The best study I ever saw for interstellar travel was, believe it or not, done by the British Interplanetary Society in the '70s. They produced a book called "Project Daedalus" about an unmanned, undecelerated flyby of Barnard's Star. The quality was first-rate: they designed every aspect of the mission, including the aerostats that would be needed to mine the helium-3 needed for propulsion from the atmosphere of Jupiter, and extrapolating when the world's GDP would reach the point where it could finance the mission. It sounds outlandish but it's some of the best engineering I've ever seen. The book should still be available. I believe it ended up taking 50 years in transit (12 light years to target).
|
07-14-2012, 11:39 PM
Threaded Mode