Related - several groups are proposing a fly-by of 2017 U1 / Starglider

On 6/2/24 04:11, [email protected] wrote:
 > It was the first confirmed interstellar visitor.
 > But was it a rock or was it something else.
 > Several groups want to find out and are trying to cook up reasonable
 > ways to get out to the fast-receding 'Oumuamua. But it's close to 
impossible.
 > It's estimated a very fast probe might catch up with it 150 AU
 > out in several decades.

Man O' Man.  It is gone. As in Goners.
Spend money on looking and planning for next one.

I'm reminded of the "Starglider" in James C. Clarke's
book "Fountains of Paradise".  It was also an
"interstellar visitor" that was a artificial intelligence
scout, ambassador, announcer and greeter.

Some greedy scientist types realized how advanced it was
and wanted to chase after it to capture it, but wiser heads
prevailed.

from
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2023/12/06/talking-to-starglider/

Talking to Starglider
by Paul Gilster | Dec 6, 2023 | Astrobiology and SETI | 30 comments

When we’ve discussed interstellar ‘interlopers’ like ‘Oumuamua and 
2I/Borisov, the science fiction-minded among us have now and then noted 
Arthur Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama (Gollancz, 1973). Although we’ve 
yet to figure out definitively what ‘Oumuamua is (2/I Borisov is 
definitely a comet), the Clarke reference is an imaginative nod to the 
possibility that one day an alien craft might enter our Solar System 
during a gravitational assist maneuver and be flung outward on whatever 
its mission was (in Rama’s case, out in the direction of the Large 
Magellanic Cloud).

Since we’ll never see ‘Oumuamua again, we wait with great anticipation 
the work of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which will be 
run via the Vera Rubin Telescope (first light in 2025). Estimates vary 
widely but the consensus seems to be that with a telescope capable of 
imaging the entire visible sky in the southern hemisphere every few 
nights, the LSST should produce more than a few interstellar objects, 
perhaps ten or more, every year. We probably won’t find a Rama, but who 
knows?

Meanwhile, I’m reminded of another Clarke novel that rarely gets the 
attention in this regard that Rendezvous with Rama does. This is 1979’s 
The Fountains of Paradise (BCA/Gollancz). Although known primarily for 
its exploration of space elevators (and its reality-distorting 
geography), the novel includes as a separate theme another entry into 
the Solar System, this time by a craft that, unlike Rama, is willing to 
take notice of us. Starglider is its name, and it represents a 
civilization that is cataloging planetary systems through probes 
scattered across a host of nearby stars.

Go to citation to read much more........