SETI from Deep Space - Claudio Maccone (SETI Talks)

SETI Talks Archive: http://seti.org/talks

Dr. Maccone's new technical book about SETI, KLT and space missions to the Sun gravity focus will be presented in this talk. This 400-page book is entitled "Deep Space Flight and Communications", costs (unfortunately) over $100, and is divided into two parts: (1) The first 200 pages describe the astrophysics of light-bending caused by the mass of the Sun. Since the minimal focal distance turns out to lie in between 550 and 1000 AU, any future space mission to exploit this effect must necessarily be a "deep space mission". These FOCAL space missions are studied in the book and a Phase A Proposal was submitted by Dr. Maccone to ESA back in 2000. He now argues that a similar Proposal should be submitted to NASA. (2) The second part of the book is devoted to the KLT as optimal telecommunication tool (better than the FFT). The KLT for SETI was presented by the author in various talks, but, in this book, the reader will find the relativistic KLT also. This is useful to keep the radio link between the Earth and any deep-space spacecraft, such as the FOCAL spacecrafts to 550 AU. Dr. Maccone discovered mathematically that the relativistic KLT eigenfunctions are Bessel functions of the first kind, and that the KLT eigenvalues are the zeros of such Bessel functions. All this paves the way to "Star-Trek-like" relativistic space flights of the future.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• SETI Space NASA EAS
• claudio maccone
• gravitational lensing

[theskydartteam]

Are the lecture notes available anywhere? I've tried the SETI website, but either the link is broken or it was taken off the site.

[setiinstitute]

@theskydartteam Sorry the link was broken - it is now fixed!

[flooby87]

I find Macconi's speech really interesting!

[setiinstitute]

@flooby87 Good because Claudio is coming to talk to us again in November!

[Pfanderfilm]

a brilliant idea

[sbergman27]

Voyager 1 is both our most distant probe, and the one traveling away from the sun at the highest speed. True, New Horizons is *currently* traveling faster. But it will be traveling slower than V1 when it leaves the solar system. V1 has been traveling for over 23 years, and will reach the 550 AU point in about 120 more years.

I wonder why ESA declined Claudio's proposal?

Using the sun as a gravitational lens is a fascinating future possibility. But sometimes I think Maccone is a bit of a nut.

[theskydartteam]

@setiinstitute

Thank you very much

[MamaMacabre]

Where's the audio?