Icarus Presentation 2-3-11

An update on the progress of the British Interplanetary Society's Icarus Interstellar Probe Project by Kelvin Long at the BIS on 2nd March 2011

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Interstellar
• SpaceProbes
• Starship
• space
• Daedelus
• Icarus
• technology
• science
• DeltaVeeMedia
• spaceexploration
• extra
• solar
• planets

[krazykhrisya]

@RichardCyberPunk Just google project icarus and you should come across the website, there's a donations page that mentions how it's funded, and what donations go to. There is no collaboration with NASA or virgin galactic (they really wouldn't be interested), however there has been an entry submitted to the Defense advancement research projects agency (DARPA), and talks given at conferences, including the huge 100 year starship sympossium.

[krazykhrisya]

@infocat13 icarus' blog (just google project icarus, select the website, and then select the blogs section), in the fuel section, entitled "starflight on the cheap II: beating fuel costs" very informative!

[krazykhrisya]

@infocat13 You can read their blogs on their website (if you have the time of course, and the interest), they do talk about fuel collection, for example a good amount of fuel can be mined from the Moon, or the solar wind. A lot of credit is also given to a method of collecting from Uranus. There's a good discovery news article about it if you'll just google "project icarus Uranas", and select the discovery news link, currently the fourth down. There's also a more in depth article on project

[krazykhrisya]

A 50 metre diameter means a 157 metre circumference, so if we assume an average walking speed of about 5 kilometres per hour (which may be a slightly faster person than average but, whatever), that's about [insert a bunch of failed math only to realize it was an incredibly basic kinematics formula, *facepalm*] 1 minute and 53 seconds. Not too bad. :P Anyway, I've been meaning to watch this and I'm definitely glad I finally did! Thanks for posting for those who weren't there! :)

[infocat13]

I do not feel comfortable about the feasibility of helium three being mined, as a fall back measure I hope the Icarus team will look at Lithium 7 shelled micro capsule in a ICF configuration, perhaps this idea would work well with a slow cruise and lower pules frequency?

and would it be safe to test lithium 7 shelled micro capsules in the national ignition test facility?

[GrayFox2k8]

don't think its possible to collect gas from Jupiter.

[totziens2]

"solar photon flux" - I love it when real scientists talk like Star Trek.



[pythonspace]

I don't agree -- it isn't 'talking about books', but showing how Daedalus and Icarus have been reported and depicted in books -- which is, after all, about all we can do at present! Incidentally, although my own interpretation was shown quite late, I believe it was one of the first to appear!

[RichardCyberPunk]

My 1st impression of this footage is :

negative: in the 1st 10+ minutes, there is a lot of talking about books. I didnt want to listen to talks about books, but wanted to hear the real thing. So, keep the book talk shorter, and start talking about ICARUS

positive: a very well made video about project icarus.

questions i have: how is funding organised ? Is more funding needed ? is there collaboration with virgin space or NASA ?

greetings from a Cyberpunk and futurist, Richard V.