The bold British plan to visit an alien sun
Ever since a man first looked the heavens and thought ‘If we had some sort of rocket ship, I reckon we could get up there’, there has been another man lurking in the background thinking ‘With a big enough elastic band, some gaffer tape and a super-duper fuel no-one has even invented yet, I reckon we could get up there… even quicker.’ That man in the background is usually a Brit sitting in his potting shed.
Not wanting to break that tradition of British ambition, just a year or two after man reached the Moon and the rest of the world was looking no further than Mars, the British Interplanetary Society came up with a plan to reach beyond the dull old planets of our solar system and travel into the next.
After five years and some 10,000 man hours of study, they concluded that it was, theoretically at least, possible to reach a neighbouring star and they even designed the craft that would do it – yes, you guessed it, using technology that hadn’t been invented yet and powered by a fuel so rare it would need to be mined from the atmosphere of Jupiter. They called it Project Daedalus.
Now, 30 years later, the BIS scientists have dusted off their crazy loon hats and even roped in some Americans from the Tau Zero Foundation to design Daedalus’s successor: Project Icarus.
So far they have only got as far as publishing a sort of manifesto of intent but the outline idea of the craft is no less loony than its predecessor. They state that it will most probably be nuclear fusion powered (though they haven’t ruled out antimatter propulsion), it will travel at no less than 18 per cent of light speed, some of its fuel might have to be gathered from the mysterious Oort cloud and it will travel to a star 10.7 light years away where the only way to communicate with it will be by bending radio signals around the Sun.
They do concede, however, that it would be unlikely to launch until the end of the next century.
You’ve got to love the British! Just imagine what the space industry would look like today if we hadn’t ducked out and let the Americans do all the work… just wonderful!
Read and download this week's Cosm here
This week's graphic: The wacky history of Project Icarus, how it might be powered and where it might go
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Comments
You know all those planes
You know all those planes that have been flying around for the last century? Well, the idea for the plane pre-dates the technology for the plane. By several millennia, in fact. It may be that our ancestors of old were wearing "crazy loon hats", but we probably wouldn't be flying if they hadn't come up with the nutty idea in the first place. It is impractical people who make the impossible possible.
Loons
I think you have misunderstood the intention of this piece. Far from taking the p**s out of those 'loons', my intention was to celebrate the eccentric British spirit that comes up with these far-reaching ideas in the first place. As you will see by the last line, I finish by saying that, had we Brits not abandoned leading the space industry (our incredibly successful satellite industry not withstanding and the many involved numerous Nasa/Esa etc projects), mankind's future in space would be pretty incredible.
Fact-checking
My fellows and I of "Project Icarus" appreciate all the attention that your very nice news piece has given us. I understand (and enjoy) the light humour with which "Icarus" is being discussed, but the factual inaccuracies detract from my appreciation of your efforts at publicising our work.
Firstly, the deuterium and helium-3 fuels for "Daedalus" were not radioactive. A tiny deuterium-tritium trigger in the centre of the pellets was mildly radioactive from the tritium, but the design of "Icarus" may avoid the need for such triggers.
Secondly, the artist of the 'blueprint' for "Daedalus" is Nathan Fowkes, not David Hardy whom the caption seems to imply.
Thirdly, you wrote "Daedalus" when you meant "Orion" in the paragraph discussing Project Orion.
Fourth, "Project Icarus" is more international than Anglo-American, as it includes 3 Germans and at least one Australian.
Fifth, the cruising speed has yet to be set. Depending on the target it may be less than 18% of lightspeed. The faster the better but our design restrictions may dictate a slower speed.
Sixth, the target's range is not yet set and is under discussion. Epsilon Eridani is one option amongst many. The multi-national telescopic monitoring of Alpha Centauri that is currently underway may give us a planetary target in that system within the next couple of years.
Seventh, propulsion "Option 1" is incorrect on a number of points. VASIMR does indeed use microwaves to heat its plasma and while a similar system is used in research fusion reactors it is unlikely to be selected for "Icarus" - though we haven't ruled any option out as yet. And while we wish Franklin Chang-Diaz every success with VASIMR, we're not looking at his design presently.
Eighth, while the energy content of 10 milligrams of positrons annihilating their equivalent in electrons is indeed 428 tons of TNT, the Space Shuttle's External Tank carries 750 tons of hydrogen & oxygen, a combination which is several times more explosive than its TNT equivalent.
Ninth, your discussion of gravitational lensing for communication was such a nice surprise, that I won't point out the slight flaws in it. Paul Gilster, one of the American consultants involved in "Project Icarus", discusses those in some detail at his blog, "Centauri Dreams"...
http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=12546
...and he's even complimentary.
sincerely
Adam Crowl
http://icarusinterstellar.org/
Hiya, firstly, obviously when
Hiya, firstly, obviously when writing any story discussing a machine that has yet to be built (or indeed designed) it impossible to talk about any definitives, therfore you must forgive me when I latch on to the only areas to be discussed in any writings about said project - target stars, cruising speeds etc.
Secondly, hands up to the erronious Hardy caption - no excuse for that one. Thirdly, correct it should have said Orion, this is a typo.
Fourth, again the word radioactive before (deuterium and helium-3) was again unintentional - no excuse for any potential misleadance.
Fifth, I was concentrating on the British element because I am British (I apologise leaving out the three Germans and one Australian but did mention the Americans)
Sixth, I don't say that Vasimr is nuclear, just that it is a technology that demonstates aspects of the (as discussed by Kelvin Long at the Project Icarus blog (Already an engine is in the process of being developed for Mars missions called the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) which is essentially a scaled down fusion demonstrator engine if improvements in the power, shielding and field control were made').
My intention was to celebrate how, despite the need for many Brits to look bitterly back at glories past and potentials squandered, we can still look so far ahead and plan for a future where things have yet to be invented!
Many thanks for your comprehensive breakdown
All the best
Ben Gilliland
Common cause
Hi Ben
We appreciate your reading our material and appreciate even more your publicising of "Icarus". Thanks again. Drop us an email anytime you want to find out more.
sincerely
Adam Crowl
http://icarusinterstellar.org/
On that we agree
Hi Ben
I think we all knew your heart was in the right place. Another British space technology to celebrate is the SKYLON space plane being developed by Alan Bond, who worked on the original "Daedalus", and several current "Icarus" members too. SKYLON would potentially make space access cheap enough to build "Icarus".
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