Yuri Milner told “Газете.Ru” project launch to alpha Centauri
Nikolai Podorvanyuk (New York)
ESO/L. Calsada/Nick ResignerВ 2012, the ESO astronomers found out about the possible existence of planets in the alpha Centauri system
Flight to alpha Centauri — this is not fiction, but a real project, the launch of which was announced in the 55-th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space. Read more about mission to another star system “Газете.Ru” told one of its initiators, the Russian businessman Yuri Milner.
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Today in new York, you and Stephen Hawking represent a new Breathrough Starshot project, which aims to launch nanosatellite gram to the star system of alpha Centauri. It is assumed that such a nanosatellite, pushed by the laser from the Earth, will be able to fly to alpha Centauri at a speed of 20 percent of the speed of light, and it’s 60 000 km/h! Where have you got this idea — nanosatellite managed by laser?
— I’m pretty much focused on scientific and technological developments. I was named in honor of Yuri Gagarin – and I take it as a message from their parents. For a long time I studied at Moscow state University, then worked at the LPI. Read books by Iosif Shklovsky and Carl Sagan, and everything connected with the cosmos I am very interested in. But when scientists begin to look skeptically on different projects projectarchive type metsweding travel.
The interstellar travel has a rich history. But thinking about it rested on the engine, what in English is called propulsion. There are a finite number of options: fusion energy, antimatter, solar sail and some others. The idea of solar sails is not new, and when we started to seriously study the history of this issue, we found that this idea was expressed by Johannes Kepler in 1610. The first serious proposal was made in 1924, Russian scientist Friedrich Zander. He has applied to the Commission on the invention, but it is rejected because it is too ahead of its time. But Zander had in those years really described what we’re talking about now. However, he described it on the basis of solar energy, because the lasers did not exist then.
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But when the lasers have been created, Robert Forward actively began to develop the theme of flight to the stars through the sails and laser energy. Unfortunately, all of this rested on the fact that the need was gigantic laser to “push” a heavy space ship with a huge sail On it.. all the projects were over, because it practically unrealizable. The same way about me.
After some of our investment Mail.ru, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Alibaba has been less successful, the idea arose again to think about science.
One of the projects, the study of which we started — it’s interstellar travel, though I remained skeptical of them.
But we have done some work in the framework of the Advisory Council, which was composed of various scientists, and six months ago I was surprised to find that this project is quite possible in the near future. And this is connected with the development of some technologies that have occurred over the past 15 years. 15 years ago Starshot Breakthrough was like science fiction. Now, this is not science fiction, and science.
— What technologies for 15 years has made this possible?
— They are probably the three, and they are not linked. But if you put them is something just turns out that interstellar travel is not far off: it is not hundreds and tens of years!
The first technology is an progress in the field of microelectronics. This applies not only to chips, but also for trace elements. The camera that is in the phone, has a size of 100 times less, and is 100 times cheaper than 15 years ago. Right now on Amazon you can buy a megapixel camera, weighing a few grams for 10 dollars. And such progress applies to all elements of a miniature space ship: camera, batteries, photon engines and navigation systems and communications. All these elements are influenced by “Moore’s law”, and now they weigh and cost exponentially less than 15 years ago. It is amazing that the weight of this “star chip”, that is actually a full-fledged space probe now, according to our estimations, may not exceed one gram.
The second technology is the solar sail. 15 years ago he would have weighed pounds, and now the sail area of 10 square meters can be done weighing several grams. This is due to the development of nanotechnology and metamaterials, which suggests that you can make the sail a thickness of a few hundred atoms, which will have the desired properties. We can’t make this sail, but there are similar patterns, and in General clear the road on which I should go.
The third is the laser. If we solve the problem of the weight of the ship, turning it from hundreds of 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, by many orders exceeds the current capabilities. And 15 years ago, such a laser would have seemed science fiction, but now it is not. During this period, there was technology of phase synchronization of lasers, which can be, relatively speaking, from a large number of identical lasers to create one big laser beam. In fact, the task of building such a powerful laser has been reduced to the solution of problems of scale.
If you combine the technological progress in these three areas, it turns out that in the foreseeable future and for real investment this project can be realized.
We are not saying that this can be done for a few years and that the technical obstacles overcome. On the contrary, there are serious technical obstacles (we at this stage have identified no less than 20). But we say that you can do this and we start this way. We will Fund such developments, at least in the first stage, so that you can get the result in say, 20-30 years.
— That is your personal assessment, before the start of the device to alpha Centauri will take 20-30 years?
— We’re talking “for about one generation”, and this is where some 20-30 years.. In any case, it will require decades. But this is the basic idea: flying to other stars not far off. We say that the light sail is the only realistic way to date. About fusion engines and antimatter-we will not be able to speak seriously with regard to space flight for years to come.
— Road map of flights to other stars was published a week ago on the website of preprints Arxiv.organd this work overlaps considerably with your project. It was an accident or the author is the representative of your team?
Is Philip Lubin, he represents the University of California. He is a member of our team, to our Advisory Board. There is also many specialists in different fields. Lubin – specialist lasers. We have specialists in microelectronics, the interstellar medium in atmospheric and adaptive optics turbulentnosti… by the Way, the Council included Roald Sagdeev, who has long led the space research Institute (IKI).
— As in the work of the project will be taken important decisions?
— Collectively, taking into account the views of the Advisory Council. 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 Breakthrough project Starshot? As Russian scientists and engineers to take part in it?
— To begin with, historically, Russia was one of the originators of this project. The first person that wrote the equation of jet propulsion, was Tsiolkovsky. In 20-ies of the last century the world’s first its project solar sail presented Friedrich Zander, inspired by the works of Tsiolkovsky. He thought that it is possible to go to Mars, and expected to sail in the thickness of one hundredth of a millimeter, which would weigh 300 pounds. The area of this sail would be 1 square kilometer. While Zander noted that the thickness of the sail may be less 0.001 mm, because this thickness could reach Edison.
The first deployment of a solar sail in space has been carried out by Russia: this was done on the spaceship “Progress M-15” 4 February 1993 in the framework of the project “Znamya-2”. However, the 20-meter sail was not used as a space engine, and as an additional source of light on Earth, who has created the sundog with a diameter of 8 km. But still it was a solar sail.
Was a joint project of ICA and American Planetary Soсiety. The founder of the company was Carl Sagan, and his colleagues had a project of starting a real solar sail from a Russian submarine. But the launch failed, the missile, launched from the submarine Borisoglebsk on 21 June 2005, failed to gain the necessary speed.
In 1913 Boris Krasnogorsk in the novel “the waves of the ether” was used for a solar sail. Brothers Strugatskie on this subject wrote.
Our project is international, and, probably, cannot be implemented by a country or group of people. Therefore, our grant program will be purely international.
All research results will be published in the public domain. We are launching a website which will contain a list of the aforementioned technical challenges and problems that need to be addressed for the success of the project.
— Can your project to interfere with politics? Indeed, because of the sanctions, the cooperation of Roskosmos and NASA have experienced some problems. And do you agree with the opinion that now Russian science is lagging in?
— I do not agree, because the Russian launch vehicles are widely used now in the delivery of people and cargo into space orbits. Russian space science is at the forefront…
