[rookderby]

I'm in favor of spending more resources on research projects like building a probe to intercept one of these interstellar objects. It would be worth the investment to go and see, and it looks like the Vera Rubin will give us several targets.

[JumpCrisscross]

> It would be worth the investment to go and see

Why? I’d rather we continue surveying from a distance while sending probes to places we know will be interesting, like Titan and Europa.

[f6v]

Well, we probably have resources for both (as The Humanity).

[JumpCrisscross]

> we probably have resources for both

In the long run, yes. Possibly even in the medium term. In the short term, no--we're limited by our technological capability.

[Muromec]

If it is a probe, its waiting to be intercepted and contacted, because this is how sentient space-worthy species find about each other.

[Qem]

https://www.badspacecomics.com/post/siren-waters

[asdff]

> because this is how sentient space-worthy species find about each other.

Care to share any examples?

[Muromec]

Don't you dare to citation needed my shitposts.

[Bender]

I selfishly would rather invest in mining asteroids so that we may one day be qualified to manipulate their movements and prevent strikes of any planets in our solar system and to get rich of course. Even if it takes a few hundred years to become qualified for such mining that is a tiny blip in this spacetime and could mitigate at least some civilization ending events. The process of heading that direction is likely to result in many advancements in technology and slightly safer playgrounds to develop more intelligent androids assuming they don't get hacked resulting in dragging and flinging 20+ mile wide metal asteroids at us.

[jojobas]

We don't quite have the technology. It was spotted a month ago, will cross inside Martian orbit in another 2 months, for another 3 months. The fastest we can get to around Martian orbit is 7 months.

[NitpickLawyer]

> The fastest we can get to around Martian orbit is 7 months.

This is not accurate. Viking got there in <4 months, and we have the technology to do it even faster, if needed. The long duration transits are often the least energy (Hohmann transfer) and that's why we use them. Planetary alignment is also a big factor.

Anyway, there are currently proposals to have probes lingering in high orbits and intercept interstellar visitors (maybe not as fast as 3I), and Rubin should give us plenty of targets when it gets online.

As an interesting tidbit, 3I was found in the Rubin data ~2weeks before it was spotted. Should be a perfect exercise in refining the discovery algorithms.

[jojobas]

Viking probes got there in about 11 months. You might be thrown off by an AI artifact.

[pavel_lishin]

We don't have the technology to catch up to this one, but what could we do with the next one that's detected earlier?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Do we have enough headsup on these to even plan such a mission? Was under the impression that by the time we realize they're there, they're already halfway out the door...

What's the minimum time to intercept something like this? Do we need 6 or 7 years, or is 3 years enough?

[gnabgib]

Feasibility of a Spacecraft Flyby with the Third Interstellar Object 3I/Atlas https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44649150

Intercepting 3I/Atlas at Its Closest Approach to Jupiter with Juno Spacecraft https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44717239

[s1artibartfast]

what's stopping you?