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Argosy Mission Overhaul
>From Brian Mansur
(I used my last name so this must be important, at least to me).
ARGOSY MISSION OVERHAUL
Here it is, the new plan. We are no longer on a mission of exploration
(sound of the LIT charter being crumpled up). We are, in fact, now
colonizing every star within 20 or so light years. "How?" you say. Okay.
Here is the deal.
All this week we've been running through ideas on how to redirect the
maser/laser beam to stop the Asimov. We've run through complex reflective
sail apparatuses that are nearing the size of Jupiter. I won't go through
all the problems with these apparatuses, but I will point out one thing they
all require. For any manned lightsail/MARS propulsion idea to work, it is
required that humans completely master of automotive technology. This
extent of "mastery" is to the point that robots could, on their own, build,
launch, and maintain humungous reflective arrays for over fifty years.
Here is my proposal. If the robots are that good, they are good enough to
handle this TC exploration mission just as well as humans (in terms of
setting up pre-planned experiments, doing basic surveys, and transmitting
the data back to Sol. And since they are already capable of making huge
reflective arrays and, in fact, must have done so around Sol to provide
power to launch the maser/laser driven sails that towed their ship to TC,
they must then be capable of setting up a similar array around TC. So
instead of launching a 100,000 to 500,000 ton starship to carry a measly 100
- 1000 person crew, this is what we will do.
Launch a small, .33c maser sail launched ion rocket that carries enough
robots to start a robot civilization at TC. Note that the speed choice of
..33c could be increased if we find rockets that could stop themselves from
higher speeds. But a rocket would probably be better than lightsailing
which is what this whole plan revolves around. So for now we're assuming
..33c. The ion rocket plus its payload will weigh very, very little compared
to 100,000 tons as envisioned in the Explorer Class paper. This should be
expected since the ship is carrying robots in its cargo bays and doesn't (we
should pray) need to have nearly the amount of shielding as a human filled
hab section. It will have to carry enough fuel, of course, for the breaking
step. This brings us back to the problem of stopping which we can work on
later. But since I am envisioning a 10,000 ton dry ship weight. (Everyone
does a double take. Yes I wrote 1E4 tons not 1E5. If our robots are worth
anything, a seed robot ship should be compact enough to make this doable.
Once the ship has arrived in the system, it locates a suitable asteroid as
close to TC as it can find in a reasonable amount of time and it starts
building robots and power collection arrays out of it. The robots build
masers that will then be used to stop high speed settler Argosies coming in
from Sol.
This is just an outline of the new plan for human conquest of interstellar
space. And guess what! I have solved the problem of the inhospitibility of
planets and moons that are too far from their stars to be warm enough to
live on. What we do is have the robots build extra solar collectors and
laser (not maser) arrays. They then shine the lights on that distant planet
as if they were shining a sun lamp. This could be done in our solar system
to heat up Mars, Europa, Titan, Encledes, and just about anyplace else.
Solving the problem of how to keep the lights on a moon that passes behind
its planet every now and then can be solved with reflectors on another, dead
moon (for Jupiter and Saturn, there are several). Note that I haven't yet
worked out a way to account for slow rotations that would otherwise give
uneven heating. I have some ideas but my time for writing is running out
for today.
I said at the beginning that super automation was assumed. Humans could
build and support 1E20 Watt arrays (assume overall efficiency to starship at
1% to ensure that 1E18 reaches in all phases of flight). But only if the
entire human race pitched in. I've got to go. I don't suppose there is
much to comment on what I've taken half an hour to write since this paper is
built on that automotive assumption. Basically if you have a robot
workforce that can build anything, that is just what people will direct them
to do: build anything.
I'll include this plan in my Argosy paper. That paper will probably be a
description of how a maser/laser driven ship would look like, inside and
out. Also it will give the plans that we've discussed so far on how to stop
it. That includes everything from retro-mirrors to portable maser arrays to
RM to another maser set up at TC.
Have a nice day.