Reaching for the stars, finally - will the young ones among us get pics of Alpha C.?

[Anomalocaris]

The launching beams are going to be visible at Proxima too.  Do we want to give the evil Voltones there a heads up we are on our way ??

This brings me to a different idea - maybe we should be looking for launching beams from nearby places so we know when we get visitors...

A well collimating launching beam would seldom be pointed directly at the destination. It would be situated on a platform and pointed at the space craft, both of which would follow curvilinear path dictated by the of the departing system's gravitational field, so the departing spacecraft would seldom, if ever, be directly between the laser and the destination.

[vorlon13]

A 2 minute acceleration phase is not going to subtend an appreciable arc as seen from proxima, and as noted, the beam is only collimated out to 600,000km.

Also, at .2C within 600,000km of earth,  the probe is going to traverse something extremely close to a straight line all the way there, regardless of the suns gravity well and proxima's.

It would be a helluva ride . . .

[Anomalocaris]

A 2 minute acceleration phase is not going to subtend an appreciable arc as seen from proxima, and as noted, the beam is only collimated out to 600,000km.

Also, at .2C within 600,000km of earth,  the probe is going to traverse something extremely close to a straight line all the way there, regardless of the suns gravity well and proxima's.

It would be a helluva ride . . .

A 2 minute acceleration phase that reaches 0.2C requires acceleration of a quarter million Gs.

[vorlon13]

NIH