[Robotbeat]

Interstellar flight is an insane challenge. It’s one of the hardest things humankind can attempt yet still not beyond the laws of physics. That means you have to approach things from first principles and often have to invert the problem (“assume we manage interstellar flight by 2075. How did we do it?”, etc). It’s intellectually seductive in the best way.

I think it’s good to attempt such challenges, even if just conceptually, as it makes lots of other things seem a lot more achievable in contrast, sometimes almost laughably so.

[ryandrake]

I've always thought interstellar probes were kind of pointless. Even if the probe could average 10% of the speed of light, the amount of time it would take for a probe to reach its destination (all but the closest stars) and then for data to return at the speed of light is greater than the lifetime of anyone who wants to study. You'd have to send out the probe, hoping that your grandchildren wait around for the response.

Interstellar space exploration will likely be manned-only. As other threads point out, with sufficient acceleration, due to time dilation, humans can reach distant stars within their own lifetimes (at the expense of thousands of years passing on Earth).

[Robotbeat]

Disagree. At 0.1c, it takes 42 years to reach Proxima Centauri (and 4 more years to get data back). The Voyager 1 and 2 probes are still operating and transmitting scientific data that people are interested in (the missions are still funded) and were launched 44 years ago and are likely to continue a few more years. So we have existence proof that people would still be interested in it over that kind of timeline.

And I know you excluded the “closest stars,” but I don’t understand why, except that it undermines your point. There are at least 3 nearby stars that could be reached by probes in a researcher’s (or at least their funding institution’s) lifetime vs just our one star system.

(Besides the 3 stars in the Proxima/Alpha Centauri system there are also at least 11 additional stars—including fusion-capable brown dwarfs—within 10 light years of the Sun.)

[xyzzy123]

Humans have planned and executed multi-generational projects before, even if that scale of project seems out of fashion right now.

This article (Starships & Cathedrals) explains the ideas better than I can in a short comment: https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2020/07/17/the-cathedral-and...

[nickik]

I disagree. It the same principle as sending something to the outer solar system. Many of the scientist who propose those things and work on the instruments and so on have long left the field by the time the missions arrive and many will soon after. Before the mission ends, a whole new group of people are working on it.

This is the same idea, you send a new an improved probe every 10-20 years and eventually you get data back and over time you have constant data stream from all kinds of different places.

[WJW]

> You'd have to send out the probe, hoping that your grandchildren wait around for the response.

Why would our grandchildren be less interested in interstellar exploration than we are? We need ways to organize (parts of) society for the long term, that seems way easier than inventing magical "accelerate at 1g for a decade" tech.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

maybe a reason similar to whatever explains the drop in oceanic exploration among the peoples of south-east asia and polynesia several thousand years ago?

[sdwr]

Doesn't look so bad once a program is established. It's like aging cheese - get one batch started while another is finishing up. The turnover time is just 50 years instead of 2.