Twelve Years

Just twelve years separated the launch of Sputnik 1 and the Apollo 11 moon landing.  Based on that rate of development, some then speculated that first manned mission to Mars was only about the same distance off - but instead of a Mars mission in 1981, there was the space shuttle.  Another dozen years later, in 1993, and the big news in space was the cancellation of the Space Station Freedom project and its replacement with the International Space Station project.  A dozen years after that, in 2005, and the highlights of the American manned space program were the return to flight for the shuttle program and the fifth anniversary of the ISS being regularly manned.  And next year will mark another twelve years - a total of 48 years since Apollo 11, and 45 years since the last manned mission to the moon, in 1972, and in those 45 years, no one has been beyond low earth orbit.

Breakthrough Starshot

Yuri Milner, along with Stephen Hawking and Mark Zuckerberg, announced just yesterday the launch of a project known as Breakthrough Starshot, which intends to launch a fleet of small probes toward the Alpha Centauri system within 20 years, with the probes traveling at a fifth of light-speed, to arrive in another 20 years.

Such a project, if successful, would not only allow humanity to explore the Alpha Centauri system (along with other nearby stars), but would also greatly increase our ability to explore this solar system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/science/alpha-centauri-breakthrough-starshot-yuri-milner-stephen-hawking.html

http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/Initiative/3

The Best-Laid Plan

The Homesteader's Guide to the Solar System intends to publish on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

But the Surgeon General advises against holding your breath on that.

Try #5

The Homesteader's Guide

Howdy.

The Homesteader's Guide to the Solar System blog started back in 2011, and it has been an off & on project since then (with most of the past posts currently relegated to the virtually dusty archives).  But as the good prince Harry once said (or was said to have said), "Once more unto the breach, dear friends."

[1200]

Planet Nine

Today, Mike Brown & his team from CalTech announced the discovery of a ninth major planet, which is just the third such discovery since the planets known from antiquity.

Just last year, we saw Ceres & Pluto up close for the first time, and it seemed like we maybe had the book on the solar system fairly well filled in - but now that book needs to be replaced with a new edition.  And before we get close up pictures of Minerva (or whatever the ninth planet ends up being called), we'll probably need several, even many, new editions.

It might take five years to spot this new world; another 10 or more to decide to send a probe (perhaps many more, but here's hoping); perhaps 20 years to design a fast-enough probe that can communicate from such great distances; and maybe 40 years of travel time, for a total of 75 or more years to get that first picture.

So today's a good day to start thinking about it.  :)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/science/space/ninth-planet-solar-system-beyond-pluto.html

In Honor of Carl Sagan's Birthday