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I4is
The Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) is a UK-registered not-for-profit company, whose objectives are education and research into the challenges of Interstellar Travel. It pioneered small-scale laser sail interstellar probes ( Project Dragonfly) and missions to interstellar objects (Project Lyra). Several of its principals were involved in the 100 Year Starship winning team originated by NASA and DARPA. The US activities of i4is are coordinated by the Institute for Interstellar Studies, a not-for-profit registered in Tennessee, USA. Notable projects and activities Project Dragonfly: i4is has initiated a project working on small interstellar spacecraft, propelled by a laser sail in 2013 under the name of Project Dragonfly. Four student teams worked on concepts for such a mission in 2014 and 2015 in the context of a design competition. The design of the team from the University of California, Santa Barbara, has subsequently been selected as the baseline system ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Lyra
Project Lyra is a feasibility study of a mission to interstellar objects such as ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov, initiated on 30 October 2017 by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is). In January 2022, researchers proposed that a spacecraft launched from Earth could catch up to 'Oumuamua in 26 years for further close-up studies. Overview Options suggested by i4is initially (which have now been superseded) for sending a spacecraft to ʻOumuamua within a time-frame of 5 to 10 years were based on a launch in 2021, and required travelling first to Jupiter to conduct a Planetary flyby, flyby, followed by a close solar Planetary flyby, flyby at 3 to 10 solar radii, in order to take advantage of the Oberth effect. Subsequent research revealed further launch possibilities, notably in 2030 or 2033, using the same scenario (except the 2030 launch has an additional Vinfinity Leveraging Maneuver), but with a total flight duration of 22 years. Thus, there are still future opportunities for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interstellar Travel
Interstellar travel is the hypothetical travel of spacecraft between star systems. Due to the vast distances between the Solar System and nearby stars, interstellar travel is not practicable with current propulsion technologies. To travel between stars within a reasonable amount of time (decades or centuries), an interstellar spacecraft must reach a significant fraction of the speed of light, requiring enormous energy. Communication with such interstellar craft will experience years of delay due to the speed of light. Collisions with cosmic dust and gas at such speeds can be catastrophic for such spacecrafts. Crewed interstellar travel could possibly be conducted more slowly (far beyond the scale of a human lifetime) by making a generation ship. Hypothetical interstellar propulsion systems include nuclear pulse propulsion, fission-fragment rocket, fusion rocket, beamed solar sail, and antimatter rocket. The benefits of interstellar travel include detailed surveys of habitable exop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Dragonfly (space Study)
Project Dragonfly is the first conceptual design study that assesses the feasibility of a laser-propelled interstellar probe, conducted by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies.Leonard David, "Pushing the Boundaries: Initiative for Interstellar Studies/ref>Next Big Future, "Project Dragonfly is competition to design interstellar laser sail probes that would be technological feasible by 2034 and launched by 2050/ref> Contrary to past unmanned interstellar travel, interstellar mission studies such as Project Daedalus and Project Icarus, the focus is particularly on a small spacecraft. The project was founded in 2013 by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is). A subsequent design competition was launched in 2014. The objective was to design a spacecraft that is capable of reaching Alpha Centauri within 100 years using existing or near-term technologies and a beam power below . Four teams presented their designs at the final workshop at the British Interplanetary Society ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interstellar Object
An interstellar object is an astronomical object in interstellar space that is not gravitationally bound to a star. Applicable objects include asteroids, comets, and rogue planets, but not a star or stellar remnant. This term can also be applied to an object that is on an interstellar trajectory but is temporarily passing close to a star, such as certain asteroids and comets (that is, exoasteroids and exocomets). In the latter case, the object may be called an interstellar interloper. The first interstellar objects discovered were rogue planets, planets ejected from their original stellar system (e.g., OTS 44 or Cha 110913−773444), though they are difficult to distinguish from sub-brown dwarfs, planet-mass objects that formed in interstellar space as stars do. The first interstellar object which was discovered traveling through the Solar System was ʻOumuamua, 1I/ʻOumuamua in 2017. The second was 2I/Borisov in 2019. They both possess significant Hyperbolic trajectory#Semi-m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States's civil list of government space agencies, space program, aeronautics research and outer space, space research. National Aeronautics and Space Act, Established in 1958, it succeeded the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to give the American space development effort a distinct civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. It has since led most of America's space exploration programs, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968–1972 Apollo program missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. Currently, NASA supports the International Space Station (ISS) along with the Commercial Crew Program and oversees the development of the Orion (spacecraft), Orion spacecraft and the Sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astronautics
Astronautics (or cosmonautics) is the practice of sending spacecraft beyond atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere into outer space. Spaceflight is one of its main applications and space science is its overarching field. The term ''astronautics'' (originally ''astronautique'' in French language, French) was coined in the 1920s by J.-H. Rosny aîné, J.-H. Rosny, president of the Académie Goncourt, Goncourt academy, in analogy with aeronautics. Because there is a degree of technical overlap between the two fields, the term aerospace is often used to describe both at once. In 1930, Robert Esnault-Pelterie published the first book on the new research field. The term ''cosmonautics'' (originally ''cosmonautique'' in French) was introduced in the 1930s by Ary Abramovich Sternfeld, Ary Sternfeld with his book ''Initiation à la Cosmonautique'' (Introduction to cosmonautics) (the book brought him the Robert Esnault-Pelterie#Prix REP-Hirsch, Prix REP-Hirsch, later known as the Prix d'As ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Professor Emeritus
''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some cases, the term is conferred automatically upon all persons who retire at a given rank, but in others, it remains a mark of distinguished performance (usually in the area of research) awarded selectively on retirement. It is also used when a person of distinction in a profession retires or hands over the position, enabling their former rank to be retained in their title. The term ''emeritus'' does not necessarily signify that a person has relinquished all the duties of their former position, and they may continue to exercise some of them. In descriptions of deceased professors emeriti listed at U.S. universities, the title ''emeritus'' is replaced by an indication of the years of their appointments, except in Obituary, obituaries, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Life On Venus
The possibility of life on Venus is a subject of interest in astrobiology due to Venus's proximity and similarities to Earth. To date, no definitive evidence has been found of past or present life there. In the early 1960s, studies conducted via spacecraft demonstrated that the current Venusian environment is extreme compared to Earth's. Studies continue to question whether life could have existed on the planet's surface before a runaway greenhouse effect took hold, and whether a relict biosphere could persist high in the modern Venusian atmosphere. With extreme surface temperatures reaching nearly and an atmospheric pressure 92 times that of Earth, the conditions on Venus make water-based life as we know it unlikely on the surface of the planet. However, a few scientists have speculated that thermoacidophilic extremophile microorganisms might exist in the temperate, acidic upper layers of the Venusian atmosphere. In September 2020, research was published that reported the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freeman Dyson
Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was a British-American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrix, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, and nuclear engineering, engineering. He was professor emeritus in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton and a member of the board of sponsors of the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists''. Dyson originated several concepts that bear his name, such as Dyson's transform, a fundamental technique in additive number theory, which he developed as part of his proof of Mann's theorem; the Dyson tree, a hypothetical genetic engineering, genetically engineered plant capable of growing in a comet; the Dyson series, a Perturbation theory (quantum mechanics), perturbative series where each term is represented by Feynman diagrams; the Dys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, recognising excellence in science, supporting outstanding science, providing scientific advice for policy, education and public engagement and fostering international and global co-operation. Founded on 28 November 1660, it was granted a royal charter by Charles II of England, King Charles II and is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the society's president, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members of Council and the president are elected from and by its Fellows, the basic members of the society, who are themselves elected by existing Fellows. , there are about 1,700 fellows, allowed to use the postnominal title FRS (Fellow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Bond (engineer)
Alan Bond (born 1944) is a British mechanical and aerospace engineer, who served as Managing Director of Reaction Engines Ltd and associated with Project Daedalus, Blue Streak missile, HOTOL, Reaction Engines Skylon and the Reaction Engines A2 hypersonic passenger aircraft. Career Alan Bond is an engineer, with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He worked on liquid rocket engines, principally the RZ.2 (liquid oxygen / kerosene) and the RZ.20 (liquid oxygen / liquid hydrogen) at Rolls-Royce under the tutelage of Val Cleaver, and he was also involved with flight trials of the Blue Streak at Woomera. He then worked for about 20 years at UK Atomic Energy Authority's Culham Laboratory on nuclear fusion, on the JET and RFX nuclear research projects. He was engaged in studies for the application of fusion to interplanetary space travel. He is the leading author of the report on the Project Daedalus interstellar, fusion powered starship concept, published by the Briti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
