[Cyphase]

> The next time probably won't come until we send a probe to Proxima Centauri.

Well, I don't know about that. Who's to say how many interstellar objects pass through the solar system every year (earlier I read 1-10 a year, but who knows). Of course this is the first one we've actually detected (Roswell et al. jokes here), but our sensors and technology are only getting better. Even if Breakthrough Starshot[1] can launch in 10 years, and takes 25 years to get to the Alpha Centauri system, and we get usable data back in 4.37 years, that's ~40 years we'd have in which to detect another interstellar object here first.

EDIT: Also see the sibling comment[2] by nkurz[3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Starshot

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15746491

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nkurz

[Tepix]

Breakthrough Starshot could use I1/Oumuamua as a test object once they got some prototypes ready:

After 8 years Oumuamua will be 6.64 billion km away (at 26.32km/s). A Starshot prototype probe flying at 1500km/s (0.5% of lightspeed c) could reach that distance in 51 days.

Starshot hopes to achieve 20% c eventually.

[Cyphase]

Oh yea, I was going to mention this; thanks for the reminder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua#Potential_space...

> The Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) has studied potential options for sending a spacecraft to 1I/ʻOumuamua, perhaps using first a Jupiter flyby followed by a close solar flyby at 3 solar radii in order to take advantage of the Oberth effect. More advanced options of using solar, laser electric, and laser sail propulsion, based on Breakthrough Starshot technology, are also considered. The problem is to get to the asteroid in a reasonable amount of time (and so at a reasonable distance from Earth), and yet be able to gain useful scientific information. If the craft goes too fast, it would not be able to get into orbit or land on the asteroid and would simply fly by it, moving at many asteroid diameters per second. The authors conclude that, although challenging, an encounter mission would be feasible using near-term technology.

Of course once 0.05c Starshot becomes feasible, there's a whole solar system to explore!

[Tepix]

Sure, it will zip past a 500m object in a fraction of a second. Then again it will also zip by a planet in less than a second at 60,000km/s (20% c). They might as well solve that problem in the next 8 years.