BIROn - Birkbeck Institutional Research Online

    A comment on “The Far Future of Exoplanet Direct Characterization”: the case for interstellar space probes

    Crawford, Ian (2010) A comment on “The Far Future of Exoplanet Direct Characterization”: the case for interstellar space probes. Astrobiology 10 (8), pp. 853-856. ISSN 1531-1074.

    Full text not available from this repository.

    Abstract

    Following on from ideas presented in a recent paper by Schneider et al. on “The Far Future of Exoplanet Direct Characterization,” I argue that they have exaggerated the technical obstacles to performing such “direct characterization” by means of fast (order 0.1c) interstellar space probes. A brief summary of rapid interstellar spaceflight concepts that may be found in the literature is presented. I argue that the presence of interstellar dust grains, while certainly something that will need to be allowed for in interstellar vehicle design, is unlikely to be the kind of showstopper suggested by Schneider et al. Astrobiology as a discipline would be a major beneficiary of developing an interstellar spaceflight capability, albeit in the longer term, and I argue that astrobiologists should keep an open mind to the possibilities.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): Far future missions, interstellar space travel
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Natural Sciences
    Depositing User: Administrator
    Date Deposited: 22 Feb 2011 09:04
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 16:54
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/3110

    Statistics

    Activity Overview
    6 month trend
    0Downloads
    6 month trend
    305Hits

    Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.

    Archive Staff Only (login required)

    Edit/View Item Edit/View Item