Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"Retire? Yeah, I want to die with my head in the typewriter. That's my idea of retirement."
- Alfred Bester
 |
| Starwisp | ||
| An small interstellar probe using a light-sail for propulsion. |
| Manufactured by Airbus-Cisco years earlier, the Field Circus is a hick backwater, isolated from the mainstream of human culture, its systems complexity limited by mass: The destination lies nearly three light-years from Earth, and even with high acceleration and relativistic cruise speeds, the one-kilogram starwisp and its hundred-kilogram light sail will take the best part of seven years to get there. Sending a human-sized probe is beyond even the vast energy budget of the new orbital states in Jupiter system – near-lightspeed travel is horrifically expensive. Rather than a big, self-propelled ship with canned primates for passengers, as previous generations had envisaged, the starship is a Coke-can-sized slab of nanocomputers, running a neural simulation of the uploaded brain states of some tens of humans at merely normal speed. |
| Technovelgy from Accelerando,
by Charles Stross. Published by Ace in 2005 Additional resources -
|
The basic idea for a starwisp was proposed by Robert L. Forward in 1985. The device would use beam-powered propulsion; a microwave antenna would provided motive power for the sail. Once a suitable speed was reached, the probe could simply cruise to its destination.
Thanks to Trey Palmer for the item and the quote.
It is noteworthy that the force produced is proportional only to the power density, and is independent of
the wavelength. Two practical choices for photon-pushed sails have been proposed: light-pushed sails
[Tsander 1924, Forward 1984, and others], and microwave-pushed sails [Forward 1985]. The microwavepushed sail (“Starwisp”) has advantages, however, it has several disadvantages. Probably the worst of these
disadvantages is the difficulty of scale, which is an unavoidable consequence of the larger wavelength of
microwaves compared to light: The 20 gram, 1-km diameter “Starwisp” probe proposed by Forward
requires a focusing lens of 50,000 km diameter-- a structure four times the diameter of the Earth!
Constructing such a lens is clearly a significant engineering project. The “Starwisp” proposal also assumes
that, to achieve low resistance, the aluminum mesh could be kept at 40°K.
(Advanced Solar- and Laser-pushed
Lightsail Concepts [1999 pdf])
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Accelerando
More Ideas
and Technology by Charles Stross
Tech news articles related to Accelerando
Tech news articles related to works by Charles Stross
| ISS Plagued By Leak - Again! |
| Sunbird Pulsar Fusion Like Leinster's Space Tug |
| Crystalline Structures In Space, You Say? |
| Amazing Photonic Crystal Light Sail |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
'She wouldn't stop until Antar had told her everything he knew about whatever it was that she was playing with on her screen.'
'Does thinking you're the last sane man on the face of the Earth make you crazy?'
