Projects: Space Information
The Planetary Report
Volume XXIII, Number 1, January/February 2003
Credit: Sunrise photo: © Clyde H. Smith, Peter Arnold Inc. Photo montage: Barbara S. Smith |
On the Cover
Ever since our ancestors realized that the lights in
the sky were other suns like our own—and that around those suns might
orbit other worlds, perhaps like Earth—we've wanted to visit. It may
not happen for centuries, but we're working on it. We'll get there.
From The Editor
One great benefit of belonging to
The Planetary Society is the contact
with fascinating and sometimes audacious
minds. In this issue, you will encounter
minds that are not afraid to tackle in a
concrete and realistic way a problem as
difficult as travel between the stars.
Why is The Planetary Society interested
in interstellar flight? Doesn’t our mission
tie us to exploring more solid bodies and
technologies? Yes, but the science and engineering
techniques learned in exploring
other worlds can be extrapolated to take
us even farther into space . . . and we must
always dream.
In fact, a direct connection to interstellar
flight lies in our solar sail project,
Cosmos 1. In the near future, we hope to
see the technology we are pioneering today
help open up the solar system to even
more exploration. Solar sailing may very
well be the only technique based on current
technology that has a chance of taking
us to the stars.
For this issue, we have asked some of our bigger-thinking friends to share
with Society members their own dreams—and carefully crafted proposals—for
interstellar flight. Not every organization can pull together such a roster
of thinkers. Fewer can say they are working toward fulfilling the dreams dared
by such thinkers. You are a member of one of those intrepid few.
— Charlene M. Anderson
Features
To the Stars!
Executive Director Louis Friedman has never been accused of
thinking small.
At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he led the advanced-projects effort,
sometimes called
the “purple pigeon office” for what some saw as the outrageousness
of their ideas. He
also led NASA’s effort to develop a solar-sail-propelled craft to explore
Halley’s comet.
The mission never flew, but Lou maintained his passion for the technology
and for the
frontiers it may someday open for humanity.
The Stars Our Destination? The
Feasibility of Interstellar Travel
We don’t often reprint articles from
earlier issues of The Planetary Report. But when
we asked Bob Forward to update this article from our September/October
1986 issue,
he regretfully declined. He had just learned he was dying of brain cancer
and wouldn’t
have the time. Still, the techniques for interstellar flight that Bob discussed
here are not
outdated, and the future he envisioned has yet to be achieved. His words
remain timely,
and we are pleased to present them again.
Bridging the Gap: A Discussion
With Freeman Dyson
Freeman Dyson has the intellectual audacity to imagine
civilizations that can harness
the entire energy output of their star systems. So, considering interstellar
flight is all
in a morning’s work for him. He recently spent such a morning at our
Society offices
discussing the possibilities.
The Ultimate Rocket: Doing Better Than the
Sun
The Benford brothers are an experience—Greg
and Jim are identical
twins who both became physicists and have explored the outermost possibilities
for spaceflight.
They are now working closely with The Planetary Society on an innovative
experiment with our Cosmos 1 solar sail.
Departments
Members’ Dialogue
World Watch
Questions and Answers
Society News
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