RE: Planet Found in Habitable Zone Around Nearest Star
August 25, 2016 at 10:58 pm
(This post was last modified: August 25, 2016 at 11:03 pm by Anomalocaris.)
Don't need to stop the mirror. The mirror just need to be ahead of the space craft. A laser can keep accelerating the mirror, so long as the reflected light slows the space craft.
As to stellar navigation, the basic technology is there. You need optical sensors to locate and position three stars, presumably the sun, the destination star, and a near by star around 90 degrees off from intended trajectory. If you are going to just the near by stars, say within 10 LYs, most of the star field won't change too much from any vantage point with the 10 LY sphere centered around the earth.
The basic navigation technology that use star position to located in 3D space for interstellar travel is the same stellar navigation technology from the 1950s times three. The only difference is you need to be able locate the stars much more precisely. This is very easy to do. In the 1950s location of the star is resolved with a photocell shaded by a spinning slotted disk. When the starlight is intermittently shaded, the star is off center. The timing of the star light shows in which direction the star is off center. When the star is shinning continuously the sensor is aligned with the star. Now we have very high pixel count CMOS sensors with long focal length optics. We have portable technology to pin point star location to within a fraction of arc second.
As to stellar navigation, the basic technology is there. You need optical sensors to locate and position three stars, presumably the sun, the destination star, and a near by star around 90 degrees off from intended trajectory. If you are going to just the near by stars, say within 10 LYs, most of the star field won't change too much from any vantage point with the 10 LY sphere centered around the earth.
The basic navigation technology that use star position to located in 3D space for interstellar travel is the same stellar navigation technology from the 1950s times three. The only difference is you need to be able locate the stars much more precisely. This is very easy to do. In the 1950s location of the star is resolved with a photocell shaded by a spinning slotted disk. When the starlight is intermittently shaded, the star is off center. The timing of the star light shows in which direction the star is off center. When the star is shinning continuously the sensor is aligned with the star. Now we have very high pixel count CMOS sensors with long focal length optics. We have portable technology to pin point star location to within a fraction of arc second.
