Keith A. Beals

“ One of the main concerns regarding the success of the mission is the ability of the probe to be in good working order when it reaches the objective system. While any interstellar mission will require transit time in excess of a century, the Alpha Centauri system is the closest to our own, and thus provides the best opportunity to deliver a functional probe to another star system. ”

“ There is a huge amount of waste heat from the propulsion system and the nuclear reactor (both fission and fusion reactions) ; The fuel will be stored in large tanks at near-absolute temperatures, and must be shielded from the waste heat of the nuclear reactions. The spacecraft will require highly efficient radiators to dissipate the thermal energy released by the interstellar drive, namely the inductors, particle beams, and fusion reaction. ”

“ The mirrors and ceramic buffers will keep the spacecraft's waste heat away from the tanks, while refrigeration units will keep the fuel vapor pressure low enough to remain in pelletized form for the duration of the mission. The tanks will be painted black to emit as much radiation as possible in deep space.
The probe head will be protected from the radiation from Beta in the Centauri system by a thermal blanket. Heat from the computer, instruments, and lasers will be convected through heat pipes to the radiators at the rear of the spacecraft. ”

“ The fuel tanks will be built of sheet aluminum with formed end caps. The end caps will be launched in a completed and stacked configuration and the sheeting for the bodies will be rolled into a solid cylinder for launch. Assembly will occur in orbit using advanced adhesives technology. The fuel for the fusion engine will consist of He3 and deuteruim. The He3 will probably be manufactured on earth using particle accelerators, and then both components of the fuel will be launched in liquid form to orbit for processing into pelletized reactor fuel. ”

“ The nuclear reactor will have to be ignited, and rechanneled to repower the slowly draining capacitors of the interstellar Drive igniter system, after the spacecraft has fully rotated and stabilized in the proper alignment.
3.2.2.3 Feasibility The entire Interstellar Drive is highly dependent upon enabling technology. Building an actual scale model that is capable of running continuously for 100 years will be a challenge by itself! Barring further significant technological breakthroughs, the collection of fuel will be the most difficult and time consuming portion of the building. ”

“ The communications lasers must be pointed with an accuracy of 0.67 arcseconds, and a hard file of the position of the earth relative to Sol must be retained in memory to govern the pointing of the laser. Once the target system is reached, the processing unit must be able to achieve and maintain an acceptable orbit, and maneuver the investigate high priority phenomena, such as evidence of intelligent life. For a block diagram of the data processing system, see appendix.
3.6 Guidance A system of star trackers will be used for both navigation and attitude determination. ”

“ Current advances have shrunk a Cray 2 from a room sized system needing a huge cooling plant to two chips, and with the advent of high temperature super-conductor technology there is every reason to assume that many more such quantum leaps in computer technology may be expected in the next 20 to 30 years. ”

“ The commitment at the other end of the mission should be an easy one to fulfill since scientists will be eager to analyze the incoming data. Thus, the greatest challenge comes with the caretaker portion of the mission - the century of travel time when very little data will be transmitted. The problem here is not the number of people required, since it will be small, but rather the time involved. There has never been a similar project in modern history carried out over such a long time scale. ”

“ There will also be a particle shield in front to protect the spacecraft during the interstellar flight phase. The particles may not be all that large, but the spacecraft will be traveling at velocities near 5 percent of the speed of light; therefore, they will have a tremendous amount of energy. ”

“ Everyone will want to "see" what another star system looks like. In addition to providing important scientific information, a picture will be worth a thousand words or a thousand pages of numbers when it comes to obtaining funding for follow-up missions to other star systems. ”

“ The reactor will boil potassium which will then be piped through a turbine that will convert the thermal energy to mechanical energy. The potassium is further cooled by flowing through the heat radiators and is then recycled back into the reactor. ”

“ Our probe will be a completely autonomous design based upon a combination of current technology and technological advances which can be reasonably expected to be developed over the next 20 to 30 years. ”

“ These systems include a heavy-lift launch vehicle, a large space station and an advanced, high energy upper stage. These requirements represent merely the technological infrastructure; also required is a very large initial human infrastructure, as well as a long term human commitment. ”

“ INDUCES A CURRENT IN THE COILS THAT SURROUND THE EXIT PORT. THIS ENERGY IS USED TO RE-CHARGE THE PARTICLE/LASER BEAMS AND THE MAGNETIC FIELD.
chamber. The problem involved with using such a field (besides the obvious requirement for immense quantities of energy) is that only charged particles will be channeled out the nozzle. Although the extreme temperatures will instantly ionize all of the atoms and molecules, any neutrons produced in the fusion reaction will not be affected by the magnetic field. ”

“ Newton's equation, F=ma, is used to find the forces on the fuel tanks during flight. The maximum force will occur when the acceleration is a maximum. This is when the mass is a minimum for a constant thrust problem. ”

“ The fusion drive will be launched as a finished unit due to its complexity. It will be equipped with a plug-in type interface for integration with the remainder of the ship. The main structure will be a collapsible space frame, which will be erected from its stored configuration by personnel at the space station. Additional structure will also be orbited in collapsed form for erection at Space Station. ”

“ Once the drive is ignited it will become self-sustaining and provide enough excess power to operate the systems in use during the transit. During this phase, fuel will be drawn from symmetrically located pairs of fuel tanks to avoid instability caused by non-homogeneous mass distribution. ”

“ This represents an increase of several orders of magnitude over chemical rockets and nuclear rocket models which can be implemented using only present technology. To achieve the required levels of impulse, a pulsed fusion reactor based rocket engine is proposed. ”

“ Fig. 2.1b
2.2 Operations Assembly of the probe will occur in two phases: major components and subsystem will be assembled and tested on the ground, and then sent to LEO for final assembly and integration into the spacecraft. ”

“ Some examples include: the militaries of nations such as the U.S. and U.K., various research institutions like the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian Institute, and private organizations such as the Red Cross and the Explorer's Club. The precedent exists for organizations continuing for the required time frame. ”

“ Delta-V1 = V1 − Vp−sun = 8.8223 km/sec (4) Apogee velocity of transfer orbit: V2 = [2 (fsun/5.2 AU + Et) ] = 7.4157 km/sec (5) Velocity required to orbit Jupiter at an altitude of 500,000 km: V3 = (fJupiter/571370) .5 = 14.8971 km/sec (6) Delta-V to inject into orbit about Jupiter: V3 − V2 = 7.4814 km/sec (7) Jupiter escape velocity: V3−escape = (2fJupiter/571370) .5 = 21.0676 km/sec (8) Delta-V to escape Jupiter: Delta-V3−esc = VJ−esc − VJ = 6.1705 km/sec (9) Velocity of probe about sun at Jupiter distance: Vp−sun−J = (fsun/5.2 AU) .5 = 13.0601 km/sec ”