top | item 43276872

(no title)

science4sail | 1 year ago

It's definitely doable. The "'Momentum Limited' Orion" concept[0] has a delta-v of 10,000 km/s, which should be plenty enough to catch up to either of the Voyager probes. It can also carry ~25,000 tons of payload - that's a lot of spare parts!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls...

discuss

order

science4sail|1 year ago

If you're okay with just a flyby of the Voyager probes though, then you can use a laser sail. Breakthrough Starshot[1] is aiming for 60,000 km/s of delta-v. Lightsails have already been demonstrated several times in practice[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail#Projects_operating_...

chuckadams|1 year ago

> Lightsails have already been demonstrated several times in practice

Solar sails, yes. Starshot needs a Death Star Laser that makes the NIF look like a cat toy.