2025 SpaceX BFR and gravity slingshots for speed to reach alien Oumuamua object

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Harvard researchers have a paper which proposes that 2017 interstellar object Oumuamua was an alien solar sail.

Speed, acceleration and other reasons to think it is an alien solar sail

The reasons for this are:

1. It came in at a speed of 58,000 mph (26 kilometers per second) which meant it had to come from outside the solar system
2. Between the orbit of the Jupiter and Earth it nearly doubled its speed to 111,000 mph (49 km per second)
3. It reached a peak speed of nearly 200,000 mph (87 km per second) and then went around the sun and is leaving the solar system
4. It would have taken 600,000 years to reach the Solar System from the direction of Vega. Vega was not in the right location 600,000 years ago. It was at the average speed for material in the Milky Way. It has probably circulated the Milky Way several times and may have originated from an entirely different part of the galaxy.

The strange movement and speed up of the object can be explained if the 1000 meter long by 35-meter wide object was a 100-300 kilogram solar sail.

Another explanation is that it was a lot heavier (made of near solid rock) and had massive outgassing. However, the outgassing should have happened at other times and provided a very visible comet tail.

Just the fact that it is the first definitely an object of interstellar and galactic origin makes it worth chasing. It is an alien solar sail, then we should definitely chase it.

If it is an alien solar sail there could be many, many more alien solar sails out there. But we cannot be certain there are many more. We need to have telescopes scanning for such interstellar objects. We could spot the next one far earlier and setup an easier intercept mission. However, we need to chase this one.

The world went a little crazy over a WTF radio signal a few decades ago. SETI got substantial funding for a radio signal search.

This is a WTF object and possibly a giant alien spacecraft. This is worth a few billion dollars for a mission to check it out. Such a mission is possible.

Others have said that we should not leap to the conclusion that it is an alien solar sail. They also say we cannot catch up to it with chemical rockets. We can catch up to it with chemical rockets if we use two gravity slingshots.

Project Lyra

In 2017, the Initiative for Interstellar Studies started Project Lyra to look at sending a spacecraft to look at Oumuamua.

Arxiv – Project Lyra: Sending a Spacecraft to 1I/’Oumuamua (former A/2017 U1), the Interstellar Asteroid

They assessed the feasibility of a fly-by or rendezvous mission using current and near-term technology. Oumuamua is at 26 km/s (58,000 mph). It moves 5.5 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun every year. It will be beyond Saturn’s orbit late in 2019.

Launch within the next 4 years would be very, very tough. Launching with 9 years would be challenging. New technologies will probably need to be developed.

One potential mission architecture is to make use of SpaceX’s Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) and in-space refueling with a launch date in 2025. A Jupiter flyby combined with a close solar flyby (down to 3 solar radii), nicknamed solar fryby, could get the needed speed.

Direct launch of a chase probe from a Highly Eccentric Earth Orbit (HEEO) plus various kick-stages would work. The probe would have a C3 of 100 km²/s² into an 18-month trajectory to Jupiter for a gravity assist into the solar fryby. A multi-layer thermal shield protects the spacecraft, which is boosted by a high-thrust solid rocket stage at perihelion. The hyperbolic excess velocity of 70 km/s was possible with this technique, a value which achieves an intercept at about 85 AU in 2039 for a 2025 launch. More modest figures can still fulfill the mission, such as 40 km/s with an intercept at 155 AU in 2051. With the high approach speed a hyper-velocity impactor to produce a gas ‘puff’ to sample with a mass spectrometer could be the serious option to get in-situ data.

Advanced solar sails, laser sails, magnetic sails and electric sails could work but we do not have those technologies yet. The longer it takes to develop the technology and launch then the faster the mission has to be.

2025 to 2030 Launch window would mean two Blue Origin New Armstrong or Two Long March 9 Super heavy lift rockets would also work

Any two super-heavy lift rockets would work for the mission. One to launch toward the gravity slingshots and one for the refueling to have a fully fueled rocket.

Reusability would not be needed for the rockets.

Two Space Launch Systems would also work.

The Solar Fryby probe would need to adopt the solar shield of the Parker Solar Probe.

The Parker solar probe was launched and it will approach to within 9.86 solar radii (6.9 million kilometers or 4.3 million miles) of the Sun. At its perihelion, the Parker Solar Probe will enter a region of space where temperatures can reach over 500,000 degrees Celsius.

110 thoughts on “2025 SpaceX BFR and gravity slingshots for speed to reach alien Oumuamua object”

  1. Except that due to the observations of acceleration from the solar wind, it is most likely a very light object, like a shell.

  3. To be fair, there are, inherently, only so many names with few syllables. I think they’re mostly used up, and in any case should be reserved for stuff that’s sticking around.

  5. To be fair, there are, inherently, only so many names with few syllables. I think they’re mostly used up, and in any case should be reserved for stuff that’s sticking around.

  6. Even if the object was on the right trajectory, remember that the Voyagers RTG will no longer produce enough power to run anything by 2025. It would be at least 2025 before the object reaches Voyager’s current distance from the Sun…

  7. Why do you assume Jennifer is not talking about a laser when mentioning a “giant death ray gun” that will shoot at “the speed of light”?

  9. The soft capture may be too impractical for the main probe, but if we can pull off an impactor, maybe we can pull off a soft capture of a secondary.

  10. On 2nd thought, the hybrid object explanation is also very unlikely. Without EM interaction, dark matter would have difficulty sticking to normal matter. And it wouldn’t be affected by the solar radiation and solar wind, so why would it outgas?If such hybrid objects do exist, they would probably need new physics, such as some sort of new short-range interaction.

  11. Even if the object was on the right trajectory, remember that the Voyagers RTG will no longer produce enough power to run anything by 2025. It would be at least 2025 before the object reaches Voyager’s current distance from the Sun…

  12. Rama and other ships from that series were a lot bigger than 50m in diameter, which is what Oumuamua measures. (God I hate that name – I wish they could’ve come up with something that has fewer syllables)

  14. I think the problem — in the end — is that large telescope mirrors are accompanied by a lot of supporting ‘stuff’ having appreciable mass. Which then makes accelerating the thing to a reasonable intercept speed (you could read that as ‘reasonable intercept time’) becomes prohibitive. We know in Beautiful Physics terms that F = ma … and therefore … a = F/mWe also know that in order to intercept AND study Oumuamua, the idea is to drift by as slowly as possible to image it well … yet not so slowly that it is well beyond “imageable” in a timeframe amenable to Mankind’s attention span. I would consider a 50 year mission as way, way too long. Remember the SAT leadtime-and-velocity problem? (You’re trying to catch a thief, who is riding a scooter heading away from the Sheriff’s office at 15 miles per hour. She’s been on that bike for 4 hours, pedaling steadily. Your early 19th century Model A Ford can consistently make 40 miles per hour, and has stowed aboard enough fuel to go anywhere. How long before the Sheriff intercepts the cyclist?… The answer is kind of obvious but boggles many people: The differential speed between the sheriff and the cyclist, combined with the distance between them at the moment the Sheriff leaves his post, determines the TIME that it’ll take for S to intercept B. 25 MPH = 40 MPH – 15 MPH, and at 15 MPH, for 4 hours, cyclist is 60 miles ahead. 60 mi ÷ 25 MPH = 2.4 hr. (4 ⊕ 2.4 = 6.4) hr total at 15 MPH = 96 miles downwind. Very tired cyclist. She’s up for the Triathlon for sure.)In Oumuamua’s case, the ΔV between them would be more-or-less in effect during the fly-by. The imaging of ‘O’ would begin as soon as the Probe is close enough to detect O’s waning reflected sunlight. And would continue until P recedes far enough away to no longer image O. This depends on the diameter of P’s scope, to a large extent, and of course ΔV. And how far O is from Sol, its surface albedo, the sensitivity of P’s scope’s imaging chip, and all that astrophysics stuff. Which I just modeled. Results are in!10,000 kg probe. 5 newton thrust, 2 effective years. The total time to intercept is 7.35 years. Flyby ΔV at 6.5 km/s. Earliest imaging at 800,000 km distance; total flyby of 68 hours. At maximum imaging dstance, a 12 inch high-grade scope would be able to ‘see’ details 1,700 m across. Not great, but hey… the whole intercept is more than 38 AU from Sol. Not much light out there. Pluto’s distance. At 4 newton thrust, same everything else, 33 year intercept. ΔV of only 0.25 km/s. 400 hour observation window. 400 m minimum feature size at max telescopy distance. Much better as it gets closer. No possibility of a ‘slow-down-to-stop’ unless the probe stows 800 kg of ISP=300 reaction mass aboard for use just at the end. Which, given it weighs in at 10,000 hypothetical kg, seems like a good investment. Might as well hang around the thing for years. GoatGuy

  15. The fact that a Rendezvous with Rama (Oumuamua) is happening in our lifetime is definitely worth the money the world spends on weapons, wars and corruption.

  19. For the slow down, might something like grappling hooks on kevlar bungee cables work? My guess is not. Too much relative velocity / kinetic energy, too weak materials, too much material needed to slow down with reasonable deceleration, etc. Most importantly, too difficult to close the distance enough. But it’s an interesting idea.

  20. Dark matter is one thing it definitely isn’t, since by definition, dark matter doesn’t interact with light (or any other EM radiation). We got a light curve off of it, so it can’t be dark matter.Hmm… but maybe outgassing of dark matter would explain why no outgassing was detected. If it was a hybrid object (regular matter mixed with dark matter), that could also explain the strange light curve.

  21. This is a great idea. Expensive, probably, but this object is by far the strangest we have ever seen in our solar system. Getting a probe to rendezvous with it should be a high priority.

  23. Congrats……you realized you just described something that is hundreds of times harder than what they did right? To shoot something at the speed of light requires (I am assuming your not talking about a laser) and insane amount of energy and a insanely large accelerator. THEN it has to get out of our atmosphere through space and hit its target. WE would be lucky to do that with a laser. REALLY lucky.

  25. Might as well launch a decent telescope on the probe, plan on snapping pics on the flyby, and then using it for long baseline astronomy. Say, isn’t there a spare Hubble mirror still available? I could get behind launching a Hubble copy in the general direction.

  26. Electric propulsion would be good. The acceleration profile is hardly “steep”. More like really, really gentle. Getting 5 newtons would be outstanding, but improbable. Weighing in at 10 metric tons (pulled that out of thin air!) is likely. Being only “under acceleration” for 2 years Would get the spacecraft to 40+ km/s. Clearly enough to overtake Oumuamua eventually. Probably a 7 year mission. And “no way to slow down” once you get there. At all. So its just a flyby and wave a flag, smile encouragingly, shoot lasers, pellets at it, and never see the probe ever again. Just saying,GoatGuy

  27. Except … for distance … and resolution … and the inferred telescope MINIMUM diameter mirror.Oumuamua is supposed to be about 30 to 50 m in diameter, and 1,000 m or so long. We would like what, 10 m resolution? It is receding at 25 km/s or 5.5 AU/year. Soon, it’ll be at Saturn’s 10 AU mean orbit. ⇒ Res = object size / distance (in radians)⇒ Res = 10 m / (10 AU × 150×10⁶ km/AU × 1000 m/km)⇒ Res = 6.7×10⁻¹² radianFor telescopes, ⇒ Res = 1.22λ/diameter (all in meters)⇒ 6.7×10⁻¹² = 1.22⋅550×10⁻⁹ / diameter⇒ diameter = 100,650 mNow, I don’t know about you, but the idea of putting up a 100 KILOMETER wide mirror in space to take a close look at Oumuamua … is pretty preposterous. If that hue thing were already up there, say taking deep-fine looks at all the planets, at the individual stars in other galaxies (Resolution at Andromeda — some 2,537,000 LY away — would be about 1 AU. All Andromeda’s stars would be individually resolved, except for close doubles.), well then you’d just point it at Oumuamua and snap a few pictures. However, it isn’t, and we ain’t. Just saying,GoatGuy

  28. Given the time and cost, I think it would be better to spend the that budget on a better orbital telescope to see what the object actually looks like. If indeed it is artificial, then you could justify the expense to plan and execute a long-term chase scheme to examine it from close up.

  30. Yes, but assuming that THIS object, the first such object we’ve had the tech to detect, just happens to be artificial in origin is still a HUGE leap.I say let’s just take three steps back and just call it dark matter, interesting, and useful to take a closer look at.

  31. On 2nd thought, the hybrid object explanation is also very unlikely. Without EM interaction, dark matter would have difficulty sticking to normal matter. And it wouldn’t be affected by the solar radiation and solar wind, so why would it outgas?

    If such hybrid objects do exist, they would probably need new physics, such as some sort of new short-range interaction.

  32. If it is an alien solar sail, we send…an impactor? Really?Yes, I noticed. ;-)BTW, the article leaves out solar electric propulsion on the probe, which would be very helpful for such a steep acceleration curve. Is it mentioned in the paper and not in the article? I’ll have to go read the paper and see.

  33. Rama and other ships from that series were a lot bigger than 50m in diameter, which is what Oumuamua measures. (God I hate that name – I wish they could’ve come up with something that has fewer syllables)

  35. I think the problem — in the end — is that large telescope mirrors are accompanied by a lot of supporting ‘stuff’ having appreciable mass. Which then makes accelerating the thing to a reasonable intercept speed (you could read that as ‘reasonable intercept time’) becomes prohibitive.

    We know in Beautiful Physics terms that

    F = ma … and therefore …
    a = F/m

    We also know that in order to intercept AND study Oumuamua, the idea is to drift by as slowly as possible to image it well … yet not so slowly that it is well beyond “imageable” in a timeframe amenable to Mankind’s attention span.

    I would consider a 50 year mission as way, way too long. Remember the SAT leadtime-and-velocity problem? (You’re trying to catch a thief, who is riding a scooter heading away from the Sheriff’s office at 15 miles per hour. She’s been on that bike for 4 hours, pedaling steadily. Your early 19th century Model A Ford can consistently make 40 miles per hour, and has stowed aboard enough fuel to go anywhere. How long before the Sheriff intercepts the cyclist?… The answer is kind of obvious but boggles many people: The differential speed between the sheriff and the cyclist, combined with the distance between them at the moment the Sheriff leaves his post, determines the TIME that it’ll take for S to intercept B. 25 MPH = 40 MPH – 15 MPH, and at 15 MPH, for 4 hours, cyclist is 60 miles ahead. 60 mi ÷ 25 MPH = 2.4 hr. (4 ⊕ 2.4 = 6.4) hr total at 15 MPH = 96 miles downwind. Very tired cyclist. She’s up for the Triathlon for sure.)

    In Oumuamua’s case, the ΔV between them would be more-or-less in effect during the fly-by. The imaging of ‘O’ would begin as soon as the Probe is close enough to detect O’s waning reflected sunlight. And would continue until P recedes far enough away to no longer image O.

    This depends on the diameter of P’s scope, to a large extent, and of course ΔV. And how far O is from Sol, its surface albedo, the sensitivity of P’s scope’s imaging chip, and all that astrophysics stuff.

    Which I just modeled.
    Results are in!

    10,000 kg probe. 5 newton thrust, 2 effective years. The total time to intercept is 7.35 years. Flyby ΔV at 6.5 km/s. Earliest imaging at 800,000 km distance; total flyby of 68 hours. At maximum imaging dstance, a 12 inch high-grade scope would be able to ‘see’ details 1,700 m across. Not great, but hey… the whole intercept is more than 38 AU from Sol. Not much light out there. Pluto’s distance.

    At 4 newton thrust, same everything else, 33 year intercept. ΔV of only 0.25 km/s. 400 hour observation window. 400 m minimum feature size at max telescopy distance. Much better as it gets closer. No possibility of a ‘slow-down-to-stop’ unless the probe stows 800 kg of ISP=300 reaction mass aboard for use just at the end.

    Which, given it weighs in at 10,000 hypothetical kg, seems like a good investment. Might as well hang around the thing for years. GoatGuy

  36. The fact that a Rendezvous with Rama (Oumuamua) is happening in our lifetime is definitely worth the money the world spends on weapons, wars and corruption.

  38. For the slow down, might something like grappling hooks on kevlar bungee cables work? My guess is not. Too much relative velocity / kinetic energy, too weak materials, too much material needed to slow down with reasonable deceleration, etc. Most importantly, too difficult to close the distance enough. But it’s an interesting idea.

  39. Dark matter is one thing it definitely isn’t, since by definition, dark matter doesn’t interact with light (or any other EM radiation). We got a light curve off of it, so it can’t be dark matter.

    Hmm… but maybe outgassing of dark matter would explain why no outgassing was detected. If it was a hybrid object (regular matter mixed with dark matter), that could also explain the strange light curve.

  40. Why? It’s an object originating outside of our solar system. Studying it would provide invaluable data on planetary formation at the very least, assuming it’s a regular old asteroid. At the moment we’re dealing with a sample size of one.

  41. You can’t say “it is” without seeing it up close and examining it. Unless you’ve been there? Did you bring back photos?We don’t have any solid evidence as to its mass or composition, so anything we say about it other than position and velocity is purely speculation.

  42. This is a great idea. Expensive, probably, but this object is by far the strangest we have ever seen in our solar system. Getting a probe to rendezvous with it should be a high priority.

  43. Assuming it was a probe that came here to study here. Millions of other possibilities, many of which we can’t even guess at, because Alien.

  45. I’m presuming these groups on Earth in contact with aliens are fabulously wealthy because of the amazing technology they have access to? Or is there a Prime Directive stopping any transfer, even cures for cancer?

  46. Congrats……you realized you just described something that is hundreds of times harder than what they did right?

    To shoot something at the speed of light requires (I am assuming your not talking about a laser) and insane amount of energy and a insanely large accelerator. THEN it has to get out of our atmosphere through space and hit its target. WE would be lucky to do that with a laser. REALLY lucky.

  47. Yes, but a sun-diver solar thermal rocket is a brand new, clean sheet technology. That’s not going to get into space very soon.

  49. Might as well launch a decent telescope on the probe, plan on snapping pics on the flyby, and then using it for long baseline astronomy. Say, isn’t there a spare Hubble mirror still available? I could get behind launching a Hubble copy in the general direction.

  50. Electric propulsion would be good. The acceleration profile is hardly “steep”. More like really, really gentle. Getting 5 newtons would be outstanding, but improbable. Weighing in at 10 metric tons (pulled that out of thin air!) is likely. Being only “under acceleration” for 2 years Would get the spacecraft to 40+ km/s. Clearly enough to overtake Oumuamua eventually.

    Probably a 7 year mission.

    And “no way to slow down” once you get there.
    At all.

    So its just a flyby and wave a flag, smile encouragingly, shoot lasers, pellets at it, and never see the probe ever again.

    Just saying,
    GoatGuy

  51. To Think and imagine that the Universe is so vast that its impossible that there are no intelligent civilizations out there. If they sent a ship in to that mysterious object, we would uncover something that would reveal the existence that there are indeed other civilizations out there. Intelligent civilizations are just too far from each other and it needs proper evolution to reach to the point until they will become a Multiplanetary Species, then became an Interstellar species like what we see in Science Fiction (Star Trek) instead it will become a reality itself. I hope this object that visited our solar system isn’t gonna be used for planned invasion but a new frontier to a friendship of other civilizations.

  52. Except … for distance … and resolution … and the inferred telescope MINIMUM diameter mirror.

    Oumuamua is supposed to be about 30 to 50 m in diameter, and 1,000 m or so long. We would like what, 10 m resolution? It is receding at 25 km/s or 5.5 AU/year.

    Soon, it’ll be at Saturn’s 10 AU mean orbit.

    ⇒ Res = object size / distance (in radians)
    ⇒ Res = 10 m / (10 AU × 150×10⁶ km/AU × 1000 m/km)
    ⇒ Res = 6.7×10⁻¹² radian

    For telescopes,

    ⇒ Res = 1.22λ/diameter (all in meters)
    ⇒ 6.7×10⁻¹² = 1.22⋅550×10⁻⁹ / diameter
    ⇒ diameter = 100,650 m

    Now, I don’t know about you, but the idea of putting up a 100 KILOMETER wide mirror in space to take a close look at Oumuamua … is pretty preposterous. If that hue thing were already up there, say taking deep-fine looks at all the planets, at the individual stars in other galaxies (Resolution at Andromeda — some 2,537,000 LY away — would be about 1 AU. All Andromeda’s stars would be individually resolved, except for close doubles.), well then you’d just point it at Oumuamua and snap a few pictures.

    However, it isn’t, and we ain’t.

    Just saying,
    GoatGuy

  53. If we were to send a chase probe after it, there’s a better option than to hide a conventional chemical rocket behind a Parker-style heat shield for the solar “fry-by”. A “sun-diver” solar thermal hydrogen rocket could achieve 3x the ISP. The rocket would be a 3D-printed sheet of tiny rocket nozzles aimed nearly tangential to the sheet. A slow release of hydrogen through the sheet would provide both thrust and dynamic cooling for a really close solar passage. The perihelion passage would last a couple of hours, and could add 15 AU per year to the probe’s solar escape velocity.But first, I’d want to take a good look at the object with one of the new super telescopes now being built. A 30 meter aperture with adaptive optics, long image integration times, and sophisticated image enhancement algorithms should be able to turn a dim blurry dot into an image with enough detail to see if it might actually be an alien artifact.

  57. It’s the remains of a segment of a volcanic lava plug from a planetary collision somewhere else in our galaxy countless millions of years ago. Dark ferric-magnesite basaltic material presumably. Nothing mysterious.

  58. Who ever is interested in connecting with aliens there are many groups and individuals who do it here on earth. It is the bluff of science who make us believe that we need to use very expensive technology to chase them in space not being sure even if they exist!

  59. If it were a sail under the control of aliens or computers, it would have used the sun to slow down, in order to study the solar system, or enter an orbit, not speed up.

  60. Why? It’s an object originating outside of our solar system. Studying it would provide invaluable data on planetary formation at the very least, assuming it’s a regular old asteroid. At the moment we’re dealing with a sample size of one.

  61. I thought that “cigar shaped” was the most likely natural sort of shape that would give the observed visual effect of it becoming brighter and dimmer with a regular rhythm. A natural rock shape that can give that result is a cigar shape tumbling end over end.But you can also get that result with all sorts of other shapes, such as a solar sail in a disc that is also tumbling end over end.

  62. You can’t say “it is” without seeing it up close and examining it. Unless you’ve been there? Did you bring back photos?

    We don’t have any solid evidence as to its mass or composition, so anything we say about it other than position and velocity is purely speculation.

  63. Maybe we want to have “a hyper-velocity impactor” in reserve, with a perfectly safe sounding cover story as to why we have it, but able to implement it if things turn nasty.

  64. Or naturally occurring thin lightweight membrane thing that functions as a solar sail.Or random bit of alien space debris. ← The safest way we could have a “first contact”.

  65. No, this is just the Brian not understanding orbital mechanics. Objects move faster at perihelion, there is nothing mysterious here. It sped up as it was going towards the sun. Actual anomalous acceleration is just 100m/s. There is _no_ anomalous doubling of speed.

  67. I’m presuming these groups on Earth in contact with aliens are fabulously wealthy because of the amazing technology they have access to? Or is there a Prime Directive stopping any transfer, even cures for cancer?

  69. To Think and imagine that the Universe is so vast that its impossible that there are no intelligent civilizations out there. If they sent a ship in to that mysterious object, we would uncover something that would reveal the existence that there are indeed other civilizations out there.

    Intelligent civilizations are just too far from each other and it needs proper evolution to reach to the point until they will become a Multiplanetary Species, then became an Interstellar species like what we see in Science Fiction (Star Trek) instead it will become a reality itself. I hope this object that visited our solar system isn’t gonna be used for planned invasion but a new frontier to a friendship of other civilizations.

  71. If we are going to think it’s an alien probe, why think it’s a solar sail, specially if it did not come from Vega, but much farther away still? Maybe it was able to double its speed because it uses some sort of Woodward Drive, or something.

  72. is it compatible with DOUBLING of the speed? Just a coincidence that the only object coming from outside the solar system has an outgassing that nobody can see and it vents EXACTLY in the vector where it will increase the object’s relative speed?

  73. Maybe I am getting something wrong, but don´t the two mission architectures shown in the article consider it’s velocity of 58,000 mph (26 kilometers per second)?It seems the mission architectures do not counted upon this “thing” doubling it’s speed.Can the BFR reach it even at 111 thousand miles per hour?

  75. A tumbling piece of interstellar debris, of which we should expect to have tens or hundreds at any given time on this Solar System.Cigar shaped, fast and passing by, but nothing remarkable about it beyond that. Except the media attention it got.But on the other hand, it won’t be my money spent on this. If anyone wants to pay for chasing a frozen rock, fine.

  76. An cargo BFR can put an 100 ton 3 stage flyby probe into LEO, you use tanking to top this in orbit with tankers if needed. Going more extreme Refuel the BFR and drop the probe halfway to moon. And you only need an flyby, you get lots of nice data about an interstellar object, might have an impactor for surface analyze, in it self worthwhile for an high risk mission. Low chance of an alien artifact, well then Orion name is return to the original project. Just an fuel tank might be idiotic valuable, something more like an dead spaceship.In short you only need an flyby.

  77. If we were to send a chase probe after it, there’s a better option than to hide a conventional chemical rocket behind a Parker-style heat shield for the solar “fry-by”.

    A “sun-diver” solar thermal hydrogen rocket could achieve 3x the ISP. The rocket would be a 3D-printed sheet of tiny rocket nozzles aimed nearly tangential to the sheet. A slow release of hydrogen through the sheet would provide both thrust and dynamic cooling for a really close solar passage. The perihelion passage would last a couple of hours, and could add 15 AU per year to the probe’s solar escape velocity.

    But first, I’d want to take a good look at the object with one of the new super telescopes now being built. A 30 meter aperture with adaptive optics, long image integration times, and sophisticated image enhancement algorithms should be able to turn a dim blurry dot into an image with enough detail to see if it might actually be an alien artifact.

  82. Yeah, I’d heard about this latest speculative paper from Harvard. But wasn’t this thing supposed to be cigar-shaped? How can something that’s cigar-shaped amount to a sail?

  83. All that effort just to crash into it and look for debris?lolBetter then to build a giant death ray gun and a very big space telescope. Shoot it at the speed of light (or slightly less if it’s a particle beam) and zoom in on the result. The equipment can be reused for a lot of things afterwards.

  85. This should be stated better as uniquely non detectable out-gassing or alien probe. There is no known precedent for either so I’m thinking this not exactly a candidate for Occam’s Razor.

  86. Ya know what this thread needs?MOAR EM DriveI mean we want to put our best foot forward when we reach the aliens.

  89. It’s the remains of a segment of a volcanic lava plug from a planetary collision somewhere else in our galaxy countless millions of years ago. Dark ferric-magnesite basaltic material presumably. Nothing mysterious.

  90. Who ever is interested in connecting with aliens there are many groups and individuals who do it here on earth. It is the bluff of science who make us believe that we need to use very expensive technology to chase them in space not being sure even if they exist!

  91. If it were a sail under the control of aliens or computers, it would have used the sun to slow down, in order to study the solar system, or enter an orbit, not speed up.

  92. I thought that “cigar shaped” was the most likely natural sort of shape that would give the observed visual effect of it becoming brighter and dimmer with a regular rhythm. A natural rock shape that can give that result is a cigar shape tumbling end over end.

    But you can also get that result with all sorts of other shapes, such as a solar sail in a disc that is also tumbling end over end.

  93. Maybe we want to have “a hyper-velocity impactor” in reserve, with a perfectly safe sounding cover story as to why we have it, but able to implement it if things turn nasty.

  94. Or naturally occurring thin lightweight membrane thing that functions as a solar sail.

    Or random bit of alien space debris. ← The safest way we could have a “first contact”.

  95. No, this is just the Brian not understanding orbital mechanics. Objects move faster at perihelion, there is nothing mysterious here. It sped up as it was going towards the sun. Actual anomalous acceleration is just 100m/s. There is _no_ anomalous doubling of speed.

  98. A tumbling piece of interstellar debris, of which we should expect to have tens or hundreds at any given time on this Solar System.

    Cigar shaped, fast and passing by, but nothing remarkable about it beyond that. Except the media attention it got.

    But on the other hand, it won’t be my money spent on this. If anyone wants to pay for chasing a frozen rock, fine.

  99. An cargo BFR can put an 100 ton 3 stage flyby probe into LEO, you use tanking to top this in orbit with tankers if needed. Going more extreme Refuel the BFR and drop the probe halfway to moon.

    And you only need an flyby, you get lots of nice data about an interstellar object, might have an impactor for surface analyze, in it self worthwhile for an high risk mission.

    Low chance of an alien artifact, well then Orion name is return to the original project. Just an fuel tank might be idiotic valuable, something more like an dead spaceship.
    In short you only need an flyby.

  103. Yeah, I’d heard about this latest speculative paper from Harvard. But wasn’t this thing supposed to be cigar-shaped? How can something that’s cigar-shaped amount to a sail?

  104. All that effort just to crash into it and look for debris?
    lol

    Better then to build a giant death ray gun and a very big space telescope. Shoot it at the speed of light (or slightly less if it’s a particle beam) and zoom in on the result. The equipment can be reused for a lot of things afterwards.

  106. This should be stated better as uniquely non detectable out-gassing or alien probe. There is no known precedent for either so I’m thinking this not exactly a candidate for Occam’s Razor.

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