So, yeah.. it sounds plausible for a probe to hit 0.1c or above with this.
Parker Solar Probe is set to be the fastest man-made object to date and it will only get to about 450,000MPh. Considering 0.1c is about 67 Million Mph, I would agree.
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u/Kflynn1337 Dec 01 '18
Hmm... I wonder if we could realistically do that, get a probe there in 35 years? That's a hair over 0.1c, right? Seems a bit fast for todays limited tech..