{"id":13026,"date":"2016-08-12T19:30:48","date_gmt":"2016-08-12T23:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=13026"},"modified":"2016-08-12T19:59:29","modified_gmt":"2016-08-12T23:59:29","slug":"interstellar-laser-driven-lightsails-planetary-defense-and-the-voices-of-humanity-kickstarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=13026","title":{"rendered":"Interstellar laser driven lightsails, planetary defense, and the Voices of Humanity Kickstarter"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Planetary Radio<\/a> program had a recent interesting interview with \u00a0Philip Lubin<\/a>, Professor of Physics at UC Santa Barbara, and\u00a0Travis Brashears<\/a>, an undergrad at UC\u00a0Berkeley, about their proposal to accelerate a tiny wafer sized\u00a0lightsail spacecraft up to 10-25% of the speed of light using an array of lasers and sending the sail\u00a0to a nearby star:\u00a0Interstellar Dreams Turn Real\u00a0–\u00a0The Planetary Society<\/a><\/p>\nhttp:\/\/feeds.soundcloud.com\/stream\/276448851-theplanetarysociety-interstellar-dreams-turn-real.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Lubin’s concept has become the baseline technology for the $100 million\u00a0StarShot<\/a>\u00a0project\u00a0announced last April<\/a>\u00a0by the Breakthrough Initiatives<\/a>\u00a0program.<\/p>\n

\"VoicesOfHumanity-WaferSatSpacecraft\"<\/a>
WaferSat Spacecraft<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The key element\u00a0of the concept is the use of a phased array of many commercially available lasers rather than one hugely powerful laser. The concept is presented on their\u00a0Directed Energy<\/a>\u00a0website\u00a0and on the\u00a0DEEP-IN<\/a>\u00a0page at UCSB.\u00a0Lubin’s team has won two grants from the NASA Innovative Advance Concepts (NIAC) program to develop the concept further:\u00a0DEEP IN Directed Energy Propulsion for Interstellar Exploration –\u00a0\u00a0NASA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lubin gave a seminar at the SETI Institute in 2014 about the use of such a\u00a0phased array of lasers for not only propulsion but also for defense against large objects heading for earth:\u00a0Video: Philip Lubin (UCSB) on planetary defense with beamed power<\/a>. Find resources on this at\u00a0DE-STAR<\/a>\u00a0(Directed Energy Planetary Defense).<\/p>\n

Lubin and Brashears recently opened a crowd-funding campaign to fund development of the Humanity Chip,<\/a>\u00a0which would carry all sorts of data submitted by the public to space in 2017 (not by laser) and eventually to another star:\u00a0Voices of Humanity – The World’s Space Time Capsule by Prof. Philip Lubin & Travis Brashears \u2014 Kickstarter<\/a><\/p>\n

Our goal is to directly engage all humanity in space exploration. We want to send your dreams and aspirations to the stars! With our basic funding goal of $30,000, we will put your data on a custom spacecraft that will be launched in 2017 initially into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), then to more distant missions to the moon, Mars, etc in subsequent missions. In the future, we intend to offer the Humanity Chip to all spacecraft being launched.<\/em><\/p>\n

With 25 days to go, they have gotten $5,515\u00a0pledged towards a\u00a0$30,000<\/span> goal.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Here are a couple of videos from\u00a0the Kickstarter:<\/p>\n