interstellar space travel podcast

Podcasts about Interstellar travel

Hypothetical travel between stars or planetary systems

• 87 PODCASTS
• 103 EPISODES
• 50m AVG DURATION
• 1 MONTHLY NEW EPISODE
• Apr 1, 2024 LATEST

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Best podcasts about Interstellar travel

Curiosity Daily

4 episodes with Interstellar travel

ITSPmagazine | Technology. Cybersecurity. Society

5 episodes with Interstellar travel

Father Roderick

2 episodes with Interstellar travel

Disclosed: UFO Files

3 episodes with Interstellar travel

The Soul Tribe Podcast

Alpha Control: a Lost in Space Podcast

The Dark Horde Network

Stories From Space

Latest news about Interstellar travel

• NASA Selects Bold Proposal to “Swarm” Proxima Centauri with Tiny Probes Universe Today - Jan 9, 2024
• Exploring Interstellar Travel with J.G. Ballard, Captain Cook, Stansilaw Lem, and N. Katherine Hayles Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! - Nov 25, 2023
• UFO or UF-No: What Would Take for Aliens to Visit Our Solar System? Literary Hub - Oct 24, 2023
• Fungi creepily infiltrates space stations — but scientists aren't scared. They're excited Space - Sep 26, 2023
• Starfield’s Fast Travel Cheapens Space’s Impact Kotaku - Sep 13, 2023
• Everspace 2’s immersive features allow captivating interstellar travel – out Aug 15 PlayStation.Blog - Aug 11, 2023
• Beyond the Stars: Unveiling the Secrets of Interstellar Travel Technology on Medium - Jun 24, 2023
• Unlocking the Secrets of Negative Energy: Could it be the Key to Interstellar Travel? Artificial Intelligence on Medium - Feb 24, 2023
• Humans Will Likely Not Have Ability to Visit Nearby Exoplanets Anytime Soon, Expert Says Breaking Science News | Sci-News.com - Jan 25, 2023
• These Sci-Fi Visions for Interstellar Travel Just Might Work Wired - Oct 11, 2022

Latest podcast episodes about Interstellar travel

[Special] Where Are All The Aliens? We Ranked Every Explanation

Universe Today Podcast

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Apr 1, 2024 118:58

The Fermi paradox has many solutions. Many explanations for the fact that we don't see any signs of intelligent life in the Universe. We ranked all the major ones and put them into tiers from S to D.

Book | Unraveling 'The Sapien Empire': A Deep Dive into Nathan Peter Ogloff's Post-Apocalyptic World Building | Audio Signals Podcast With Marco Ciappelli

Audio Signals

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jan 27, 2024 38:48

Guests: Nathan Peter Ogloff, AuthorOn Linkedin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-ogloff-314ba411/On Twitter | https://twitter.com/UnusualAuthorOn Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/groups/1610460879486141/On TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@nathan_ogloffOn Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/nathan_ogloff/Website | https://www.nathanogloff.com/index.html_____________________________Host: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast & Audio Signals PodcastOn ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli_____________________________This Episode's SponsorsAre you interested in sponsoring an ITSPmagazine Channel?

The Future of Humanity - Book Summary

20 Minute Books

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jan 7, 2024 26:44

"Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth"

Mark McCandlish: Interstellar Travel & Zero Point Energy

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Dec 21, 2023 89:27

www.disclosedufofiles.com

Nuclear Fusion & String Theory Are the Keys to Alien Visitation & Interstellar Travel

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Dec 9, 2023 105:56

www.disclosedufofiles.com  Disclosed: UFO Files (rumble.com)

Marc D'Antonio: Nuclear Fusion & String Theory for Interstellar Travel

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Nov 19, 2023 105:57

Amazon games & accessories you may be interested in? Your Purchase helps this podcast. If you like the content we provide, please click on this link, make a purchase and support Disclosed: UFO Files. Many thanks. Have fun unraveling the mystery!   Amazon computers & accessories you may be interested in? Your Purchase helps this podcast. If you like the content we provide, please click on this link, make a purchase and support Disclosed: UFO Files. Many thanks. Have fun unraveling the mystery!   Amazon cell phones & accessories you may be interested in? Your Purchase helps this podcast. If you like the content we provide, please click on this link, make a purchase and support Disclosed: UFO Files. Many thanks. Have fun unraveling the mystery!   Amazon books you may be interested in? Your Purchase helps this podcast. If you like the content we provide, please click on this link, make a purchase and support Disclosed: UFO Files. Many thanks. Have fun unraveling the mystery! Disclosed UFO Files – Keep up with the latest in the world of UFO & UAP. Make sense out of the confusion and unravel the mystery once and for all.

Learning More About Interstellar Travel

Indian Genes

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jul 17, 2023 76:38

Les Johnson speaks exclusively to Indian Genes in his private capacity as an author & futurist as we have the pleasure of immersing ourselves into the awe-inspiring world of science, fiction, and space exploration with a true luminary in the fieldLes wears many hats, as an accomplished author, he paints vivid landscapes of imagination, crafting compelling science fiction novels that transport readers to distant realms of possibility. But he doesn't stop there. He also weaves his literary talents into popular science works, enlightening us about the wonders that lie at the cutting edge of human understanding through his books published by Springer Books.However, his expertise extends far beyond the realm of the written word. As the Principal Investigator for the NEA Scout and Solar Cruiser solar sail projects at the esteemed NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, he spearheads the exploration of revolutionary propulsion technologies. Harnessing the power of sunlight, Les and his team propel our dreams of interstellar travel forward, pushing the boundaries of human achievement.Les Johnson's accomplishments have earned him well-deserved recognition and admiration within scientific circles. He holds esteemed positions such as an elected member of the International Academy of Astronautics, a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, and memberships in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the National Space Society, and MENSA. His contributions to the scientific and literary communities have left an indelible mark on both.When Les puts pen to paper, he captures the spirit of visionaries like Arthur C. Clarke and his contemporaries, as highlighted by Publisher's Weekly. Take, for instance, his gripping novel, "Mission to Methone," a work that transports readers to worlds unimagined, while paying homage to the giants of science fiction who came before him. Not confined to the realms of fiction, Les's non-fiction book, "Graphene: The Superstrong, Superthin, and Superversatile Material That Will Revolutionize the World," co-authored with Joe Meany, has garnered acclaim from prestigious journals such as Nature, American Scientist, and Salon.com.So, join us as we embark on an intellectual odyssey, exploring the realms where science, imagination, and the cosmos converge. Prepare to be captivated, inspired, and enlightened by the brilliant mind of Les Johnson, a physicist, author, and NASA technologist whose impact resonates far beyond our earthly realm.

#77. The Interstellar Travel In Hindi

Space Infinite

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jul 3, 2023 6:23

Get Exclusive Episode Of Space Infinite Podcast - https://forms.gle/rnpoMif7SRLs39MR8 #77. The Interstellar Travel In Hindi What is Interstellar Travel? Is it possible? - Learn about it in this episode of the space infinite podcast! Connect on Instagram - @itssmbh - https://www.instagram.com/itssmbh/

Ep 64: Where Adaptations Fall on The List of Everything

Hard At Work Show

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jun 22, 2023 86:24

Things Added to The List on This Episode: Danimals Strawberry Smoothie Tuxedo Fitting The Drake Equation Cheeze-It White Cheddar Crackers Audio Level Fluctuations in Film and TV Live Action Adaptations of an IP Other things discussed include Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, The Jungle Book, Pinocchio, The Lord of the Rings, Uncharted, UFOs, Interstellar Travel, Alien Life, Spider-Man, One Piece, Anime, DragonBall Z, Cowboy Bebop, The Last of Us, Castlevania, God of War, Aquaman, Buzz Lightyear. **Join the Chamber of Knowledge : The Chamber of Knowledge | Facebook - The Pyramid is here... Get in the Scheme! Only at Patreon.com/getinthepyramid 

The Great Migration: How Can Humans Live on Mercury? | Stories From Space Podcast With Matthew S Williams

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later May 31, 2023 19:07

Host | Matthew S WilliamsOn ITSPmagazine  

Going Nuclear! The Promise of Nuclear Propulsion | Stories From Space Podcast With Matthew S Williams

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later May 21, 2023 23:25

Signs of Life: What are "Ocean Worlds"? | Stories From Space Podcast With Matthew S Williams

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later May 13, 2023 27:49

877 Achieving Light Speed and Interstellar Travel

Richard Syrett's Strange Planet

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Apr 14, 2023 49:32

EPISODE #877 ACHIEVING LIGHT SPEED AND INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL Richard speaks with a self-taught metaphysician who worked in the high-tech industry who discusses his views on how the universe really works based on his study and research of Einstein's Unified Field Theory. GUEST: Mark Fiorentino was employed as an electronic technician at Harris Government Systems, he worked on a killer satellite missile guidance system and then at IBM as a computer programmer. At the age of 10, Mark was fascinated by the works of Albert Einstein, and particularly, his quest to construct a Unified Field Theory. 55 years later, his scientific research has completed the Theory, but it has also opened up the door for a few others as well. With conspiracy theories about alien technology, NDEs, and a Theory of Super Relativity, Mark has earned himself the title of "Master of Reality." WEBSITE: https://www.super-relativity.com/ BOOK: Master of Reality: Super Relativity SUPPORT MY SPONSORS!!! HelloFresh- America's #1 Meal Kit With HelloFresh, you get farm-fresh, pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Go to HelloFresh.com/strangeplanet50 and use code strangeplanet50 for 50% off, plus your first box ships free! COPY MY CRYPTO Discover how over 2,800 people - many of who know nothing about crypto or how to invest - are building rapid wealth the cabal can never steal. "You don't need to know a thing about cryptocurrency if you copy someone who does." Gain Access for just $1 CopyMyCrypto.com/Richard THE DEAD FILES PODCAST Physical medium Amy Allan and retired homicide detective Steve DiSchiavi solve unexplained paranormal phenomena in haunted locations across America. The Dead Files is your paranormal investigation podcast. Listen to The Dead Files wherever you get your podcasts. SUBSCRIBE TO STRANGE PLANET PREMIUM https://strangeplanet.supportingcast.fm Use the discount code "Planet" to receive one month off the first subscription. We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://strangeplanet.supportingcast.fm/

Soaring Into the Cosmos: Unraveling the Future of Space Exploration With Astronaut Eileen Collins, The First American Woman to Command a Space Mission | Redefining Society Podcast with Marco Ciappelli

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Apr 1, 2023 58:04

Guest: Col. Eileen M. Collins USAF (Retired)Retired NASA astronaut and United States Air Force (USAF) colonel. A former flight instructor and test pilot, Collins was the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle and the first to command a Space Shuttle mission.On Linkedin | https://www.linkedin.com/in/eileen-collins-8a582351/Host: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society PodcastOn ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli_____________________________This Episode's SponsorsBlackCloak

Cosmic Queries - Cream of the Universe Soup

StarTalk Radio

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Mar 14, 2023 54:28

Can we go to warp speed? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice answer a grab bag of fan questions about the expansion of space, higher dimensions, and more!NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://startalkmedia.com/show/cosmic-queries-cream-of-the-universe-soup/Thanks to our Patrons Donald bunch, Chris Plotts, Elle Gee, Michael Libby, and Moses Conrad Norman III for supporting us this week.Photo Credit:  Adam Evans, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

178. Interstellar Travel, Collapsing Timelines, Temporal Lines, The Universe, and More!

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Feb 13, 2023 64:55

In this week's episode we chat about the universe, interstellar travel, collapsing timelines, temporal lines, and more cosmic topics. Lucia also shares her story about an experience she had with a healer that leads us to chat about what we all need to think about and the energy we need to be in before choosing healers, gurus, mentors and readers. Be sure to subscribe/follow us on iTunes, Anchor or Spotify so you don't miss new episodes every Monday! Please show us some love by leaving a rating and review on iTunes, and share the episode with someone that might benefit from this information. We are all here to help each other expand and grow! Thank you all for your support! EPISODE LINKS: ANGELIC HEALING PROGRAM (MARCH 2023) AKASHIC RECORDS LEVEL 1 COURSE AKASHIC RECORDS LEVEL 2 COURSE BOOK TALK YOUTUBE SERIES AKASHIC RECORD YOUTUBE SERIES AKASHIC RECORD MENTORSHIPS STP NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP AKASHIC + HEALING PACKAGES LUCIA'S CONTACT FORM LORENA'S CONTACT FORM AKASHIC RECORD READINGS (1-1 AND DUAL READINGS) PODCAST ASSISTANCE STP PATREON STP WEBSITE STP INSTAGRAM STP FACEBOOK STP YOUTUBE LORENA'S WEBSITE LORENA'S INSTAGRAM LUCIA'S WEBSITE LUCIA'S INSTAGRAM

Interview: Is interstellar travel possible?

Radio Astronomy

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jan 23, 2023 35:36

NASA physicist Les Johnson discusses the science of interstellar travel, whether it's currently possible, and the challenges facing humanity as we seek to explore beyond our own Solar System. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Deep meditation, interstellar travel sounds, sleep meditation sounds

Hypnosis and relaxation ｜Sound therapy

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jan 8, 2023 119:59

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/hypnosis-and-relaxation-sound-therapy9715/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Interstellar Travel With Les Johnson 12/30/22

Night Dreams Talk Radio

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Dec 31, 2022 95:42

Les Johnson is a futurist, author, and NASA technologist. He is a founding member of the Interstellar Research Group, a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, a member of the National Space Society, and was accepted into MENSA. Les has written several science fiction novels, including the just released The Spacetime War (Baen Books), and multiple popular science, non-fiction books about space and space exploration, including his recently published A Traveler's Guide to the Stars from Princeton University Press. In his day job, Les works at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama where he serves as the Principal Investigator of the USA's first interplanetary solar sail space mission, Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) Scout. NEA Scout will use a 925 square foot solar sail to propel a small spacecraft to rendezvous with an asteroid.

[Interview] Interstellar Travel Without Breaking Physics with Andrew Higgins

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Dec 26, 2022 80:08

Interstellar travel can be real. And you don't need to break the laws of Physics to do it. In this interview, I discuss a realistic way we can send missions to nearby stars in our lifetimes.

What would interstellar travel look like?

KERA's Think

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Nov 10, 2022 34:21

New breakthroughs might mean interstellar space travel will soon be more than just science fiction. Les Johnson is a physicist and principal investigator for NASA's first interplanetary solar sail space mission, Near-Earth Asteroid Scout and Solar Cruiser. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss space propulsion and robotics, goals for reaching exoplanets and lessons in physics, all with the aim of traveling to the great unknown. His book is “A Traveler's Guide to the Stars.”

Just Too Soon

BIG BOGUS PODCAST

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Oct 27, 2022 16:00

In this, Episode 4 of Season 9, MIGHTYBLACKWOOD talks extra-planetary and interstellar travel. Visit BIG BOGUS PODCAST on Instagram and Twitter, and Visit MIGHTYBLACKWOOD on Instagram.

Goodbye Social Anxiety, Hello Newly-Organized Life!

Tiny Victories

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jun 20, 2022 19:45

Things You Should Stop Worrying About This WeekSpace travel without space ships Walmart having to discontinue a brand of coconut milk because it was harvested by enslaved monkeys Caviar left behind in Ubers Truck Nuts for Crocs  This episode is sponsored by…Microdose GummiesMicrodose Gummies deliver perfect, entry-level doses of THC that help you  feel just the right amount of good.To get free shipping & 30% off your first order, go to Microdose.com and use code: TINYDo YOU have a tiny victory to share? Call the Tiny Victories Hotline: (323) 285-1675We want folks to share their tiny victories on our hotline because, frankly, we'll assume we're just talking into the void every week and nothing matters. Prove us wrong. Did you finally do that thing you were putting off? Tiny victory! Reconnect with someone you haven't been in touch with for ages? Victory! We only ask that you try to keep messages to under a minute so we're able to play it on the show.If you prefer, you can record a tiny victory on your phone and then email us the audio. Email: [email protected] TO @ USTwitter@GetTinyPod@LAGurwitch@ImLauraHouse@Swish (producer Laura Swisher)Instagram@GetTinyPod

Will Obi-Wan Kenobi get another season? What to read/watch/play; Writing Tips; Interstellar Travel; DaVinci Resolve

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jun 16, 2022

https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/nvgwr9/FR2022WK24.mp3 The post Will Obi-Wan Kenobi get another season? What to read/watch/play; Writing Tips; Interstellar Travel; DaVinci Resolve appeared first on Father Roderick.

Episode 121: Future Tech: How interstellar travel will work on a generational spaceship

Strap on your Boots!

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jun 13, 2022 12:53

In today's episode of Future Tech, I'm going to talk about what it's going to be like to travel through space on a generational spaceship. If you're not sure what that means, we're talking about the ones you see in scifi movies or shows where there are extremely large ships with 1000s of people. And inside of these ships, it's literally like apartments and kitchens and bathrooms and a gym. Basically like a small city, traveling through space. People keep mentioning to me all about the ships going into space, to the space station, and soon going back to the moon, and then mars. But how do we get into deep space and populate other solar systems? Tune in to find out!

147. Raising Your Vibration for DNA Upgrading, Interstellar Travel and Sacred Numbers

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jun 13, 2022 67:16

In this week's episode we chat about DNA upgrades, Interstellar Travel, Sacred Numbers/Codes and more! We start the episode with a much needed update on what we are up to and Lucia shares a very profound dream/experience where she received information about interstellar travel. We also talk about solarized water and sacred numbers/codes to help upgrade, manifest and create. We hope you enjoy the episode! Be sure to subscribe/follow us on iTunes, Anchor or Spotify to keep up with new episodes every Monday! Please show us some love by leaving a rating and review on iTunes, and share the episode with someone that might benefit from this information. We are all here to help each other expand and grow! Thank you all for your support! EPISODE LINKS: SACRED CODES/NUMBERS PODCAST ASSISTANCE AKASHIC RECORDS LEVEL 2 COURSE (NEW!!) AKASHIC RECORDS LEVEL 1 COURSE BOOK TALK YOUTUBE SERIES AKASHIC + HEALING PACKAGES LUCIA'S CONTACT FORM LORENA'S CONTACT FORM STP PATREON AKASHIC RECORD READINGS CONTACT US: STP WEBSITE STP INSTAGRAM STP FACEBOOK STP PATREON STP YOUTUBE LORENA'S WEBSITE LORENA'S INSTAGRAM LUCIA'S WEBSITE LUCIA'S INSTAGRAM

Episode 9 - Outlandia

Crucible of Realms

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later May 3, 2022

Hosts: Jim, Jon & KentGuest: Chris We build a galactic spiral arm in which magic and technology co-exist and humans and other strange species band together to defend against a threat that seeks dominion over all. WARNING: This setting combines Science Fiction and Fantasy. If that's not your cup of tea, you may want to skip this one to avoid having to crawl into a corner and rock yourself back and forth to comfort yourself against the sacrilege. In the mean time, we'll be having fun riding our magical space ships. ;)Recommendation: Jon recommends Community.Wiki entry to follow!00:00 Tomfoolery00:15 NyQuil00:28 Alderaan00:39 Intro01:14 D&D01:45 AD&D 2nd Edition01:52 Dark Sun / White Wolf03:32 Determining Basics04:59 Spelljammer / Windjammer05:38 Exo-Space (E-Space)07:11 Isaac Asimov / Clarke's Three Laws07:40 Spiral Arm07:50 Determining Star Systems & Species12:35 Red Giant16:49 Will-o-the-Wisp17:31 White Dwarf18:58 Stargate21:04 Discussing Means of Interstellar Travel22:31 Astral Plane / Hyperdrive / FTL Drive25:08 Introducing Humans to the Setting25:44 Charlton Heston / Planet of the Apes27:12 Enterprise29:05 Interstellar Conflict31:45 Ship Design33:45 Technomancer / Artificer35:00 Determining Timeline of Events36:12 Determining Locations37:16 Deadwood38:34 Revisiting Culture & Technology40:16 Explorers41:47 Adjusting the Timeline42:34 Discussing Weapons43:19 Greek Fire43:38 Revisiting Locations & Borders45:03 The Empire Strikes Back / Exogorth45:47 Klingons47:02 Sargasso Sea47:29 Naming Things48:34 Dross49:13 Oni50:00 Dwimmer / Dweomer50:22 Jingoism50:54 Falafel51:10 The Gray52:05 Xhosa54:22 Ekam54:56 Nyakyusa / Three Stooges / Bantu56:22 Puma / Aztecs56:45 Asterisk / Asterix / Babylon 557:20 Naming the Setting57:26 Pigs in Space57:46 Outlandia58:45 Recommendation / Community58:54 Conclusion & Outro DOWNLOAD EPISODE 9 - OUTLANDIA

Episode 149 - Astronomy & Space

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers’ Advisory Podcast

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later May 3, 2022 64:26

This episode we're talking about Astronomy and Space Non-Fiction! We talk about astronauts, planets, moons, rocks, and more! Plus: We despair about all the math in these books! You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards Things We Read (or tried to…) Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach Book of the Moon: A Guide to Our Closest Neighbour by Maggie Aderin-Pocock “Too much information on the Moon.. Was not expecting that.” Frequently Asked Questions About the Universe by Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe (podcast) Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium by Carl Sagan Impact: How Rocks from Space Led to Life, Culture, and Donkey Kong by Greg Brennecka, read by Sean Pratt The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers by Emily Levesque  Other Media We Mentioned PBS Eons Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly Cosmos with Carl Sagan Mapping Sam by Joyce Hesselberth A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking  Links, Articles, and Things Neil deGrasse Tyson's Tweet about the alphabet in alphabetical order Bobak Ferdowsi (Wikipedia) Jack Parsons (rocket engineer) (Wikipedia) He was an adherent of the esoteric and occult philosophy of Thelema, a religious movement founded by Aleister Crowley Martian canal (Wikipedia) Matthew's article about Chris Hadfield Orion's Belt (Wikipedia) Space Jam (Wikipedia) 99% Invisible - Mini-Stories: Volume 12 (featuring Mary Roach) Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach Metrication in the United Kingdom (Wikipedia) Thirty Meter Telescope “an under-construction extremely large telescope (ELT) that has become controversial due to its planned location on Mauna Kea, on the island of Hawaii” Institutional review board Arecibo Observatory (Wikipedia) “A partial collapse of the telescope occurred on December 1, 2020” Hank Green (Twitter) Spaghettification (Wikipedia) Episode 143 - Amish Romance 15 Astronomy books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers' Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here. Book of the Moon: A Guide to Our Closest Neighbour by Maggie Aderin-Pocock The Jazz of Physics: The Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe by Stephon Alexander I Have Lived Four Lives by Wilfred Buck Tipiskawi Kisik: Night Sky Star Stories by Wilfred Buck We Have No Idea: A Guide to the Unknown Universe by Jorge Cham & Daniel Whiteson Star Stories: Constellations Tales From Around the World by Anita Ganeri The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth by Michio Kaku Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances by Leland Melvin Inhabiting the Earth by Leonard Moose & Mary Moose Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos by Priyamvada Natarajan The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein Visions of the Universe by Raman Prinja Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet by Neil deGrasse Tyson Give us feedback! Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read! Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, May 17th for our 150th episode! Send us questions or topics! Then on Tuesday, June 7th we'll be discussing the genre of Classics!

HITZ | Interstellar Travel | HITZ Morning Crew

HITZ Morning Crew Rewinds!

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Apr 10, 2022 2:36

If you missed the HITZ Morning Crew, listen to them now!

Special - Calling Alpha Control: DR. STEVEN D BLOOM PART II

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Mar 23, 2022 70:12

  CALLING ALPHA CONTROL: DR. STEVEN D. BLOOM PART II EPISODE SYNOPSIS: We welcome a special guest to Alpha Control; Dr. Steven D. Bloom. As well as being a big fan of LIS & Science Fiction in general, Steve is the author of a fascinating book titled, The Physics and Astronomy of Science Fiction. Published in 2016 by McFarland; the book explores a wide range of Sci-Fi Movies, TV series, Books & Short Stories by exploring their underlying concepts of physics & astronomy. Written for those of us who are NOT real ‘rocket scientists', Steve's entertaining & highly readable book assesses the accuracy and plausibility of many of the complex concepts that often appear in science fiction, such as Interstellar Travel, Time Travel, Teleportation, Robots, Alien Life as well as other genre fixtures. STEVE'S BIO: Steve Bloom grew up in the New York City suburbs where in the early 1970's he would rush home from his neighborhood school to watch re-runs of Lost in Space. There began his love for science and astronomy in particular. Later, he would go on to major in Astrophysics at Columbia University and then earned his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Boston University in 1994. After that, he continued doing research as a post-doctoral fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center located outside Washington DC in Greenbelt, MD and then at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. Today Dr. Bloom is a professor of physics and astronomy at Hampden-Sydney College, located near Farmville, Virginia, where he lives with his wife, daughter and cat. As I mentioned last time, when we got together to record, Steve was VERY generous with his time! Which is why I decided to split our conversation into TWO Special Calling Alpha Control interviews. Today, we'll pick up the discussion where we left off last time, talking about LIS & Steve's wonderfully informative book on the “science of science fiction”. I think you'll be both delighted & amazed by some of what you learn in this interview. So, sit back, relax & enjoy Part II of this intriguing conversation with DOCTOR STEVEN D. BLOOM.  PODCAST INFO: This interview was conducted on 6 JAN 2022. LINKS: Amazon.com: Steven D Bloom: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-physics-and-astronomy-of-science-fiction/ https://physastro.net/ www.stevendbloom.net https://www.facebook.com/alphacontrolpodcast/ http://www.monsterwax.com/LIScards.html EMAIL: [email protected]

Special - Calling Alpha Control: DR. STEVEN D BLOOM PART I

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Feb 24, 2022 62:20

CALLING ALPHA CONTROL: DR. STEVEN D. BLOOM PART I EPISODE SYNOPSIS: We welcome a special guest to Alpha Control; Dr. Steven D. Bloom. As well as being a big fan of LIS & Science Fiction in general, Steve is the author of a fascinating book titled, The Physics and Astronomy of Science Fiction. Published in 2016 by McFarland; the book explores a wide range of Sci-Fi Movies, TV series, Books & Short Stories by exploring their underlying concepts of physics & astronomy. Written for those of us who are NOT real ‘rocket scientists', Steve's entertaining & highly readable book assesses the accuracy and plausibility of many of the complex concepts that often appear in science fiction, such as Interstellar Travel, Time Travel, Teleportation, Robots, Alien Life as well as other genre fixtures. STEVE'S BIO: Steve Bloom grew up in the New York City suburbs where in the early 1970's he would rush home from his neighborhood school to watch re-runs of Lost in Space. There began his love for science and astronomy in particular. Later, he would go on to major in Astrophysics at Columbia University and then earned his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Boston University in 1994. After that, he continued doing research as a post-doctoral fellow at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center located outside Washington DC in Greenbelt, MD and then at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. Today Dr. Bloom is a professor of physics and astronomy at Hampden-Sydney College, located near Farmville, Virginia, where he lives with his wife, daughter and cat. When we recorded this episode, I had a lot of questions for the Professor & he was VERY generous with his time. In fact, so much so, I've decided to split our conversation into TWO Special Calling Alpha Control interviews, where we'll discuss Steve's love for Sci-Fi entertainment, (especially LIS) and dig deeply into his wonderfully informative book on the “science of science fiction”. I think you'll be both delighted & amazed by what you learn in this two-parter interview. So, sit back, relax & enjoy Part I of this intriguing conversation with DOCTOR STEVEN D. BLOOM. PODCAST INFO: This interview was conducted on 6 JAN 2022. LINKS: Amazon.com: Steven D Bloom: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/the-physics-and-astronomy-of-science-fiction/ https://physastro.net/ www.stevendbloom.net https://www.facebook.com/alphacontrolpodcast/ http://www.monsterwax.com/LIScards.html EMAIL: [email protected]

MARS on EARTH, Big Beasts on Europa, Interstellar Visitors, Martian Tourism, and much more with SETI + NASA Planetary Scientist: Pascal Lee [#24]

Unravelling the Universe

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Feb 11, 2022 141:59

PASCAL LEE is a Planetary Scientist with the SETI Institute, Founder of the Mars Institute, and he's Director of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) at NASA Ames Research Center [a field research project on Devon Island, High Arctic, where they plan future human missions to the Moon and Mars]. We talked about Pascal's time as a meteorite-hunter

Interstellar Travel

Dreshdae Cantina

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jan 24, 2022 65:22

Lightspeed! There are so many possibilities when it comes to travelling from planet to planet or from one end of a galaxy to another end. Each science fiction universe has it's own way of travel so where should we begin?! Let's go!

From Science Fiction to Building Plasma Rockets for Interstellar Travel: An Interview with Jamal Olatunji

SpaceBase Podcast

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jan 23, 2022 40:25

An interview with Jamal Olatunji.  Jamal is a Research Engineer at the Robinson Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington.  He has degrees in Chemical Engineering, chemistry and nanotechnology from Massey University. He is developing mathematical models of superconducting magnets and machines, and researching applications of high-temperature superconductivity to develop plasma rockets for  interstellar space. In this interview, we learn about Jamal's journey from working in the agritech industry as a mathematical modeler to  working on cutting edge projects on novel electric propulsion systems for space transportation.Resources:Robinson Research InstituteWellington UniventuresEmerging Innovator ProgrammeHosted by: Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom, Co-Founder and CEO, SpaceBaseMusic: reCreation by airtone (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons (3.0)If you like our work, please consider donating to SpaceBase through The Gift Trust or RSF Social Finance (for US charitable donations) and indicate "SpaceBase" gift account.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=64782763&fan_landing=true )

Kim Stanley Robinson | Interstellar travel is a religious fantasy

Science Fiction

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Dec 8, 2021 20:19

Science fiction is fighting a doctrinal war. Between those who believe that humankind's future is still the stars, and those - like Kim Stanley Robinson - who believe interstellar travel is a fantasy of religious belief. The science is clear, travel to other stars may well be forever beyond us. So why do we keep telling this story? A response to Kim Stanley Robinson's interview for the Science Fiction Talks club on Clubhouse. Find his full interview here: https://www.clubhouse.com/room/xe65rroG Read The MInistry For The Future: https://amzn.to/3y5YmT3 Follow the Science Fiction podcast: https://damiengwalter.com/podcast Join the Science Fiction community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/324897304599197 Follow the full course in Writing the 21st Century Myth : https://damiengwalter.com Enroll on Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/advanced-science-fiction-fantasy/?referralCode=B7B13C5C3D413999ED95 Subscribe monthly via Skillshare: https://skl.sh/3pO6pPV

84 - Dr. Robert E. Ferrell - Alien Log - Nazca Mummies, Anunnaki and of course UFO's

Expanding Reality

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Nov 9, 2021 66:29

Dr. Robert E. Farrell received his Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from The Ohio State University, his MBA from Western New England College, and his Doctor of Engineering from the University of Massachusetts.  He is now retired from Penn State University as Associate Professor Emeritus.  Twenty-five years ago, he began doing serious research for his science fiction series of novels; Alien Log, Alien Log II: The New World Order, and Alien Log III: The Dulce Affair. Currently, he is working on Alien Log IV: The Antarctic Affair. He believes good science fiction is based on good science.  His research has led him to believe that beyond Earth there is life which is not only technically but also spiritually more advanced than humans. For thousands of years, people have seen highly sophisticated craft capable of high g maneuvers and accelerations beyond 100 g's. Dr. Farrell has concluded this is only possible if gravitational field propulsion is used. This led him to develop his lecture and book entitled, The Science Behind Alien Encounters as a way to enlighten laypeople about ufology. The work of the late Zecharia Sitchin stimulated his interest in ancient history. This led him to research the genesis of Noah's Flood and to expand on Sitchin's work by developing a lecture and book entitled, The Science Behind Noah's Flood. Currently, he is working on The Science Behind Creation of OUR Universe Began WITHOUT a Big Bang. All of Dr. Farrell's books made “Best Sellers List” on Amazon in 2012. He has lectured many times at universities, science centers, MUFON meetings, Roswell (2005 and 2018), book stores, clubs, and senior centers around the country. He has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows including Coast-To-Coast AM with George Noory in 2006 and 2012.  His present list of available lectures includes: The Science Behind Alien Encounters; The Science Behind Creation of OUR Universe Began WITHOUT a Big Bang; The Science Behind Noah's Flood; The Science Behind Gravitational Field Propulsion; Key to Interstellar Travel; and The Science Behind the Mummies of Nazca, Peru. Contact Dr. Farrell  email: [email protected] Our Website Alien Log 3 Book Series YouTube Rokfin Shirts N Such Show Some Love Music by Vinny The Saint

Paratopia 003: Dr. Greg Matloff

Our Undoing Radio

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Sep 3, 2021 131:44

When Jeff & Jeremy wished they could find a physicist outside of the paranormal field to talk to, they never dreamed it would come true. Dr. Matloff is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, a Corresponding Member of the International Academy of Astronautics, and an American Museum of Natural History Hayden Fellow. He served on a November 2007 panel organized by Seed magazine to brief Congressional staff on a sustainable, meaningful space program. He has published more than 100 papers and six popular books on astronomy and astronautics, and was a winner of a 1998 SETI competition sponsored by the National Institute of Discovery Science. One of his early books, The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneer's Guide to Interstellar Travel, co-authored with MIT science writer Eugene F. Mallove, and other publications helped establish space travel as a field of applied science. And that's just for starters!

David Renekie Talking All Things Space, Hubble, Chinese Space Station, Interstellar travel and more

Ewan for Breakfast - Triple M Limestone Coast 963

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jun 21, 2021 8:56

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

189 - Mark Fiorentino : Anti-Gravity, Interstellar Travel and Weaponized Black Holes

The Amish Inquisition Podcast

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jun 21, 2021 129:14

Hey Eavesdroppers, this week we are joined by independent researcher and author of 'Master of Reality: Super Relativity - The Unified Field Theory'. Please check out the links to Mark's work below. Website - https://www.super-relativity.com/ Blog - https://www.super-relativity.com/blog Book Trailer and YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyTFxHgYi7k Topics mentioned with Mark... Einstein, Anti-Gravity, Unified Field Theory, Gravitational Field, Electromagnetism, Ether, The Nature Of Space, Slipwave, Particle Motion, Electrostatic Field, Mass, Isaac Newton, Acceleration, Equivalence Principle, Special Theory Of Relativity, Inertia, Vacuum, String Theory, Transverse Waves, Speed Of Light, Space Travel, Interstellar Travel, Lorentz Transformation, Breaking The Lightspeed Barrier, Time Dilation, Nature Of Time, Weaponized Black Holes, Fermi Paradox, Populating The Galaxy, UFO, UAE, etc ... After our chat with Mark we covered the usual housekeeping, news etc... ***VIDEO VIEWERS: we lost a minute or so of audio at the start of this episode with Mark. Don't panic and stick with it.*** Producer Credits for Ep 189: Jay Hurst, Gav Scott, Slicko83, Lee from The Big Conspire, Chardy, mummabear, Sunny1FunnyFarm, Helen from Discord, Nomae NosNoj and anonymous. 189 Artwork - Jay Hurst Message us here....follow, like, subscribe and share. (comments, corrections, future topics etc). We read out iTunes reviews if you leave them. Website - http://www.theamishinquisition.com/ Discord - https://discord.gg/M7PZjPp4r3 Get your Merch from: The Amish Loot Chest - https://teespring.com/en-GB/stores/amish-inquisition-loot-chest Email - [email protected] Odysee Channel - https://odysee.com/@theamishinquisition:e Twitter - https://twitter.com/amishinqpodcast Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/amish.inquisit.3 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theamishinquisition/?hl=en YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmv8ucrv5a2KpaRWyBWfBUA Find out how to become a Producer here - http://www.theamishinquisition.com/p/phil-1523918247/ Become a Producer! The Amish Inquisition is 100% supported by YOU.  NO Ads, NO Sponsorship, NO Paywalls. We really don't want to suckle at the teat of some faceless corporate overlord. But that is only avoidable with your help! Join your fellow producers by donating to The Amish Inquisition via the PayPal button on our website, simply donate whatever you think the show is worth to you.   If you find the podcast valuable, please consider returning some value to us and help keep the show free and honest. 189 Show Assets: Queensland Couple https://www.instagram.com/p/CQIvuBRjOgZ/?utm_medium=copy_link Healthy Eating PSA https://www.instagram.com/p/CQFSx0ogRBk/?utm_medium=copy_link Richard Madeley on Shamima Begum https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9692211/Richard-Madeley-stuns-GMB-viewers-compares-ISIS-bride-Shamima-Begum-Hitler-Youth.html Simon McCoy GB News Cat Story https://youtu.be/qCikTHjIqpQ GB News Theatre Worker Interview https://twitter.com/annarileynews/status/1404425389154447362?s=19 Dark Horse Podcast: Bret Weinstein and Robert Malone https://odysee.com/@TruthWillOut:8/Inventor-of-mRNA-Dr-Robert-Malone:8 Unherd: Susan Michie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crXTM0woga0 Dr John Campbell Novavax https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0-90kvoQac&t=748s Michael Knowles on Megan Rapinoe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXIJYxnqp2I Paul Joseph Watson on Rapinoe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OkEaqixKIs #newsanalysis #alternativemedia #mediabrainwashing #mediamessaging #esotericpodcast #esotericism #newsdeconstruction #ukpodcast #paranormalpod #paranormalpodcast #ndepodcast #conspiracypodcast #conspiracytheory #anti-gravity #antigravity #interstellartravel #weaponizedblackholes #timedilation #markfiorentino #masterofreality

Interstellar travel is coming - The breakthrough of gram scale space crafts

Space Forward - An Interdisciplinary Podcast

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Jun 4, 2021 101:59

In this episode we will explore the bleeding edge of satellite and satellite constellation miniaturization. These awe inspiring craft commonly known as Chipsats, Wafersats, Sprites, Monarchs, Kicksats, Starchips, or even just “Smart Dust” are facilitating the rapid miniaturization of space craft following an exponential trajectory stipulated by Moore's Law, no doubt enabling new incredible possibilities and discoveries just around the corner. We talk about the unique physics and associated challenges that these low-mass vehicles face in space, how incredible engineering is overcoming them, and how the Breakthrough Starshot project will tackle the very difficult problem of sending a spacecraft interstellar to Proxima b. Our guest today is Professor Zachary Manchester, who studied physics and aerospace engineering at Cornell University earning his BS and PHD respectively. Zac undertook his Postdoc at Harvard and became Assistant Professor at Stanford University, and later at Carnegie Mellon University where he now heads the Robotic Exploration Lab. He received critical acclaim for his Kickstarter.com crowdfunded Kicksat project - deploying an armada of chipsats in LEO and has published together with Mason Peck and Avi Loeb and is member of the Breakthrough Starshot Research team, who are working on an interstellar spacecraft mission to Proxima-b. CONTENT 00:02:36 Intro 00:05:51 Inspiring Moments | Working with Professor Mason Peck 00:06:47 What are Femtosats, Attosats, Zeptosats, Yoctosats, Chipsats? 00:11:29 Regulatory Constraints | Collision Risks 00:15:12 Cubesat & Chipsat costs 00:20:00 Most valuable uses cases and applications 00:25:50 Chipsat Communication 00:28:28 Length Scaling 00:32:16 Thermal Equilibration 00:34:12 Attitude Determination and Orbit Control 00:43:36 Bio-inspired Constellation Management 00:53:15 Limits of Miniaturization | Smart Dust 00:56:00 Breakthrough Initiative | Starshot 00:59:45 Starshot Payload 01:07:39 Is Earth going to look like a Death Star? 01:08:59 Nuclear Propulsion 01:15:00 Most advanced Breakthrough Propulsion 01:16:18 The Origins of the Chipsat Idea | Kickstarter Campaign 01:30:42 Next Research Projects 01:35:09 Hard Problems to solve 01:38:58 Science Fiction becomes Science Fact 01:40:20 Why space and why space now?

Episode 76 | Interstellar Travel, Movie Theaters Are Changing

Lost In Talks Podcast

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Apr 16, 2021 74:49

In episode 76 of the Lost In Talks Podcast we discuss the death of DMX, theories of Interstellar travel, and is the movie theater experience going to change after the pandemic. *FOLLOW US*https://www.instagram.com/lostinnostalgia/https://twitter.com/lostxnostalgiahttps://www.facebook.com/lostinnostalgiaco/*LISTEN TO THE TORONTO UPRISING PLAYLIST*https://li.sten.to/kHsrEngCONTACT US FOR BUSINESS/VIDEO [email protected]

62: History of Human Spaceflight: From the First Man in Space to Interstellar Travel [Part I] by J&S from 2TF

Total Space

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Apr 5, 2021 11:13

Join Jixuan & Sebastian this week in a special crossover series called “Humans in Space”. 2 The Future have already broadcasted this episode titled: “History of Human Spaceflight: From the First Man in Space to Interstellar Travel [Part I]” on their YouTube Channel which you can find in the embed below. They have taken the first episode in this series and we thought you guys, our listeners, would love to hear what they had to say to start out this brand new series!RichLB & Kage will return next week in the next episode of the series, titled: “The Race to the Moon” Join us as we discuss the rovers highlights during its few months! ================================================================ This episode featured on YouTube Too! ================================================================ Episode Links:

Episode 8 - Work what is it good for?

Rosie & BJ Save The World

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Aug 10, 2020 62:24

If you've ever goofed off at work, or walked through your office and witnessed co-workers browsing YouTube, you're not alone. In this episode, Rosie Tran and BJ Mendelson get to the heart of the matter: the bullshitization of work. Deeply influenced by David Graeber's book "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory," the two co-hosts discuss the arbitrary eight-hour work day and outdated notions of "hard work" passed down from the Baby Boomers. They suggest that jobs have taken the place of religion as the foundation for forming identity and self-worth. Resources for Saving the World

How to Pack for Interstellar Travel

The Word Virus

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Dec 23, 2019 12:45

Season Two: Punk Rock vs. the Lizard People - The Exile Episode 7 - How to Pack for Interstellar Travel

The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, & Our Destiny Beyond Earth w/ Dr. Michio Kaku

Darkness Radio

Play Episode It's free! create a profile !"> Listen Later Feb 20, 2018 69:09

Today BEYOND the DARKNESS looks at The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth with Dr. Michio Kaku Dr. Kaku takes us beyond the solar system to nearby stars, which may soon be reached by nanoships traveling on laser beams at near the speed of light. and he brings us beyond our galaxy, and even beyond our universe, to the possibility of immortality, showing us how humans may someday be able to leave our bodies entirely and laser port to new havens in space. Get the book here: www.Amazon.com/shop/darknessradio Visit his site here: mkaku.org For the most comfortable night's sleep you will ever have, try a Casper mattress for 100 nights, if you don't like it, send it back! Use code DARKNESS at checkout to get $50 off select mattresses! www.casper.com/darkness See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Episode 5: Interstellar - Deep Space Travel

Season One | Episode 5

Interstellar: deep space travel.

Thank you to our guest on this episode of Lockheed Martin Space Makers for her time and expertise:

Dr. Christine Edwards from Lockheed Martin

Episode Notes

To take a deeper dive into the incredible mission in this episode, please follow the links below:

Lockheed Martin - The Orion Spacecraft

NASA - The Orion Spacecraft

NASA - The Artemis Missions

NASA - Artemis I

• Episode Transcript Episode Transcript -->

[00:00:00]  Host : Welcome to Lockheed Martin Space Makers, the podcast that takes you out of this world for an inside look at some of our most challenging and innovative missions. My is Ben, and I'll be your host. This season, we'll explore the future of space, with past and present missions that are shaping our path forward, and chat with experts about what they think the space industry will look like 30, 40, even 50 years from now. Now let's go for launch. In today's episode, we talk with Dr. Christine Edwards.

[00:00:38]  Dr. Edwards : I'm the Deputy Exploration Architect at Lockheed Martin Space.

[00:00:42]  Host:  And we will learn a little more about what space exploration and deep space travel could look like for humans in the future.

[00:00:48]  Dr. Edwards:  My team looks at the kinds of missions that NASA, industry, and our international partners want to perform in the future, and we develop concepts and early systems designs that could help accomplish those missions. It's like we try to peer into the future and envision what the future of space exploration could look like. Then we architect the spacecrafts that could enable that future, creating conceptual designs of their systems and missions to make that future possible and bring it into existence.

[00:01:20]  Host:  Before we dive into the details about the future, let's take a step back and look at where humans have been and how we got to where we are now.

[00:01:29]  Dr. Edwards:  First thing I think of is the Great Space Race back in the 1960s, and how much those early crewed missions were journeying into the unknown, with like that first achievement of suborbital and orbital space flights. The first landing on the moon was a monumental achievement.

[00:01:51]  NASA Audio - Neil Armstrong:  "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

[00:01:54]  Dr. Edwards:  And I grew up in the shuttle era and was inspired to s- study aerospace engineering after watching a movie on the space shuttle. Feeling that boom and thunder of the rocket engines in that theater and imagining what it would be like to be an astronaut going into space really inspired me. Since Apollo, we've had the space shuttle and the International Space Station in low earth orbits, or LEO, and those missions have significantly increased our understanding of how to live and work in space. Now with the Artemis Program, we get to apply that knowledge to a more sustained exploration of the moon.

[00:02:29]  Host:  Artemis is the name of a NASA program that is going to bring humans back to the moon, and Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor that built the Orion spacecraft. It plays a critical role by carrying astronauts from Earth to lunar orbit and back.

[00:02:45]  Dr. Edwards:  It will take astronauts from the Earth to The Gateway, which is a space station around the moon. The astronauts will board a lander that will take them to the moon's surface. After the surface mission is complete, they will launch back to The Gateway from the moon, board the Orion, and then head home. This time, we are going to the moon to stay for more long term and to prepare for expeditions to Mars. Mars is the ultimate goal for human space flight. Everything that we do in LEO and at the moon can drive us towards being ready for those missions.

[00:03:16]  Host:  Except for the Apollo Program, humans have spent most of their time in low earth orbit at the International Space Station, which orbits around 260 miles above Earth. NASA's Artemis Program is planning on sending humans 250,000 miles into deep space to the moon. To give you some perspective on just how far that is, imagine holding a basketball; this represents our Earth. The International Space Station should be approximately one centimeter from that basketball. Now imagine holding a softball. In comparison to our basketball, this proportionally represents our moon. To see how far we'd have to travel to the moon, you would have to move that softball away 24 1/2 feet. This is more than just something fun to do, but an excellent visual representation of the great distances we are traveling from low earth orbit to our moon. This visual also helps us better understand how far the Orion spacecraft will be traveling, as it takes humans safely to the moon and maybe one day, beyond, to Mars.

[00:04:23]  Dr. Edwards:  The biggest difference between LEO and deep space is energy. The further away from Earth you wanna go, the more you need to get out of Earth's gravity well, the more energy you need to do that. And it's the same for coming back, but opposite. Coming back to Earth from deep space, you need to get rid of a bunch of energy. That's why you see heat shields or tiles using the Earth atmosphere to slow you down. When you are returning from LEO, you come back at around 17,500 miles per hour, and your heat shield heats up to around 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. But when you are returning from the moon, you come back at almost 25,000 miles per hour, and your heat shields has to take over 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. And then Mars is even higher. So, in addition to having that beefy heat shield so you can return from deep space, I also think about how to keep a spacecraft operating safely.

[00:05:17]  Host:  The crew's safety during an Earth-bound atmospheric entry is just one of the major challenges of sending humans into deep space. Mission designers have to consider a whole new set of variables when sending people to the moon or Mars that they wouldn't necessarily consider when going to places closer to home, like the International Space Station.

[00:05:38]  Dr. Edwards:  A crewed mission to Mars could take two to three years. And if something fails on that spacecraft, you can't just call a taxi; instead, you want backup systems. For example, on Earth, when a power grid goes out, critical infrastructure will have backup systems, like a hospital has backup generators so that people on life support can stay alive. You need similar backup systems on a deep-space spacecraft, too. The Orion has been designed for crewed deep space missions, including the safety features like the backup systems to keep the crew safe and a heat shield that sized for those high-velocity re-entries from the moon. In fact, we've shown that the Orion could support a Mars re-entry in a contingency scenario, too. Let's say you have a failure on your Mars transit vehicle, and it can no longer perform the braking maneuvers that you need to get back to Earth. If an Orion is attached to a Mars transit vehicle, it could be a backup system providing the safe return to the Earth.

[00:06:42]  Host:  Christine's team has their eyes set on going back to the moon and looking beyond at how lunar bases will evolve to one-day support missions going to Mars.

[00:06:52]  Dr. Edwards:  Well, the sky is no longer the limit. We have the first woman and the first person of color landing on the moon with Artemis. After that, we will see the first sustained presence on the moon by establishing infrastructure like power generators, rovers, and habitats so that crewed missions can keep returning to the moon. And with those sustained lunar missions, we can test the technology and systems that are needed to bring human space flight missions to Mars. So I see humans traveling to the places where we've been dreaming of going: lunar bases and finally having missions to Mars.

[00:07:27]  Host:  And for these missions to be successful, you need to have more than just one type of spacecraft, but a space infrastructure that will support humans on these ventures.

[00:07:38]  Dr. Edwards:  For lunar and Mars missions infrastructure, I think of the need for base camps. When I went on an expedition with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, we set up a base camp where we had tents and stored all our food and equipment. And every morning, we would gather up the supplies we needed for that day and hike out to work and then hike back at the end of the day to recoup. We are envisioning similar infrastructure for the moon and Mars. On the moon, NASA is planning an Artemis base camp, which will have a power generator and habitation. Landers will deliver crew, food, and supplies to that base camp, and the astronauts can take the rovers to do expeditions around the base camp.

[00:08:19] Then, for Mars, at Lockheed Martin, we've been developing a concept that's called Mars Base Camp, which is actually a vehicle that transports astronauts to Mars, and then parks in orbit around Mars.

[00:08:31]  Host:  Let's take a moment to listen to a few experts at Lockheed Martin that explain how Orion and Mars Base Camp will work together to send humans to Mars.

[00:08:39]  Dr. Edwards:  To get humans to Mars, we can't send Orion by itself. It needs to be part of a larger system that provides the supplies and the scientific equipment needed for a three-year journey that will take us hundreds of millions of miles away. We call our concept Mars Base Camp. Of course, the six astronauts will need room to live on their thousand-day mission, so Mars Base Camp has two habitats and a living space to eat, sleep, and exercise. Most importantly, we have Orion. It's the command deck with all the avionics for navigation and communications. Orion makes the whole spacecraft more reliable and gives the astronauts a safe ride home. And that vehicle in Mars orbit is your base camp, and you do expeditions from Mars Base Camp in orbit, down to the surface of Mars, or to the Mars' moons.

[00:09:40]  Host:  In a similar way to the International Space Station, you could have space stations orbiting around the moon, like the Lunar Gateway, and around Mars, like Mars Base Camp. These space stations will sustain the astronauts who will be living there for an extended period of time, a home away from home while they are working on missions at those locations.

[00:10:03]  Dr. Edwards:  The International Space Station is a very capable vehicle, and it has all of the supplies, and food, its equipments for the crew to live there and to perform science and other work there.

[00:10:15]  Host:  On the International Space Station, the crew can watch movies, listen to music, read books, play cards, and talk to their families. They have an exercise bike, a treadmill, and other equipment to keep their bodies and minds healthy. And of course, necessities like prepared food, a bathroom, sleeping quarters, and first aid equipment are available to them if they need it. However, for deep space missions, you need all of that and more to sustain astronauts. Because unlike at the International Space Station, the next shipment of supplies could be years away.

[00:10:49]  Dr. Edwards:  So the supply chain can be challenging, uh, because you need to make sure that you have the food and supplies that you need at the location where you need them, and you could be traveling hundreds of thousands, to millions of miles away for these deep space missions.

[00:11:04]  Host:  The International Space Station receives deliveries from Earth every couple of months, with food and other much-needed supplies. But in deep space, those regular deliveries wouldn't be nearly as easy, which is why you have to think about taking everything you would need for the entirety of a deep space mission. Along with a host of other challenges we will have to solve, developing some type of supply chain will be necessary to support astronauts operating in deep space.

[00:11:32]  Dr. Edwards:  One of the challenges is radiation exposure. We have a payload flying on the next Orion mission that is currently being tested by astronauts on the International Space Station, and this payload is a radiation vest. It is specially designed to fit each astronaut in a way that it provides extra radiation protection over vital organs.

[00:11:51]  Host:  Radiation is measured in millisieverts, and a six-month stay on the International Space Station exposes an astronaut to roughly 50 to 100 millisieverts, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. For a comparison, an x-ray at the doctor's office is about 0.1 millisieverts. Now, left unchecked, this increased radiation exposure can cause a lot of problems for astronauts, most commonly increasing their risk for cancer and other issues like cataracts or infertility.

[00:12:25]  Dr. Edwards:  The radiation is coming from.. the sun is one of the primary sources of radiation, and then also from deep space. And every astronaut is considered a radiation worker, so they have a set amount of radiation that they can have in their lifetime and in their work. And NASA's very careful to make sure that they don't get exposed to more than that level of radiation. Right now, for whenever there's a radiation storm from the sun, the astronauts hunker down inside an area in the spacecraft where they've determined it's the safest from the radiation, and so they go to that location. Orion is designed with some radiation shielding, and then the vests can provide additional protection.

[00:13:07]  Host:  To help solve this challenge of radiation of deep space, Orion's equipped with a radiation sensing instrument called the Hybrid Electronic Radiation Assessor. It will provide a warning to the crew to take shelter in the case of a radiation event. Let's say they're warned of an impending solar flare. Orion's crew can take cover in the central part of the crew module between the floor and the heat shield. They could also use the stowage bags on board to improve their shelter. However, the crew may have to shelter in place for more than a day. But with the help of a protective vest to block solar energetic particles, the crew could continue critical mission activities despite a solar storm.

[00:13:48]  Dr. Edwards:  Another challenge is communications with crew in deep space. We can send communications to spacecraft at the speed of light. But when you get as far as Mars, the minimum communication delay from Mars to Earth is around seven minutes, and then the longest one is around 20 minutes. You are so far away that it takes up to 20 minutes for a signal to reach you from Earth. And then it takes another 20 minutes for them to hear back from you. So, you are really remote and cut off from human contact outside of your crew that's onboard the spacecraft. The challenge here would be for the Mars crew to be as self-resilient and autonomous as possible, being able to troubleshoot and solve problems with only delayed assistance from Mission Control.

[00:14:30]  Host:  Unless we can find a way for signals to move faster than the speed of light, there is no way to solve this communication delay. However, one way around this delay is to establish mission control communication centers at or near the locations where astronauts would be performing missions.

[00:14:47]  Dr. Edwards:  So, in the future, Mars Base Camp could be like that mission control that's local, that's at Mars. If you've designed it to be more autonomous and to really be able to provide some of those mission control-type capabilities, then the crew can be more autonomous too and not have to rely as much on support from the grounds from Earth.

[00:15:07]  Host:  A "Mars Base Camp" acting as a mission command and control center to help cover the communications gap for operations touches on an idea of being untethered from Earth. Being untethered is when astronauts become self-sufficient enough to where they will no longer have to rely entirely on Earth's resources to sustain themselves. In the future, untethering from Earth may be possible with the help of water.

[00:15:35]  Dr. Edwards:  There are a few tipping points that I'm tracking and even trying to make possible. One we referred to as the Water Based Economy. We now know that there's a lot of water on the moon from the science orbiters that have mapped it. It looks like there's more water there than we ever imagined, than we ever thought was possible. It's a lot of water, surprising amount of water. But we don't know how accessible it is, it could be all tied up inside rocks, and a lot of it is inside craters. It could be water that's a little bit hard to reach. So we definitely wanna send robotic spacecrafts to go and explore how can we get that water. And if we can mine that water, which is called In-Situ Resource Utilization, or ISRU, we can use that water to make propellant and breathable air. When it becomes more affordable to use those ISRU materials from the moon than to haul them all the way from Earth, that is a tipping point. That point can spark a water-based economy where we can use water on the moon to fuel missions around it and to fuel missions to Mars. In our concepts for Artemis Base Camp, we have been thinking about how can astronauts operate at that camp and do things like assist with harvesting water and run the systems that can help us to use it.

[00:16:57]  Host:  Extracting water from lunar soil will require a ton of ingenuity and technical innovation. Developing techniques to harvest this water will support bases operating on the moon and work out the technologies and best practices needed to support missions going to Mars. And this leads us to our next point: If we are going to be untethered from Earth, we have to go nuclear.

[00:17:21]  Dr. Edwards:  I am super excited about fusion. I really wanna see compact fusion reactors happen. The energy from fusion is about one million times more powerful than the chemical reaction. And it's two to four times more powerful than fission reaction. In the future, if we have them adapted for space, they would revolutionize how we operate spacecraft. Power would no longer be as much of a limiting factor on Earth and in space. Nuclear energy also solves the problems we have with generating enough power on the surface of the moon or Mars to perform all of the activities that we have planned, but it could power an entire moon base or an entire Mars base. On the moon, the nights can last up to 14 Earth days, and you need power to keep your crew habitat warm enough to get through those nights. Also, the amount of materials that we can mine from the moon's surface will be limited by how much power is available. And on Mars, there are global dust storms that block light from solar panels, and that caused the loss of Opportunity rover. So, in those cases, having a full-on nuclear power plant could really enable, uh, the mission.

[00:18:32]  Host:  So you're gonna need like nuclear scientists.

[00:18:36]  Dr. Edwards:  Yes. [laughs]

[00:18:37]  Host:  Who will need to become astronauts.

[00:18:39]  Dr. Edwards:  Yeah. [laughs] I'd imagine needing all sorts of job functions, the kinds of jobs that help us run our society the way we do today. When we start off with these bases at the beginning, they'll probably be small, just because we're getting it started, but as the infrastructure builds up, and even if we see some of those tipping points we talked about happen, where we start to have a water-based economy, then having so many people with so many skill sets going, and living, and working on the moon, that will be a game-changer. That will be a new reality. [laughs]

[00:19:14]  Host:  Thank you so much for joining us today, and it was an absolute pleasure to talk with you.

[00:19:18]  Dr. Edwards:  Thank you. Yes. Thank you for having me.

[00:19:23]  Host:  Christine's interview touches on a bevy of topics from how Orion will support astronauts to the moon, water extracted from lunar rocks to support colonies living on the moon, with how Mars Base Camp will enable missions to the Red Planet, to nuclear power playing an instrumental role in the future of space. And my favorite aspect about all these topics is how they captured my imagination. Looking back on those Apollo missions, our imagination is where the dream of going to the moon lived until we actually did it. I can only imagine what an exciting and momentous experience that must have been to the generation witnessing those moments. And now, our generation may have the chance to witness our dreams become a reality. With our own eyes, we will experience history being made, and at the same time, a future being laid out for generations to come.

[00:20:23] You've been listening to Dr. Christine Edwards at Lockheed Martin, and Christine is a Space Maker. Please visit this episode show notes to learn more about what you heard in this episode or the careers available at Lockheed Martin. If you enjoyed this show, please like and subscribe so others can find us and follow along for more out-of-this-world stories from Lockheed Martin Space headquartered in Littleton, Colorado. Join us on the next episode, as we introduce you to more space makers.

[00:21:01] Space Makers is a production of Lockheed Martin Space.

It's executive produced by Pavan Desai.

Senior producer is Lauren Cole.

Senior producer, writer and host is Ben Dinsmore.

Associate producer and writer is Kaitlin Benz and Audrey Dods.

Sound design and audio mastered by Julian Giraldo.

Graphic design by Tim Roesch.

Marketing and recruiting by Joe Portnoy, Shannon Myers, and Stephanie Dixon.

These stories would not be possible without the support from our communication professionals, Tracy Weise, Natalya Oleksik, Gary Napier, Lauren Duda, and Dani Hauf. Thanks for joining us and see you next time.

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The voyage to interstellar space.

Susannah Darling

Katy Mersmann

The magnetometer, the cosmic ray subsystem, the plasma instrument.

By all means, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 shouldn’t even be here. Now in interstellar space, they are pushing the limits of spacecraft and exploration, journeying through the cosmic neighborhood, giving us our first direct look into the space beyond our star.

But when they launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 had a different mission: to explore the outer solar system and gather observations directly at the source, from outer planets we had only seen with remote studies. But now, four decades after launch, they’ve journeyed farther than any other spacecraft from Earth; into the cold, quiet world of interstellar space.

Originally designed to measure the properties of the giant planets, the instruments on both spacecraft have spent the past few decades painting a picture of the propagation of solar events from our Sun. And the Voyagers’ new mission focuses not only on effects on space from within our heliosphere — the giant bubble around the Sun filled up by the constant outflow of solar particles called the solar wind — but from outside of it. Though they once helped us look closer at the planets and their relationship to the Sun, they now give us clues about the nature of interstellar space as the spacecraft continue their journey.

The environment they explore is colder, subtler and more tenuous than ever before, and yet the Voyagers continue on, exploring and measuring the interstellar medium, a smorgasbord of gas, plasma and particles from stars and gas regions not originating from our system. Three of the spacecraft’s 10 instruments are the major players that study how space inside the heliosphere differs from interstellar space. Looking at this data together allows scientist to piece together our best-yet picture of the edge of the heliosphere and the interstellar medium. Here are the stories they tell.

On the Sun Spot , we have been exploring the various instruments on Voyager 2 one at a time, and analyzing how scientists read the individual sets of data sent to Earth from the far-reaching spacecraft. But one instrument we have not yet talked about is Voyager 2’s Magnetometer, or MAG for short.

During the Voyagers’ first planetary mission, the MAG was designed to investigate the magnetospheres of planets and their moons, determining the physical mechanics and processes of the interactions of those magnetic fields and the solar wind. After that mission ended, the Voyager spacecraft studied the magnetic field of the heliosphere and beyond, observing the magnetic reach of the Sun and the changes that occur within that reach during solar activity.

Getting the magnetic data as we travel further into space requires an interesting trick. Voyager spins itself around, in a calibration maneuver that allows Voyager to differentiate between the spacecraft’s own magnetic field — that goes along for the ride as it spins — and the magnetic fields of the space it’s traveling through.

The initial peek into the magnetic field beyond the Sun’s influence happened when Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause in 2012. Scientists saw that within the heliosphere, the strength of the magnetic field was quite variable, changing and jumping as Voyager 1 moved through the heliosphere. These changes are due to solar activity. But once Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space, that variability was silenced. Although the strength of the field was similar to what it was inside the heliosphere, it no longer had the variability associated with the Sun’s outbursts.

This graph shows the magnitude, or the strength, of the magnetic field around the heliopause from January 2012 out to May 2014. Before encountering the heliopause, marked by the orange line, the magnetic strength fluctuates quite a bit. After a bumpy ride through the heliopause in 2012, the magnetic strength stops fluctuating and begins to stabilize in 2013, once the spacecraft is far enough out into the interstellar medium.

In November 2018, Voyager 2 also crossed the heliopause and similarly experienced quite the bumpy ride out of the heliopause. Scientists are excited to see how its journey differs from its twin spacecraft.

Scientists are still working through the MAG data from Voyager 2, and are excited to see how Voyager 2’s journey differed from Voyager 1.

Much like the MAG, the Cosmic Ray Subsystem — called CRS — was originally designed to measure planetary systems. The CRS focused on the compositions of energetic particles in the magnetospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Scientists used it to study the charged particles within the solar system and their distribution between the planets. Since it passed the planets, however, the CRS has been studying the heliosphere’s charged particles and — now — the particles in the interstellar medium. 

The CRS measures the count rate, or how many particles detected per second. It does this by using two telescopes: the High Energy Telescope, which measures high energy particles (70MeV) identifiable as interstellar particles, and the Low Energy Telescope, which measures low-energy particles (5MeV) that originate from our Sun. You can think of these particles like a bowling ball hitting a bowling pin versus a bullet hitting the same pin — both will make a measurable impact on the detector, but they’re moving at vastly different speeds. By measuring the amounts of the two kinds of particles, Voyager can provide a sense of the space environment it’s traveling through.

These graphs show the count rate — how many particles per second are interacting with the CRS on average each day — of the galactic ray particles measured by the High Energy Telescope (top graph) and the heliospheric particles measured by the Low Energy Telescope (bottom graph). The line in red shows the data from Voyager 1, time shifted forward 6.32 years from 2012 to match up with the data from Voyager around November 2018, shown in blue.

CRS data from Voyager 2 on Nov. 5, 2018, showed the interstellar particle count rate of the High Energy Telescope increasing to count rates similar to what Voyager 1 saw then leveling out. Similarly, the Low Energy Telescope shows a severe decrease in heliospheric originating particles. This was a key indication that Voyager 2 had moved into interstellar space. Scientists can keep watching these counts to see if the composition of interstellar space particles changes along the journey.

The Plasma Science instrument, or PLS, was made to measure plasma and ionized particles around the outer planets and to measure the solar wind’s influence on those planets. The PLS is made up of four Faraday cups, an instrument that measures the plasma as it passes through the cups and calculates the plasma’s speed, direction and density.

The plasma instrument on Voyager 1 was damaged during a fly-by of Saturn and had to be shut off long before Voyager 1 exited the heliosphere, making it unable to measure the interstellar medium’s plasma properties. With Voyager 2’s crossing, scientists will get the first-ever plasma measurements of the interstellar medium.

Scientists predicted that interstellar plasma measured by Voyager 2 would be higher in density but lower in temperature and speed than plasma inside the heliosphere. And in November 2018, the instrument saw just that for the first time. This suggests that the plasma in this region is getting colder and slower, and, like cars slowing down on a freeway, is beginning to pile up around the heliopause and into the interstellar medium.

And now, thanks to Voyager 2’s PLS, we have a never-before-seen perspective on our heliosphere: The plasma velocity from Earth to the heliopause.

These three graphs tell an amazing story, summarizing a journey of 42 years in one plot. The top section of this graph shows the plasma velocity, how fast the plasma across the heliosphere is moving, against the distance out from Earth. The distance is in astronomical units; one astronomical unit is the average distance between the Sun and Earth, about 93 million miles. For context, Saturn is 10 AU from Earth, while Pluto is about 40 AU away.

The heliopause crossing happened at 120 AU, when the velocity of plasma coming out from the Sun drops to zero (seen on the top graph), and the outward flow of the plasma is diverted — seen in the increase in the two bottom graphs, which show the upwards and downward speeds (the normal velocity, middle graph) and the sideways speed of the solar wind (the tangential velocity, bottom graph) of the solar wind plasma, respectively. This means as the solar wind begins to interact with the interstellar medium, it is pushed out and away, like a wave hitting the side of a cliff.  

Looking at each instrument in isolation, however, does not tell the full story of what interstellar space at the heliopause looks like. Together, these instruments tell a story of the transition from the turbulent, active space within our Sun’s influence to the relatively calm waters on the edge of interstellar space.

The MAG shows that the magnetic field strength decreases sharply in the interstellar medium. The CRS data shows an increase in interstellar cosmic rays, and a decrease in heliospheric particles. And finally, the PLS shows that there’s no longer any detectable solar wind.

Now that the Voyagers are outside of the heliosphere, their new perspective will provide new information about the formation and state of our Sun and how it interacts with interstellar space, along with insight into how other stars interact with the interstellar medium.

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are providing our first look at the space we would have to pass through if humanity ever were to travel beyond our home star — a glimpse of our neighborhood in space.  

Related links:

• Video: “NASA Science Live: Going Interstellar”
• Explore Voyager 2 data on “The Sun Spot” blog

By  Susannah Darling NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center , Greenbelt, Md.

24 episodes

Join Astronaut Cady Coleman and scientist/author Andrew Maynard as they explore the unique visions of those working to take us to new worlds.Mission: Interplanetary looks at the big questions, the challenges to overcome, and the opportunities within reach. We talk to the people imagining, designing, and building the future of humans in space. Join us for a glimpse into futures that lie far beyond the bounds of Earth.

Mission: Interplanetary Arizona State University

• 4.6 • 48 Ratings
• NOV 15, 2022

How will we govern the Moon?

Thus far, the only humans to walk on the Moon have been US astronauts. But the coming decade may see many more people there—people from several countries and even private corporations. How can we ensure peaceful cooperation between players with different interests? Cady & Andrew talk with NASA’s Chief Economist Alex MacDonald about the future of lunar governance. Also, the Artemis 1 launch, Cady obsesses over donuts, Andrew discovers some weird science, and a gorgeous new Sounds of Space courtesy of the great folks at SYSTEM Sounds. Lastly, check out NASA’s new document: Lunar Landing and Operations Policy Analysis. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit our website at missioninterplanetary.com and drop us a line! Hosts Cady Coleman & Andrew Maynard Twitter Cady Coleman: @Astro_Cady Andrew Maynard: @2020science Interplanetary Initiative: @II_ASU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• NOV 8, 2022

What are we learning from the JWST?

In a year of so many amazing achievements in space exploration, there may be nothing as inspiring and scientifically significant as the deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The most powerful telescope ever built is allowing scientists to peer into the distant past—billions of years—to help fill gaps in our understanding of the universe and its history. What exactly are we learning from the JWST? NASA’s Amber Straughn, Deputy Project Scientist for the JWST, talks with Cady & Andrew about surprising new discoveries, and what’s still to come from this game-changing new telescope. Also, Cady sees a UFO, Andrew shares a favorite author, and a topical Sounds of Space courtesy of the great folks at SYSTEM Sounds. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit our website at missioninterplanetary.com and drop us a line! Hosts Cady Coleman & Andrew Maynard Twitter Amber Straughn: @astraughnomer Cady Coleman: @Astro_Cady Andrew Maynard: @2020science Interplanetary Initiative: @II_ASU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• NOV 1, 2022

What is the future of food in space?

The first astronauts squeezed their meals out of a tube. But space food has come a long way since then. What might be on future lunar menus? How do we grow food in microgravity? Short answer: We science the heck out of it. Matt Damon has nothing on this week’s guest. NASA’s Bryan Onate talks with Cady & Andrew about how scientists are developing the future of space food. Also, Cady’s working on a book, Andrew contemplates the future of humanity, and both of them learn a new word from this week’s festive Sounds of Space, courtesy of the great folks at SYSTEM Sounds. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit our website at missioninterplanetary.com and drop us a line! Hosts Cady Coleman & Andrew Maynard Twitter Cady Coleman: @Astro_Cady Andrew Maynard: @2020science Interplanetary Initiative: @II_ASU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• OCT 25, 2022

What does religion have to do with space exploration?

Space exploration imagines itself as a secular endeavor with its foundations in science and engineering? But how accurate is this self-image? Religious Studies scholar Mary-Jane Rubenstein talks with guest hosts Tanya Harrison and Joe O’Rourke about the surprising affinities between religion and space exploration. Check out her forthcoming book on the subject! Also, Joe delights in revenge for the dinosaurs, Tanya speculates on a planet of cephalopods, and a tear-jerking new Sounds of Space from the great folks at SYSTEM Sounds. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit our website at missioninterplanetary.com and drop us a line! Hosts Tanya Harrison & Joe O’Rourke Twitter Interplanetary Initiative: @II_ASU Tanya Harrison: @tanyaofmars Joe O'Rourke: @GeoJGo Mary-Jane Rubenstein: @janeforbrains Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• OCT 18, 2022

What can building spaceships teach us about teams?

You’ve probably worked on teams, collaborating with groups of people to achieve shared goals. And it can be really difficult. Now imagine working with an immense team to do something as difficult as building a successful space mission. Tracy Drain has done it. Repeatedly. She’s the Lead Flight Systems Engineer for NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission, and she talks with Cady and Andrew about what she’s learned about running successful collaborations. Also, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Donnie Darko, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy references, Andrew swoons over Tears for Fears covers and mashups, and a dreamy new Sounds of Space from the great folks at SYSTEM Sounds. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit our website at missioninterplanetary.com and drop us a line! Hosts Cady Coleman & Andrew Maynard Twitter Interplanetary Initiative: @II_ASU Cady Coleman: @Astro_Cady Andrew Maynard: @2020science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• OCT 11, 2022

What will we do on the Moon?

It was 1972 the last time humans walked on the Moon. Now, with the Artemis program and other efforts, we’re returning to the lunar surface this decade. But why are we going? And what will we do once we get there? Cady & Andrew talk with former astronaut and best-selling author Chris Hadfield of the Open Lunar Foundation about the near-future of humans on the Moon. Also, Artemis I delays, Andrew worries about robots, and an impactful new Sounds of Space. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Visit our website at missioninterplanetary.com and drop us a line! Hosts Cady Coleman & Andrew Maynard Twitter Chris Hadfield: @Cmdr_Hadfield Interplanetary Initiative: @II_ASU Cady Coleman: @Astro_Cady Andrew Maynard: @2020science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Customer Reviews

My favorite show.

If there was one podcast to listen to in the whole world, I’d want this to be it :) The hosts are amazing and the guests they interview are so cool! I love the segments they start and end episodes with too. Just overall such a great production. Informative, fun, and inspiring!

Absolute favorite podcast on earth

I savor these episodes like a dessert in my listening week. My only issue with them is they’re far too short! Cady and Andrew always seem to have more to say, and ask their guests, than the time they’re allowed. Please extend the series in every way possible.

Same old same old

Another show with all the same redundant info presented by over privileged, self aggrandizing people. We are all doomed unless we stop this self enslavement.

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Voyager 1 and 2: The Interstellar Mission

An image of Neptune taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

NASA has beautiful photos of every planet in our solar system. We even have images of faraway Neptune , as you can see in the photo above.

Neptune is much too distant for an astronaut to travel there with a camera. So, how do we have pictures from distant locations in our solar system? Our photographers were two spacecraft, called Voyager 1 and Voyager 2!

An artist’s rendering of one of the Voyager spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft launched from Earth in 1977. Their mission was to explore Jupiter and Saturn —and beyond to the outer planets of our solar system. This was a big task. No human-made object had ever attempted a journey like that before.

The two spacecraft took tens of thousands of pictures of Jupiter and Saturn and their moons. The pictures from Voyager 1 and 2 allowed us to see lots of things for the first time. For example, they captured detailed photos of Jupiter's clouds and storms, and the structure of Saturn's rings .

Image of storms on Jupiter taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Image credit: NASA

Voyager 1 and 2 also discovered active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io , and much more. Voyager 2 also took pictures of Uranus and Neptune. Together, the Voyager missions discovered 22 moons.

Since then, these spacecraft have continued to travel farther away from us. Voyager 1 and 2 are now so far away that they are in interstellar space —the region between the stars. No other spacecraft have ever flown this far away.

Where will Voyager go next?

Watch this video to find out what's beyond our solar system!

Both spacecraft are still sending information back to Earth. This data will help us learn about conditions in the distant solar system and interstellar space.

The Voyagers have enough fuel and power to operate until 2025 and beyond. Sometime after this they will not be able to communicate with Earth anymore. Unless something stops them, they will continue to travel on and on, passing other stars after many thousands of years.

Each Voyager spacecraft also carries a message. Both spacecraft carry a golden record with scenes and sounds from Earth. The records also contain music and greetings in different languages. So, if intelligent life ever find these spacecraft, they may learn something about Earth and us as well!

A photo of the golden record that was sent into space on both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

More about our universe!

Where does interstellar space begin?

Searching for other planets like ours

Play Galactic Explorer!

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Interstellar travel: From science fiction to reality

Humans may one day travel beyond the solar system on board rockets powered by nuclear fusion.

An artist's impression of the Voyager 1 spacecraft entering interstellar space. Photo: Nasa

Only two probes have reached interstellar space – the region beyond the solar system – since the start of human space exploration .

It took more than three decades for the first spacecraft, Voyager 1 , to cross the heliopause, a boundary scientists believe is where interstellar space begins, after its launch in 1977.

It was an incredible achievement with invaluable data sent back through a medium not influenced by the Sun.

But with its power supply weakening it is almost impossible Voyager 1 will reach our nearest star, Proxima Centauri, which is 4.2 light years away and would take the probe almost 73,000 years.

Les Johnson, a Nasa scientist and author of several scientific and science fiction books, told The National reaching another star could take 50 to 100 years.

“It is possible we might have the technology to send our first robotic probe to another star within the next 50 to 100 years,” said Mr Johnson, who managed the Interstellar Propulsion Research Project at the US space agency.

“Based on the rate of technology growth, after looking at all the propulsion systems that are based on known physics, I believe these first probes will be propelled to the stars using laser light reflecting from a sail, similar to today’s solar sails but driven by intense laser light instead of sunlight.”

Human travel to interstellar space

It could take significantly longer for a crewed mission to travel to another star, as laser light sails would only work for smaller spacecraft.

Nuclear fusion propulsion, a way of powering a spacecraft using high-energy particles created by fusion reactions, is needed to make human missions to interstellar space possible.

“As for humans, that’s a lot more complicated because it takes a lot of mass to keep a group of humans alive for a decade- to centuries-long space journey and that means a massive ship,” Mr Johnson said.

“For a human crewed ship, we will need fusion propulsion at a minimum and antimatter as the ideal.

“While we know these are physically possible, the technology level needed for interstellar travel seems very far away – perhaps 100 to 200 years in the future.”

While scientists dream of antimatter propulsion, which could enable space travel at 70 per cent of the speed of light, nuclear fusion propulsion appears much closer to reality.

The technology could also help reduce the time it takes to reach Mars, the planet to which most space agencies are trying to send their astronauts.

Laura Forczyk, an author and the founder of space consulting firm Astralytical, said nuclear fusion propulsion has the potential to revolutionise space flight.

"We will not be able to achieve interstellar travel until we engineer a faster and more efficient means of accelerating," said Ms Forczyk.

"We also need to develop long-term, self-sustained robust ecosystems for long-duration voyages and a better means of radiation shielding. We are at least a century away from these advances."

While developing nuclear fusion technology is not easy, with the required temperature to achieve it 10 times hotter than the Sun, a few companies have been trying for many years.

California-based start-up Helicity Space recently received $5 million in seed funding to accelerate its fusion propulsion technology projects.

UK-based start-up Pulsar Fusion is also attempting to develop the technology and has started construction on a large nuclear fusion chamber in England.

When the engine is fired, it would, at least temporarily, be the hottest place in the solar system.

China is also trying to advance the development of nuclear fusion, with reports of a new state-owned company that would help accelerate the production of an "artificial Sun".

Is there an Earth-like planet beyond the solar system?

One of the reasons scientists want to explore interstellar space is to learn more about the universe and possibilities of life beyond Earth.

Nasa has been studying exoplanets, or planets outside of the solar system, for decades by using telescopes.

Mr Johnson said he "doubts we will find Earth 2.0 anywhere close" and that discovering another home-like planet was not thought to be a near-term possibility.

"Over time, we might be able to modify another planet to make it habitable but that will likely take additional centuries or millennia," he said.

"That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go. The job of science is to learn more about the universe in which we live.

"Studying planets around other stars will help us better understand our own solar system and expand our knowledge of this big universe. That alone, in my opinion, makes the journey one we should make."

Future Beat

Your round-up of the stories shaping tomorrow’s world

Interstellar astronauts would face years-long communication delays due to time dilation

The laws of physics mean that communication with near-light-speed spacecraft would be very challenging.

Due to the mind-blowing distances and speeds required, interstellar travel would be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for humanity to achieve. But new research highlights yet another challenge: communication blackouts.

The next-closest star system to our own, Alpha Centauri , is over 4 light-years away, so barring any fancy sci-fi technological revolution in the next few centuries, if we want to spread among the stars, we'll have to do it the "slow" way. 

That means we'd need some sort of propulsion method that could get us close to, but not exceed, the speed of light . But even if we were to achieve this ambitious goal, this futuristic mode of transportation would present all sorts of communication challenges, scientists explain in a paper recently uploaded to the preprint database arXiv .

The first problem is that light itself can only travel at a finite speed. While this doesn't severely hinder communication near Earth, engineers already have to deal with this challenge when communicating with probes sent across the solar system . For example, messages take minutes to arrive at Mars and hours to reach the outer planets. For even longer-distance communication — like an imagined scenario of a spacecraft sent to some star system many light-years away — it would mean any message would take years to reach the craft.

Related: Is interstellar travel really possible?

But that's not the only hurdle. Special relativity teaches us that clocks are not synchronized across the universe. Travelers on board the spacecraft would experience time dilation, in which time would flow more slowly than it would for people on Earth. This effect is already measurable; for example, it needs to be taken into account for synchronizing signals from GPS satellites. 

But in our imagined scenario, our travelers are moving as close to the speed of light as possible. This is absolutely essential for propagation out into the galaxy . Because of time dilation, the passengers would not experience the years and decades of travel; for them, depending on how fast they moved, only weeks or months might pass.

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This time dilation would introduce serious issues for coordinating messages, which requires a significant amount of math. While annoying, that wouldn't be the hardest part of interstellar travel. Instead, it's that spacecraft traveling at near light speed would suffer severe communication blackout periods.

In their paper, the researchers investigated two hypothetical interstellar-travel scenarios. In the first, travelers would continue to accelerate their spacecraft at a constant 1 g of acceleration — the same acceleration provided naturally by Earth's gravity . This would send their spacecraft ever closer to the speed of light.

Curiously, this kind of constant acceleration would introduce an event horizon . If the people of Earth sent a message to the spacecraft, that message would be limited to the speed of light. It would race ahead toward the spaceship, but in the meantime, the ship also would move away from the signal. If the message were sent soon enough, it would eventually reach the ship after a significant time delay. But if they were to wait too long, the message would never arrive; the spacecraft would always be one step ahead of the message, and from their perspective, signals from Earth would eventually go dark.

The second scenario offers different challenges. The researchers considered the case of a spacecraft sent to a distant destination. At first the spacecraft would constantly accelerate, but midway through its journey, it would flip itself around and decelerate so that it didn't just fly by its target. This scenario would introduce its own set of communication challenges.

First, the spacecraft would stop receiving messages from Earth after a certain amount of time. These messages would eventually reach the spacecraft, but only after it had reached its destination and stopped moving.

On the other hand, the spacecraft would be able to send signals to Earth, and those signals would always reach their targets. Also, signals sent from the destination (say, a colony already set up on the distant planet) would always reach the spacecraft while it was cruising in that direction.

— Interstellar space travel will have language complications for astronauts

— Interstellar travel requires a long-term approach (and humans are too impatient)

— Researchers unlock the keys to designing an interstellar sail  

But signals sent from the spacecraft to the destination would not arrive until shortly before the craft itself got there, at which time all of the sent messages would pile up on each other, announcing the arrival of the craft.

These realities mean that communication with near-light-speed spacecraft would be very challenging. All interstellar vehicles must operate independently, because after a certain amount of time, they will be cut off from Earth. If a problem arises, they will be able to tell people on Earth about it, but they won't be able to hear a response.

Also, distant colonies wouldn't know about the launch of a spacecraft in their direction until shortly before the craft arrived there. 

No matter what, interstellar travel would be a lonely journey.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute in New York City. Paul received his PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011, and spent three years at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics, followed by a research fellowship in Trieste, Italy, His research focuses on many diverse topics, from the emptiest regions of the universe to the earliest moments of the Big Bang to the hunt for the first stars. As an "Agent to the Stars," Paul has passionately engaged the public in science outreach for several years. He is the host of the popular "Ask a Spaceman!" podcast, author of "Your Place in the Universe" and "How to Die in Space" and he frequently appears on TV — including on The Weather Channel, for which he serves as Official Space Specialist.

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• VVet1968 The very first science fiction book that I read in the 1950s was Heinlein's "Time for the Stars" which focused on this same problem. Nearly seventy years later I still remember being blown away by the concepts as it was my first introduction to relativity. Sure, it's not an "adult" scifi, but if you've never read it, pick up a copy. Reply
• Helio Interstellar travel is perhaps the best case for using particle entanglement for instant communication since one set of them must be carried to the distant locations. Of course, there has been no means found for a working model, but scientists are very clever, so I bet they’ll get ‘er done…someday, Reply
• billslugg Entanglement cannot be used for communication for two basic reasons. The sender can only send a random message. The timing at the receiving end is either fixed by a predetermined schedule or is indeterminate. Neither a message nor a time can be communicated. Reply

billslugg said: Entanglement cannot be used for communication for two basic reasons. The sender can only send a random message. The timing at the receiving end is either fixed by a predetermined schedule or is indeterminate. Neither a message nor a time can be communicated.

T hese realities mean that communication with near-light-speed spacecraft would be very challenging. All interstellar vehicles must operate independently, because after a certain amount of time, they will be cut off from Earth. If a problem arises, they will be able to tell people on Earth about it, but they won't be able to hear a response .

Also, distant colonies wouldn't know about the launch of a spacecraft in their direction until shortly before the craft arrived there.

• unclefishbits I have a silly saying: "No internet is fine. Having internet is great" Bad internet is a frustrating nightmare". Now put this at an existential level of loneliness and hope, and you've ramped up that situation to horrific levels. I'd just right off that comms won't work, and make sure you plan ahead to never exist in context of the earth or human race, ever again. Seeding the galaxy is going to be quite lonely. And we thought Tom Hanks in Castaway seemed crazed with lack of connections. Time to rewatch Aniara. Reply

Helio said: In a pair of entangled particles, my limited understanding is that whenever one particle collapses, say "heads", the other will instantly collapse to say "tails", regardless of distance. This would allow for excellent and instant communication. BUT, of course, the problem is getting the "first" one to say "heads" in a way that doesn't break their entanglement. My hope is that someone will find a way to do it.

Helio said: Also there are some interesting points raised in this article: " But signals sent from the spacecraft to the destination would not arrive until shortly before the craft itself got there, at which time all of the sent messages would pile up on each other, announcing the arrival of the craft." This is interesting because the travelers who, say reach alpha Centauri in one year, will argue their travel transmissions were never more than 1 year from Earth. But those on Earth would, I think, disagree and say that, for instance, when the travelers were 6 months out (half way) then Earth would see the transmission from 2.15 lyrs distance, so it would take 2.15 years to get the transmission, which is 1.15 years after the ship arrived. So, WAIM ( What Am I Missing?). Under SR, I don't see how this is true, eventually any signal sent will take one year for every lightyear distance the ship is from Earth when the transmission was sent. WAIM? This is puzzling as well. Assuming SR effects reduce their travel time (or distance) then any Earth broadcast will come after their arrival, not before. If the spacecraft sends a transmission to the destination after it has slowed enough, then this would make sense, admittedly.

dgmesser said: This would violate Einstein's principle that information cannot travel faster in an inertial frame than the speed of light. If that is violated, it would be a very big deal.

Helio said: "Spooky action at a distance", as Einstein called it. "Instantaneous" action has been demonstrated to be correct, thanks greatly to John Bell.

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Universe Today

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Is Humanity Ready to Realize the Dream of Interstellar Travel?

For generations, humans have dreamed, speculated, and theorized about the possibility of journeying to distant stars, finding habitable planets around them, and settling down. In time, the children of these bold adventurers would create a new civilization and perhaps even meet the children of Earth. People could eventually journey from one world to another, cultures would mix, and trade and exchanges would become a regular feature. The potential for growth that would come from these exchanges – intellectually, socially, politically, technologically, and economically – would be immeasurable.

Expanding humanity’s reach beyond the Solar System is not just the fevered dream of science fiction writers and futurists. It has also been the subject of very serious scientific research, and interest in the subject is again on the rise. Much like sending crewed missions to Mars, establishing permanent outposts on the Moon, and exploring beyond cislunar space with human astronauts instead of robots – there is a growing sense that interstellar travel could be within reach. But just how ready are we for this bold and adventurous prospect? Whether we are talking about probes vs. crews or technological vs. psychological readiness, is interstellar travel something we are ready to take on?

This was a central question raised at a public outreach event aptly named “ Interstellar Travel: Are We Ready? ” that took place at the 8th Interstellar Symposium: In Light of Other Suns , held from July 10th to 13th at the University of McGill in Montreal, Quebec. The symposium was hosted by the Interstellar Research Group (IRG), the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), and Breakthrough Initiatives – in coordination with the University of McGill – and featured guest speakers and luminaries from multiple disciplines – ranging from astronomy and astrophysics to astrobiology, geology, and cosmology.

This public outreach event, organized by Prof. Andrew Higgins (Mechanical Engineering) and the McGill Interstellar Flight Experimental Research Group , occurred on July 10th from 7:30-9:30 PM EST. The event was open to the public and made available for free via a live stream. It was chaired by famed author and NASA scientist and technologist Les Johnson and featured a panel of noted scientists, educators, and space exploration advocates who offered an array of perspectives on this very question. The panel included:

• Alan Stern , at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission
• AJ Link , an adjunct professor at the Howard University School of Law , a disability policy analyst, space law policy expert, and member of Astro Access (promoting accessibility in space)
• Prof. Philip Lubin , the head of the UCSB Experimental Cosmology Group and expert in directed energy for the propulsion (DEP) and planetary defense applications
• Erika Nesvold , Ph.D. physicist, computational astrophysicist, former NASA researcher, and developer at Giant Army (creators of the Universe Sandbox )
• Trevor Kjorlien , a space educator at Plateau Astro and a media production specialist with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA)

After each panelist provided a brief introduction of themselves and their perspectives, a general discussion on the issues of interstellar travel was raised, followed by a Q&A session towards the end. Throughout, the panel addressed the chief challenges in realizing interstellar travel, be they technological, psychological, ethical, social, economic, and the like. They also addressed the likely implications, possible solutions, potential timelines, and whether or not humanity is ready to shoulder the associated burdens. As Les Johnson told Universe Today via Zoom:

“I introduced all the panelists, AJ, Allen, Phillip, and Erica. And then Trevor was like the emcee. He’s apparently a popular host in Canada. And does this kind of thing all the time. He’s witty, he’s personable, and so he interacted with the audience, had a list of questions, and we, on the panel, kind of batted around the answers. Some were specific to us, and some were general. And it all centered around this notion of, ‘How do we plan for something that’s far out?’ ‘Why are we doing it?’ Can we really afford to do it, and what’s the scale that it will be?” And there were differences of opinions.”

Going Interstellar

As we explored in a previous article , it would take between 19,000 and 81,000 years to reach the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) using conventional propulsion methods. It’s easy to see why space and advanced research agencies have been exploring concepts that could allow for much faster transits since the dawn of the Space Age. Nuclear-Pulse Propulsion (NPP) was an early idea, where fission reactions (nuclear warheads) or the fusing of deuterium or hydrogen fuel would be used to accelerate a spacecraft to a fraction of the speed of light (aka. “relativistic speeds”).

Many historic studies have been conducted, including Project Orion (1958-1963), Project Daedalus (1973-78), the Enzmann Starship (1973), Project Longshot (1987-88), Project Hyperion (2011), and Project Icarus (2009–14). Anti-matter propulsion is another concept that has been explored, which resulted in proposals like Project Valkyrie (2009). There have even been attempts to research Faster-Than-Light (FTL) propulsion, the most notable of which is arguably the Alcubierre Warp Drive , originally proposed by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994.

Since 2000, proposals and design studies for ra DEP spacecraft have included Sun-Diver , Project Dragonfly , and (most notably) Breakthrough Starshot . This latter effort, announced in 2016, envisions a fleet of lightsails and nanocraft (the StarChip) accelerated by a 100 Gw laser array to 20% the speed of light. If realized, these spacecraft could accomplish a one-way journey to Alpha Centauri within 20 years (“in our lifetime”) and acquire pictures and data on any exoplanets that happen to be there. These evolving studies show how far the field has come, which Les Johnson noted in his introduction:

“When I first got involved in thinking about interstellar flight, I had been at NASA for about 10 years and was introduced to this community. And the annual gathering of this community was in this little town in Italy, and they met under the guise of being a project or a gathering of scientists talking about ultra-deep space missions. And the reason they did that was because they couldn’t say the word interstellar. Because people didn’t take it seriously…

“There are all sorts of challenges. If we’re ever going to send robots and people, we have to have power [and] communications. If you talk about seeing people, you have to keep us alive, or our progeny. It might be generations of ships. So the challenges are immense, and people didnt’ take it seriously. But there’s been a rapid progress in a lot of the technologies. And I firmly believe we will be launching our Ifirst robotic probes that travel faster than Voyager within the lifetimes of some of the people who are alive today that might get trip time to some of the nearest stars in 100 years.”

In addition to technological developments, the idea of interstellar travel has also received a boost, thanks to developments in other space sectors. These include renewed lunar exploration in this decade – the Artemis Program , the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) – and proposed missions to Mars, which include NASA and China’s plans and commercial proposals by SpaceX. Of course, in addition to the challenges, many ethical, legal, and philosophical implications need to be addressed in advance. To this end, the eclectic panel of experts from various fields offered a good rundown and examinations of the particulars. As Erika Nesvold told Universe Today via email:

“I think each of the panelists talked about the big challenges that we each foresee in the future as humans attempt to send technology to other stellar systems and to live long-term in space. Some of us (like Phil) thought that the energy or cost requirements would be insurmountable. Some of us (like me and AJ) wanted to draw attention to the ethical problems we have yet to solve with astronaut selection, spacecraft design, inclusion, safety, etc. I think all of us are excited about humanity’s future in space, though, and want to see people working on these problems.”

So… Are We?

First, there’s the elephant in the room, which means acknowledging the answer to the big question, “Are we ready?” According to the panelist, the answer is no. Interestingly, this was the one matter that all sides agreed on. Whereas they stated with a fair degree of confidence that robotic missions – a la Breakthrough Starshot – could be realized in the not-too-distant future, the possibility of crewed missions to nearby stars remains a far-off prospect. Said Johnson:

“No, we’re not ready. And it’s technology that’s the prohibitor. But we did conclude that being ready, at least for small robotic missions, is within reach. With the work that Breakthrough Starshot is doing and the spin-offs that might come from that, we all kind of envisioned that it might be possible to send a robotic probe within the next 100 years, give or take. So we’re not as far away from being able to do that as I thought we were when I began my career and looked at interstellar stuff like 20 years ago. I was thinking it was two to three hundred years. We might actually be within one-hundred years from our first robotic probe, which is amazing.”

According to Johnson’s estimates, robotic missions to the nearest star systems could be possible within 100 to 200 years. In the meantime, there are other things we need to be focusing on, things that are more achievable and within our intellectual and creative capacity. In addition, Link raised the question of motivations and values as a barrier, which require serious consideration before attempts at interstellar travel can occur. As Link told Universe Today via email, the transition between interplanetary and interstellar missions (often raised in this context) will not necessarily be a smooth one:

“I think interplanetary journeys are going to be a lot different than interstellar journeys. Mostly because it’s conceivable that most interplanetary journeys within our Solar System will happen within a person’s lifetime – it takes multiple generations to get to a different star. And so I think the values for an interstellar mission are going to be – or should be, at least – very different than an interplanetary mission. In terms of crew selection, monetary systems, if there is a monetary system, that determines resource sharing. I think all those things are going to have to be vastly different for an interstellar mission.”

Cost Assessment

Another major point was the energy requirement, which comes up in any discussion about interstellar travel sooner or later. Like it or not, an interstellar mission only makes sense (from an economic perspective) if it can be done in a person’s lifetime. That, unfortunately, is where the technological prohibition Johnson addressed comes up. As part of the panel discussions, Lubin raised a cost analysis he had previously conducted that concluded that the energy requirements are not currently within our grasp.

According to Lubin, directed-energy propulsion has tremendous potential for interplanetary (Mars in 30 days) and interstellar travel since it is the only technology that can achieve relativistic flight (a fraction of the speed of light) in the foreseeable future. Alas, the applications we can realize now are limited to beaming power from space (or between the Earth and the Moon) and optical communications. On this point, Johnson raised some objections.

“I personally think it’s an irrelevant number because by the time we do this, what is the energy price going to be?” he said. “And what is money going to be? So there are some definite differences.” In the meantime, as Stern eloquently summarized, the technology offers a roadmap that could lead to interstellar exploration someday:

“We’re an aspirational species. An aspiration of many human beings is to see our species explore very far away from our cradle, the Earth. But also, I think the other side of that coin is that you have to start somewhere. If you don’t have the aspiration, and you don’t start to make a plan and say, ‘Well, how do I go about that, what do I have to invent,’ you’ll never get it underway.

“I really believe that the 2020s – and the 20-teens, to some extent – really are the inflection point where Star Trek begins. We are living in an era that people will look back [on] in the 24th and 25th century and say, ‘That’s where spaceflight took off.’ And by having goals that are not just what we can do in this decade, or the next decade, or even in this century, we can actually start to chart a path to the stars.”

Who Gets to Go?

Another important issue when talking about the future of space exploration is access. As Link emphasized, there are so many different people participating in space and who want to participate in space, and they all have different dreams and goals. And, he said, it’s really important to understand this when planning and building projects that will attempt to reach other worlds:

“When you think about accessibility, the example that’s really tangible for folks: it’s a lot easier to build something that’s accessible than to retrofit it. It’s also a lot cheaper to do it from the beginning and design it as accessible from the beginning than having to go in and redo it. And so when we talk about the conversations, I think of the same thing. “In space, it is complicated, disabling; we’re going to get things wrong because you can’t know the answers, and horrible things are going to happen. But the idea [is] that we are preparing for as many situations as possible and in as many ways as possible. Because we have the time, we can really be thoughtful about how we’re creating the new future that we want. That’s why I think that it’s important to start the conversations early.”

Several other ethical implications were raised, which Nesvold addressed in her recent book, Off-Earth: Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space . During the outreach event, she raised an issue that frequently comes up in the context of space ethics: “Should we settle space?” As she related, there are many people she’s encountered who make persuasive arguments that either humanity should not create permanent human settlements ever or that we should wait until we’ve matured as a species. While Nesvold doesn’t share these particular views, she did acknowledge the importance of open discussion to address the many fears and concerns. As she explained via email:

“I’m an astrophysicist (so I have a technical background like Alan, Phil, and Les), but for the past few years, I’ve been researching and writing about ethics in the context of space settlement. So the perspective I brought to the panel was that of a “space person” encouraging other “space people” to think beyond the technical and financial challenges of space settlement and consider the ethical and social problems that we’ll also need to solve.”

Link’s background also allowed him to relate specific ethical and moral concerns that are also undeniable. When discussing the future of humanity in space and the “Great Migration,” historical parallels are often raised, both positive and negative. The very fact that some perceive past events like “westward expansion” and the colonizing of the Americas, forgetting the genocide, conquest, and slavery that was involved, raises the question of whether we are mature enough as a species to conduct similar experiments in space.

“I am not sure that humanity is ready for regular interplanetary travel and I don’t believe humanity is ready for interstellar travel. Technologically there are still a lot of questions about the safest, best, and most efficient ways to travel. And socially, culturally, spiritually, politically, and economically there are lots of unanswered and unresolved questions – in addition to there being several unaddressed historical problems that will linger with us if we do not confront some of the darker parts of collective histories. Humanity has a lot to work on before we are ready to travel amongst the stars.”

In summary, is humanity ready for interstellar travel? The answer is a hard no. Technologically, ethically, morally, psychologically, and spiritually, we are not prepared to take such a tremendous leap. But the fact that we are having the discussion demonstrates that we are determined to get there. A lot needs to be worked out in the meantime, and interplanetary exploration and settlement are an issue that must be dealt with first. The challenges of becoming “interplanetary” (and whether or not we should even try) will certainly test our mettle and the social fabric of our civilization.

In that respect, the coming decades and centuries will serve as a transitional time for our species. Long before crews ever travel beyond the Heliopause, robotic missions will be sent to explore nearby stars and their planets. As we draw nearer to the day when sending humans to other stars becomes practical, we will be better positioned to address the various questions and challenges. But we must start the discussion today, when the groundwork is being laid that could lead to an interplanetary and interstellar future.

The public outreach event was also an opportunity for Johnson to promote The Ross 248 Project , an anthology of original science fiction stories and scientific essays that explores how humans may one day settle on planets that orbit a red dwarf sun. The volume was edited by Les Johnson and engineer Ken Roy (inventor of the “ Shell World ” concept), who also contributed original stories. I had the honor of contributing to this volume as well in the form of a scientific essay that explores terraforming planets in red dwarf systems.

This latest anthology is the successor to Going Interstellar: Build Starships Now! , edited by Les Johnson and Jack McDevitt. Both volumes are published by Baen Books .

Further Reading: Interstellar Research Group

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One Reply to “Is Humanity Ready to Realize the Dream of Interstellar Travel?”

1. Matt Williams is awesome. All of his articles are awesome.

2. With that being said, there is growing evidence that we already have a Black Budget space program well in excess to what we see publicly. As Ben Rich, the head of Lockheed’s Skunkworks division said back in 1989, “We already have the technology to travel to the stars, but it’s buried so deep in Black Budget projects that it would take an act of God to ever reach the public. Anything you can think of, we already know how to do.”

The mistake is assuming space travel is still a public venture, like in the glory days of NASA. In reality, all of the best minds are hired into classified government and military sectors.

What we see here is a controlled stall for the public.

Comments are closed.

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Space travel podcasts.

1 Space and Things

And things productions, 1 space nuts, professor fred watson and andrew dunkley, 1 stories of scotland, carrying stream, 1 moonshots with peter diamandis, phd ventures, 1 life love music & space travel, 1 global travel junkie podcast, global travel junkie, 101 brad & will made a tech pod., brad shoemaker, will smith, 1 tom's scicast, tom kennedy, 1 relic radio sci-fi (old time radio), relicradio.com, 1 enki: tales from the past, mario portela, 1 the danny palmer show, danny palmer, 1 on the pass, gabriel ornelas, 1 tech latest, nikkei asia, 1 time to eat the dogs, michael robinson: historian of science and exploration, 1 travel devil, clara francken, 1 cheap astronomy podcasts, steve nerlich, 1 live ultralight podcast | backpacking, travel, and adventure, outdoor vitals, 1 the erasable podcast, tim, johnny and andy, 1 the future of, fresh consulting, 1 postlude eve not adam, 1 tamilexplainer, tamil explainer, 1 intergalactic insider, felix andromeda, 1 aerial america, smithsonian channel, 1 public space travel, public space travel, 201 specific impulse, jason carvalho & jeff thornburg, 1 travel horror stories podcast, christopher rudder, 1 triangle 411, mary insprucker, 51 erotica - sci-fi & fantasy, erotica podcast network, 1 pedalshift, 1 hearts of space promo podcast, stephen hill, 1 terrible secrets from space's podcast, terrible secrets from space, 1 counting countries, ric gazarian, 1 time travel, reece mullin, 1 travel industry insider, vikram pradhan - hotel revenue expert, entrepreneur, travel startup founder, 1 award travel 101, joseph petrovic, 1 the debrief weekly report | a science and technology news podcast, the debrief, 51 florida travel fanatics, clarke & heather, 1 space casey, christiana ellis, 1 espersito: dungeons and dragons (in space), espersito: (not) dungeons and dragons in space, 1 neon pocket dimension, odd valley studios, 1 welcome to the universe, misplaced s, 1 miles to memories - fun side of miles, points & travel, miles to memories | shawn coomer and friends, 1 farscape friday podcast, kay and taz, 1 space radio, paul m. sutter, 1 23 how to travel to space and learn about spaceflight now #spaceexploration 32:28, 1 evolution of the miles and points space, extreme tracking & picking cards with grant thomas 50:54, 1 ep61: music series: i've been infamously umphrey'd 15:23, 1 the devil's pact part 12 of 32 3:48:09, 1 episode 17: galactic debate - immortality or overpopulation 32:36, 1 94. high tea: kat odell 27:29, 1 lost in time by the zero hour, 1 the devil's pact part 11 of 32 1:40:21, 1 #414: stellar collisions & invisible invitations: unveiling the universe's secrets 32:26, 1 340.1 viper - 6 may 2024, 1 act 6 - coronal mass ejection of the sun 6:21, 1 s3e22: exodus ii 15:09, 1 the devil's pact part 10 of 32 2:15:56, 1 233: my wife is a laserdisc guy 1:34:23, 1 the devil's pact part 9 of 32 1:57:02, 1 pgm 1371 'harmonic world' : may 3-10, 1 replay: portuguese exploration after the age of discovery 37:33, 1 nice to meetcha 49:02, 1 the devil's pact part 8 of 32 4:27:40, 1 how governments should handle ai policy & deepfakes w/ eric schmidt | ep #99 36:40, 1 #413: hubble's hiccups & the swiftest space spinner: unraveling cosmic conundrums 34:29, 1 demystifying hilton brands, hilton honors insights & southwest’s big change 50:36, 1 the devil's pact part 7 of 32 3:34:23, 1 stp192 - talking about the moon and poetry with christopher cokinos 52:10, 1 12- cycling across the border of the netherlands w/ vincent wever 33:25, 1 the devil's pact part 6 of 32 3:37:31, 1 l.a is s***** heaven, new york is fun hell 12:09, 1 resident killer by the cbs radio mystery theater, 1 wrestling: why is it so awesome w/ nerdaday, mr_hox182 & pandafinn 1:58:56, 1 eclipses and our obsession with our sun 1:46:20, 1 voyager's whisper in the darkness | martian "spiders," advanced house plants, and the space probe that refuses to quit 23:31, 1 the devil's pact part 5 of 32 3:28:24, 1 episode 16: bizarre bazaars & beyond 40:43, 1 ep 173 - backpacking with 8 youtubers 51:10, 51 extraordinary travel festival ii update #5 - richard barrow 1:27:21, 1 tech latest: google faces antitrust crackdown in japan 5:40, 1 93. high tea: dev reed 25:35, 1 the devil's pact part 4 of 32 3:08:54, 1 340. implausible engineering - episode 03 - 29 april 2024, 1 #412: cosmic queries: a voyage to voyager & defending astronauts beyond earth 26:20, 1 the devil's pact part 3 of 32 3:10:27, 1 s3e21: dam'khe shu-ta ii 14:26, quick reference guide.

Interstellar Travel: The Four Top Technologies for Getting There

University of Rochester astrophysicist Adam Frank looks at the possibilities of interstellar travel, given the “insane scale” of the distances between stars and galaxies, in relation to space exploration, whether by ourselves or by intelligent extraterrestrials.

Science fiction usually starts with the assumption that the distance problem is somehow already solved. What real-world proposals are out there now for solving it? At Big Think, Frank offers four: Cryosleep, solar sails (or light sails), wormholes, and warp drives.

Cautioning that they may all be pipe dreams, he offers some thoughts.

Possibly the most intriguing is cryosleep:

Cryosleep technology would basically “freeze” the body’s metabolism (or at least slow it down) for the duration of the journey. Despite being a staple of science fiction, no one even has come close to getting this to work for higher animals (like mammals). Still, it is the kind of solution that doesn’t require magical new physics to exist — maybe just magical new biology. Also, if “post-biological” life is really a thing, then maybe some aliens switch to silicon-based machine forms, and thus the question of long timescales is no longer an issue. Adam Frank , “ The technology we (or aliens) need for long-distance interstellar travel ” at Big Think (November 18, 2021)

Researchers have had some luck with raising nematode worms (which survived a space shuttle explosion) and water bears in space conditions. But these life forms are naturally adapted to survive under conditions that would be lethal for most. We can’t extrapolate from them to humans without ignoring a lot of biology.

About the move to “silicon-based machine forms” — that’s one of the hypotheses as to why we don’t see extraterrestrials: the Aestivation Hypothesis. On this view, advanced life forms exist indefinitely but in a digitized form. In fact, some futurists think that technologically advanced life forms will usually transition to an ageless digitized existence.

But, of course, whether or not digital human travel in remote reaches of space is possible, that’s not what most of us would think of as interstellar travel anyway. We tend to picture ourselves — as, well, ourselves — speeding through galaxies. If we were digital, the galaxies we sped through might as well be our own digital creations anyway, as opposed to physical explorations of the physical world.

Frank also discusses solar sails which, if large and light enough, could use the energy from the sun or giant lasers to reach the speed of light, cutting the time taken to reach nearby stars from, centuries to decades. Trouble is, he notes, if we wanted to stop anywhere, we would need a similar device at the other end to slow it down.

He also discusses wormholes, as predicted by Einstein’s general relativity:

Wormholes are the kind of transport portrayed in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine The problem here, Frank says, is that we would need anti-gravity exotic matter (with negative mass) to keep the two mouths of the wormhole open. So far that exists only in a mathematical theory.

Some think the problem isn’t insurmountable though. Stony Brook astrophysicist Paul Sutter reported last week that a recent study contradicts earlier fears that wormhole shortcuts would immediately collapse: “it points out that wormholes aren’t quite as catastrophic as they first appeared, and that there may be stable paths through wormhole tunnels, perfectly allowed by general relativity.” (Space.com) Either way, it is very theoretical and on a very far horizon just now.

We encounter the same problem with warp drives, where a warp bubble in front of a spaceship bends spacetime. That technology, according to NASA, remains “at the level of speculation,” apart from science fiction (it’s a staple, of course, in Star Trek ).

Warp drives would require exotic matter too. They would also release huge shock waves, according to Frank (“this blast of energy would fry everything in your path and sterilize any planet you were visiting”).

While Frank is generally pessimistic, he doesn’t rule out the possibility that the strange physics of quantum mechanics will find a way around all this via a new theory of quantum gravity , which he discusses. Meanwhile, it’s fair to say that, while interstellar travel is not the Next Big Thing, the concepts around it are fascinating in themselves.

You may also wish to read: The Aurora Hypothesis: ET could risk only rare contact with us. Given the difficulties and risks of space travel, extraterrestrials with advanced technology may have visited Earth only one in a million years, researchers say. After centuries of modern science, we are just now looking for fossil bacteria on Mars, not without risk. ET may be in the same position. (Adam Frank was one of the astrophysicists who gave this hypothesis the name “Aurora.” )

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