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

On 6/3/2024 12:49 PM, a425couple wrote:
> 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........


I haven't been following those projects, but they put me in mind
of the Breakthrough Starshot project (of which I've heard very
little lately).

It proposed to accelerate tiny lightsail probes to 0.2c using
ginormous lasers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot#

pt