How could we explore Proxima b?

[KAL 9000]

For those of you that don't know, we've confirmed an exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth (other than the Sun, duh)! What's amazing is that it's super close in galactic terms, is roughly the size of Earth, and orbits IN THE FREAKING HABITABLE ZONE! What are your ideas for how we could explore it?

[Kerbart]

They have oil! That should get a fleet sent there before the decade is out.

Edit:

Really, the technology to send something to a star four light years away and get probe data back in our lifetime might already be here. The biggest challenge will be to fund the project.

Edited August 29, 2016 by Kerbart

[Green Baron]

55 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Really, the technology to send something to a star four light years away and get probe data back in our lifetime might already be here. The biggest challenge will be to fund the project.

Refreshing thought.

Ok, my lifetime could be around 40 years. 20 years there, 20 years back, that's an average speed of c/5. Only a direct transfer comes into account. That means accelerating to c/2,5 and breaking (2 times, there and back again, a probe's tale). I leave the landing and restart in 1.4g for sampling away cause that's just peanuts.

That's ... let's see... 480.000km/s dV.

Pls. tell me how ?

With our technology we can dream of maybe one hundred km/s dV ...

 

 

Edit: or if the probe (Hail !) shoots through the distant system @0.2c - that's 60.000km/s dV, still 3 magnitudes off and beyond "moar boosters" :-) - it must be very well timed to get a short glimps of a planet ...

 

Edited August 29, 2016 by Green Baron

[Scotius]

Until we get at least fusion pulse engine up and running? We can't.

[KAL 9000]

My idea would be to have a flyby probe to start. You have a cylinder of equipment, with an antenna on the front and a docking port on the rear, and science equipment and cameras attached to the sides.You send it into LEO, then dock a fuel tank onto the back. Dock radial fuel tanks for Asparagus staging on the sides (maybe 6 or so), and dock a nuclear thermal rocket on the back. Have some chemical rockets get it into interplanetary space (don't want to irradiate Earth), and fire up the nuclear thermal rocket. Use Asparagus staging for maximum efficiency, and once the burn is complete, undock the thermal engine and put it on a course to crash it into the Sun or Proxima Centauri (don't want to irradiate Proxima b, either). The probe is now at ~0.2 c, and would flyby in like 20 years.

[kerbiloid]

First of all we must redesign Daedalus, as who now needs that Barnard star...

Also, this sad case with Daedalus is another heavy argument to build space telescopes before designing an interstellar ship.
To reach Proxima it could be significantly smaller, presuming that the journey duration stays constant.

Proxima planet is a great target for telescopes from any side. It's close (it's the closest of any possible). It's anyway a natural target for the first interstellar probe. It's a satellite of a red dwarf (the most common star type, alas).

So, more orbital telescopes. Maybe when watching its close photo you would stop wishing to fly there.

[Bill Phil]

With the overwelmingly large telescope, but this time in space.

[Elrond Cupboard]

I'm 56, the only way I'm going to see it involves biology, not physics.

[Green Baron]

Bad luck of early birth ?

(very freely citated after H. Kohl, former German Bundeskanzler)

:-)

 

[Tex_NL]

Physically exploring most likely won't happen within our lifetime. Even at a significant portion of light speed, 0.1c, it's still a 42 year journey. And that's AFTER we have developed the technology to actually get to 0.1c. So no, we won't get there any time soon in the broadest sense of the word. Neither manned nor unmanned.
The only way we can 'explore' Proxima b is with telescopes. Terrestrial, orbital, Lunar. All could in theory do it but they'll have to be BIG!

[kerbiloid]

I.e. Big Freaking Telescope

[Elrond Cupboard]

It's most likely tidally locked around a flare star.

 

What was wrong with mars, at this point?

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, Bill Phil said:

With the overwelmingly large telescope, but this time in space.

Something like the overwhelmingly yes, at some size it start to get easier to build them in space, another bonus is that if you want resolution more than seeing faint objects you don't need an circular mirror, you can have gaps, think it would even make assembly easier.  
Would be far cheaper than an starship anyway and useful so you know the condition. 
An issue with an flyby probe is that it will pass very fast, you will stay at Moons distanse in only 25 seconds at 0.1c.
Not sure how good images you would get. 
With the  overwhelmingly you would see continents and their color, you could analyse the continent to get some ideas of plants or forests. 
Don't think you would get continental level ground coverage without more advanced plants. 
Unless you could get keyhole level image during the flyby I honestly don't see the big benefit. You would not get any idea of animals, unless you are lucky and spot some huge herds, you would get some ideas of how the plants are as in high forests or just low vegetation. Nothing more. 
Yes you might spot cultivation or cities, however this is unlikely, we used 10k year from faming to radio. 
If you enter orbits you can put an keyhole telescope in orbit and drop probes.
 

[Spaceception]

Project Starshot.

 

Seriously, that thread was pinned for an entire month, all we need is a NASA budget worth of funding, moar research, and we're good to go, Prox b in 20 years!

[GoSlash27]

Whatever we send, it will have to be autonomous enough to detect it, work out it's orbit, and execute an intercept without intervention. It will also have to be rugged enough to survive a century at absolute zero and no power source other than it's RTG.

Oh yeah... and about 150 km/sec DV.

That's a bit beyond our current tech and we'll all be long gone before (if) it sends back any data.

Best,
-Slashy

[Finox]

Perhaps a lunar telescope array?   We already know we can link telescopes such that the light gathered by each can be used to form a single image better then either could make individually.   The difficulty comes in the  need to know precisely the distance between telescopes in the array.   It would be extremely difficult to do this with satellites given their non-stationary nature, and an earthbound arrays would still have to contend with the atmosphere, light pollution, and weather, but the Moon doesn't have any of those problems.  We could build a network of relatively small telescopes on it and link them, turning the Moon into a giant eye in the sky!

[Maltman]

We'll get there in time. Patience used to be a virtue.

[Motokid600]

The only feasible solution at the moment is that project Starshot with a solar sail blasted out of the solar system by a terrestrial lazer array. That'd be great and all, but... honestly id much rather see the massive funding of such a lazer array ( though now that I think about it such a thing could double as a orbital debris solution. ) go to projects in our backyard. Our solar system. Projects we all can witness in our lifetimes.

Edit: Project Starshot. I just looked into it. They're saying 20 years. Heres the problem. What happens when ten years after the probe is launched we develop a way to get there in five? You could beat the old probe to the star.

 

Edited August 30, 2016 by Motokid600

[GoSlash27]

6 minutes ago, Finox said:

Perhaps a lunar telescope array?   We already know we can link telescopes such that the light gathered by each can be used to form a single image better then either could make individually.   The difficulty comes in the  need to know precisely the distance between telescopes in the array.   It would be extremely difficult to do this with satellites given their non-stationary nature, and an earthbound arrays would still have to contend with the atmosphere, light pollution, and weather, but the Moon doesn't have any of those problems.  We could build a network of relatively small telescopes on it and link them, turning the Moon into a giant eye in the sky!

Well... that would be about like making out the surface details of the ball in a ball-point pen in Pittsburgh... from Chicago. That would be one helluva telescope!

Best,
-Slashy

[Rakaydos]

Project Starshot, with an electrotether-powered gas laser expanded in flight.

Moving at .2c, an electrotheter moving through a stellar magnetic field is going to produce a heck of a lot of current, even soe distance away. this lets you put most of the mass into using the power, instead of generating it.

[James Kerman]

5 hours ago, Motokid600 said:

 id much rather see the massive funding of such a lazer array ( though now that I think about it such a thing could double as a orbital debris solution. ) go to projects in our backyard. Our solar system.

Unfortunately creating a laser powerful enough to tackle Kessler syndrome would most likely upset every other space going country and look a lot like a missile defence system.

[monophonic]

5 hours ago, Motokid600 said:

Edit: Project Starshot. I just looked into it. They're saying 20 years. Heres the problem. What happens when ten years after the probe is launched we develop a way to get there in five? You could beat the old probe to the star.

 

Then we go somewhere else twice as far and get double the results back. And that's without considering how much of the development of the better way to get there sprung from the research and development done for project Starshot in the first place. Would we even have the new method without launching the first probe?

[KerikBalm]

habitable zone.... because being tidally locked to a flare star is habitable just because its the right temperature if you average the dark and light sides... oh and the light is mostly in the IR and not suited for photosynthesis...

[CptRichardson]

22 hours ago, KAL 9000 said:

For those of you that don't know, we've confirmed an exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth (other than the Sun, duh)! What's amazing is that it's super close in galactic terms, is roughly the size of Earth, and orbits IN THE FREAKING HABITABLE ZONE! What are your ideas for how we could explore it?

SpaceX's BFR lifting the assemblies for an Orion drive into deep lunar orbit, followed by LIGHTING THAT CANDLE and cruising over at factor METAL on a wave of nuclear devices.

[wumpus]

18 hours ago, Elrond Cupboard said:

It's most likely tidally locked around a flare star.

What was wrong with mars, at this point?

Mercury isn't tidally locked (in a way that would prevent a magnetic field around Proxima Centauri).  We know any atmosphere will be eventually lost from Mars.  Proxima Centauri (the star) will last a trillion or so years, meaning it would be a good place for a "long term human/Earth life survival cache".  Not so much if they are huddled on the shady side of a mountain range next to the terminator.