Scientists at the University of California Santa Barbara contemplate how to launch tiny shapes of life to interstellar space, in small ships that travel at relativistic speed.
Although we may not see it in our livesAt least not a real version of the fictional warp, hyperdrive and folding rate of space, Professors Philip Lubin and Joel Rotman have developed basic ideas about how life could escape the bondage of our solar system, using technology that is within reach.
The team uses robots and photonics. Small probes with onboard instrumentation that detect, collect and transmit data back to Earth will be propelled up to 20-30% of the speed of light by the light itself using a laser array stationed on Earth, or possibly on the ground. Moon.
“We do not leave home with him,” as Lubin explained in a statement, meaning that the main propulsion system remains “at home”, while the spaceships “skyrocket” at relativistic speeds. The main propulsion laser is turned on for a short period of time and then the next probe is prepared to be launched.
“It would probably look like a semiconductor wafer with an edge to protect it from radiation and bombardment of dust as it passes through the interstellar medium,” Lubin said. “It would probably be the size of a hand to start with.” As the program evolved, the spacecraft would get larger with improved capabilities.
At these relativistic speeds, roughly 100 million kilometers per hour, the wafer ship would reach the next solar system, Proxima Centauri, in about 20 years. Getting to that level of technology will require innovation and continual improvement from both the space wafer and photonics, where Lubin sees “exponential growth” in the field. The basic project to develop a roadmap to achieve relativistic flight through directed energy propulsion is supported by NASA and private foundations such as the Starlight program and by Breakthrough Initiatives such as the Starshot.
Gram ships can accommodate live animals
“When I learned that the mass of these ships could reach levels of grams or more, it became clear that they could accommodate living animals,” said Rothman, who realized that the creatures he had been studying for decades, called C. elegans, they could be the first earthlings to travel among the stars. These intensely studied roundworms may be small and simple, but they are experimentally accomplished creatures, Rothman said.
C.elegans they are already veterans of space travel, as the subject of experiments conducted on the International Space Station and aboard the space shuttle, even surviving the tragic disintegration of the Columbia shuttle. Among their special powers, which they share with other possible interstellar travelers that Rothman studies, the tardigrade (or, more affectionately, the water bears) they can be placed in suspended animation in which virtually all metabolic function is stopped.
Thousands of these tiny creatures could be placed on a wafer (the link is external), put into suspended animation and fly in that state until they reach their desired destination. Then they could be awakened in their tiny StarChip and precisely monitored to detect any detectable effects of interstellar travel on its biology, with the observations transmitted to Earth by photonic communication.
“We can ask ourselves how well they remember trained behavior when they move away from their terrestrial origin at close to the speed of light, and examine their metabolism, physiology, neurological function, reproduction and aging,” Rothman added. “Most of the experiments that can be done on these animals in a laboratory can be done on board the StarChips as they travel through the cosmos. “The effects of such long odyssey in animal biology could allow scientists to extrapolate the potential effects in humans.
“We could start thinking about designing interstellar transporters, whatever they are, in a way that can improve the problems that are detected in these tiny animals,” Rothman said.
With information from Europa Press
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