– Today in New York, you and Stephen Hawking presents a new project Breakthrough Starshot, whose purpose – to nano-satellite launch gram Alpha Centauri star system. It is assumed that such a nano-satellite, “spurred” a laser from the Earth will be able to fly to Alpha Centauri at a rate of 20 per cent of the speed of light, which is 60 000 km / s! How you got this idea – nano-satellite controlled laser
-? I’m pretty much focused on scientific and technological developments. I was named Yuri Gagarin in honor – and I take it as a kind of message from the parents. For a long time I studied at the Moscow State University, then he worked in the Lebedev Institute. I read books and Shklovskii Joseph Carl Sagan, and everything related to space is very interested in me. But when you become a scientist – you begin to look with skepticism on various projects such as prozhekterskie mezhzvednyh travel
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In interstellar travel has a rich historical background. But thinking about it rested on the engine, what in English is called propulsion. There are a finite number of options: fusion energy, antimatter, the solar sail and some others. The idea of a solar sail is not new, and when we started seriously studying the history of this issue, it became clear that such an idea expressed more Johannes Kepler in 1610. The first serious proposal was made in 1924 by Russian scientist Friedrich Zander. He has applied to the Commission of the invention, but it was rejected because it was too ahead of its time. But Zander already in those years really describe what we are talking now. However, he described it, on the basis of solar energy, because lasers did not exist.
But when lasers were created, Robert Forward actively began to develop the theme of flight to the stars with the help of the sails and the laser energy. Unfortunately, it all depended on what was needed gigantic laser to “push” a heavy spaceship with a huge sail. At this all the projects came to an end, because it is not practicable. Just I feel about it, and I
After some of our investments -. Mail.ru, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Alibaba – were more or less successful, there was an idea to think about science again
One of the projects which the study of us do – is interstellar travel, although I continued to treat them skeptically
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But we have done some work in the framework of the advisory Board, which consisted of different researchers, and six months ago I was surprised I found that the implementation of this project is quite possible in the near future. And this is connected with the development of some technologies that have occurred over the last 15 years. 15 years ago Breakthrough Starshot would have been science fiction. A now it is no longer science fiction, and science
-. What technologies for 15 years, made it possible
-? They are, perhaps, three, and they are not linked. But if they join – it just turns out that interstellar travel is not far off: it is not up to hundreds or tens of years
The first technology – it is progress in the field of microelectronics!. This applies not only to the chips, as such, but also to trace elements. The camera, which is the phone, has a size of less than 100 times and costs 100 times cheaper than 15 years ago. Now you can buy on Amazon megapixel camera weighing a few grams for $ 10. And such progress applies to all elements of a miniature spaceship: Cameras, batteries, photonic engines and navigation systems and communications. All these elements were influenced by “Moore’s Law”, and now they weigh and cost exponentially less than 15 years ago. It is amazing that the weight of the “star of the chip,” that is actually a full-fledged space probe, now, according to our estimates, can not exceed one gram
The second technology -. Solar sail. 15 years ago he would have weighed in kilograms, and now the sail area of 10 square meters can be done weighing a few grams. This is due to the development of nanotechnology and metamaterials, which suggests that it is possible to make the thickness of the sail of a few hundred atoms, which will have the desired properties. We can not yet make a sail, but there are similar patterns, and generally understood by the road on which it is necessary to go
The third -. A laser. If we decide to ship a weight problem, transforming it from a hundred kilograms to grams, then mathematically it turns out that we need a laser power of 50-100 MW. This is really a very large laser, significantly, many orders of magnitude greater than current capabilities. And 15 years ago, this type of laser would seem fantastic, but now – no. During this period there was a technology of the phase-locking of lasers, which can be used, so to speak, of a large number of identical lasers to create one large laser beam. In fact, the task of building such a powerful laser has been reduced to solving the scaling problem.
If we combine technological progress in these three areas, it turns out that in the foreseeable future and a real investment the project can be implement
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We are not saying that it can be done in a few years, and that all the technical obstacles are overcome. In contrast, there are significant technical obstacles (at this stage, we have identified at least 20). But we say that it is possible to do, and we begin this way. We will fund such developments, at least at the first stage, to be able to get the result, say, 20-30 years
-. That is your personal assessment of that before the start of the unit to Alpha Centauri will take 20-30 years
-? We say “for a generation”, and it is somewhere 20-30 years. In any case, it will take decades. But this is the basic idea: a flight to the other stars on the horizon. We say that the light sail – it is the only realistic way to date. About Fusion engines and the use of anti-matter, we can not talk seriously with respect to space missions for many years
-. «Road Map» flights to other stars was published a week ago in the preprints Arxiv site. org , and this work is greatly resonates with your project. It was an accident or the author – a representative of your team
-? This is Philip Lubin, he represents the University of California. It is part of our team, to our Advisory Board. There also comes a lot of experts in various fields. Lubin – on lasers expert. There are specialists in microelectronics, the interstellar medium by atmospheric turbulence and adaptive optics … By the way, the board includes Roald Sagdeev, who for many years headed the Space Research Institute (IKI)
-. As in the course of work the project will be taken important decisions
-? collectively, taking into account the opinion of the advisory board. We will have a program of research grants, which are aimed at solving specific technological problems
-. But what do you think about Russia’s participation in the project Breakthrough Starshot? As Russian scientists and engineers to participate in it
-? To begin with, that historically Russia stood at the origins of this project. The first person to write the equation of jet propulsion was Tsiolkovsky. In the 20s of the last century the project the world’s first solar sail presented Friedrich Zander, inspired by the works of Tsiolkovsky. He thought that it is possible to fly to Mars, and was counting on the sail one-hundredth of a millimeter thick, which would weigh 300 kilograms. The area of the sails would have been 1 square kilometer. At the same Zander pointed out that the thickness of the sail may be less than – 0.001 millimeters since such thickness could reach Edison
The first deployment of a solar sail Russia was carried out in space: it was done on a spaceship “Progress M-15. “February 4, 1993 under the” Banner-2 “project. However, the 20-meter sail has not been used as a cosmic engine, as well as an additional source of light in the world, which has created a sunbeam diameter of 8 kilometers. But still it was a solar sail
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There was also a joint project of the Space Research Institute and the US Planetary Sosiety. The founder of the society was Carl Sagan and his colleagues was a real project launch solar sail from a Russian submarine. But the launch is not successful, the missile, launched from a boat “Borisoglebsk” June 21, 2005, failed to gain the necessary speed.
In 1913, Boris Krasnogorsk in the novel “On the waves of ether,” using solar sail. Brothers Strugatsie also wrote on the subject.
Our project is international, and probably can not be implemented by a country or group of people. Therefore, our grant program is highly international.
All the research results will be published in the public domain. We are launching a website which will contain a list of the above-mentioned technical problems and challenges that must be addressed for the success of the project
-. Whether your project to prevent the policy? After all, because of the sanctions cooperation “Roskosmos” and NASA has experienced some problems. And whether you agree with the opinion that now the Russian science – in lagging
-? I do not agree, because the Russian booster rockets are now widely used in the delivery of people and cargo into orbit. And the Russian space science is at the forefront of …
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