Breakthrough Starshot: Sending Probes at a Fifth of the Speed of Light 

I for one....welcome our insect overlords.

This was one of the most heartwarming and inspiring of your recent videos. It doesn't over-sell anything or make wild claims, but it just makes me feel great to be Human and alive.

This is something I'd like to see happen in my lifetime.

This is probably one of your best written scripts I've ever seen, whoever wrote that should get an award

Personally, when I hear about light sails, I think of Arthur C. Clarke's "Sunjammer", basically a yacht race around the Earth and to the moon using solar sails (no lasers or anything, just sunlight).

Simon's beard is close to achieving sentience.

Just when I thought the Whistlerverse was done with the bombardment of youtubes algorithms 😂 thanks for the content and hard work you guys at Simon and Co. put in for our entertainment 💯🍻👍

Starshot: Big lasers. Lots of them and really big ones. Me: You've built a weapon, Kent.

Wow! I really love the conclusion! Yes, this is what this is all about: Learning, advancing, improving.

The line "... earths new insect overlords, or similar." got a chuckle out of me!

Your mention of Trisolaris overjoyed me so, as this was my first thought after seeing the thumbnail.

"Humanity's first interstellar objects" Voyager probes: Are we jokes to you?

If anyone is curious, PBS Space Time just put out a video about sending a light sail telescope launched and uses the sun for a gravity assistand sent far enough away to use the sun for a gravitational lense. And yes it's legit and he's a real astrophysicist.

Imagine being able to do your own testing on Saturn for your thesis...

If I’m not mistaken one of the additional challenges is that these probes can’t slow down, so when it gets to Alpha Centauri it’ll take some quick pictures on a rapid flyby trajectory and that will be it.

One advantage to a continuous swarm is that one doesn't have to wait for the "best possible" technology, we can start sending them as soon as it is physically possible with basic functionality in the probe we could achieve now. We don't even have to have every probe contain every function. Think of them as a collective or as a squad of specialists. One probe in a squad has the visible light 20k camera, another probe has the IR camera, yet another has LIDAR telemetry, the responsibilities of the probes can be distributed to reduce the individual mass of each probe. The only thing that all of them have to be capable of is networked intelligence and relay communication. Even then, there could be a communications specialist for each squad who's responsibility is to collect local weaker signals from specialised telemetry probes and begin the relay process. This could also be a "squad leader" who also acts as a network intelligence hub, unless that also needs to be distributed to it's own drone for mass considerations. As for what happens when the last probe sent is out of range, we could just not stop sending probes, albeit the continuous ones could just be communication relays. Or, a heavier probe could be sent now with existing technology for the express purpose of being a legacy communications relay by the time it reaches the outer system it would be within range of the last wave of probes.

Love this idea. Really hope this is launched within the next 10 yrs or so, but I do think another big issue they'll have to overcome is taking pictures going one fifth the speed of light.

15:00 that would mean sending a probe every week for 20 years and then a further 3.7 years allowing for Lightspeed data transmission and then you add on the time you would like to continue the study. To keep the information coming you must keep launching data chips indefinitely and if more than 2 or 3 in a row fail for some reason the entire chain could fail. So you need to send hundreds every week for 40 years to get 15 years worth of data. Not only that. You know need every chip to not only be a transmitter of data it also needs to be a receiver.

The fact that when I was born there were no known exo-planets in the early 1990s and now we know close to every star has it’s own solar system blows my mind. We can tell the composition of these solar systems, with many wildly different to our own with gas giants within the inner solar system. Not only that but we can start to see the light spectrum from the thin sliver of light around the planet as it passes in front of it’s star, thereby analysing the makeup of it’s atmosphere. We may find life supporting worlds elsewhere, or at least very good candidates within the next decade. If we have gone from no known exo-planets to countless planets orbiting most stars in 30 years, what will we know another 30 years from now?

Drinking game for today: Have a shot each time he says "Alpha Centurai" instead of "Alpha Centauri"... Have a medic on standby...

Excellent Simon, thank you. As a long time fan of Robert L. Forward I’m pleased to see his ideas are still appreciated. Best Regards

The easiest way of dealing with collisions along the way is to jettison the sails. Make the craft slowly spin and when it reaches its final speed, it releases its sails. They would be flung outward, away from the craft. Being very small, the craft would not have many collisions for the rest of its journey.

16:43 - What a beard! Puts yours and mine to shame Simon! 🤣🤣

I watch allot of space engineering and your research on this is spot on.

Just imagine 50-100 years from now, we'll be sending thousands of these things to all the stars in the Local Group and after they take their pictures for their primary mission, their secondary mission begins, being interstellar trail cams. Programmed to just sit and do nothing unless something notices them and decided to take a closer look, it takes the pictures and sends back our first look at an alien.

TRISOLARIIIIIIIS!

Might be a good idea to build the laser arrays on the Moon.

I'd like to see a swarm of these shot at a black hole or maybe a neutron star! How cool would it be to do real science up close and personal on those things?! Great video, Mega projects Crew!

Now, I want to ask a question and shift the perspective. If a civilization elsewhere in the galaxy launched a mission like Starshot at our system, could we notice it?

Truly outstanding! 😮 We briefly saw Light Sails in Star Wars, Makes sense when you think about it though RIP Stephen Hawking 😔 You were A true Successor to Einstein and Newton!

Imagine being on the receiving end of this mass swarm of starships 😂 If there’s life out there, they’re about to see a convoy of probes, and I love that concept.

Love the plug for the Three Body Problem there, Simon

Problem that first comes to my mind is the space radiation messing with the computer memory - a loose particle hitting a right spot can change a bit in the memory from 0 to 1, which can either mean nothing at all or a critical system failure. It’s literally the reason why all probe CPUs are so big compared to regular user CPUs, to minimise effect of high speed particle impacts… so I don’t know how that would play into the miniaturisation of electronics.

Great episode! Really enjoyed this one.

Giving us about 2 seconds as it whizzes by the star.

Great video and your passion shines through such a great channel oh channels as I’m on three of yours already love the content always a great story well researched and great narration thanks to all those involved

Collecting data might not be easy, but they probably can do it. Getting that data back to Earth seems impossible. If they tried to do it directly, they'd need tremendous power which I suspect won't be available. If it was a relay situation, they'd still need a lot of power, probably even more, as each link has to process signals from every vehicle ahead of it.

Wouldn't the problem be if you tried to go to another star, that once you get towards it you either: 1) fly past super fast, or 2) that star's force slows it down and it deflects it off in another direction?

The odds of an impact are nearly zero? Story time. Back in the 80s, in my "Mostly Peaceful" home town, a threeway gunfight occured. None of the belligerents hit each other, but two of the men were killed by gunshot wounds. The bullets that killed them came from a completely different gunfight almost a mile away. No one else was injured, including the participants of the other gunfight. This story contains many morals, such as, Don't go to Fayetteville NC. Don't fire guns blindly, please aim. And nearly zero IS NOT ZERO. Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

Outstanding y’all, simply outstanding.

Hi simon, great content as always! Keep it up

Do it from the Moon!

Great vlog, thanks Simon.

This is one of my favorite videos

Simon, love all your channels. I just ordered beard oil from Beard Blaze. I absolutely love your products. I ordered a sample pack first and found the oil for me. If you have a beard and love it, try Beard Blaze!

I guess my only “science concern” is: how do you keep momentum towards the end of the journey? At some point Centari A, B and Proxima would be impacting the probe from the opposite direction. But, this episode definitely hit the kid inside that always wants to be a part of every one of these endeavors. 🙂 Thank you for putting this one together.

Here at Vault-Tec, we have been experimenting with this technology. Unfortunately, one of our scientists absconded with our design plans and sold them to George Lucas and ILM and we saw them put to fruition in his film, “The Phantom Menace” for the person ship of one Count Dooku.

I loved your conclusion. Excellent

This is the feel-good news I needed today

For reference a fifth of the speed of light is 134,123,326 mph… that is absolutely insane 🤯

I really enjoyed this video. Thank you for making science so very interesting!

Simon: that depends on investing in future technologies today I just read a corporate email from my employer (an international technology manufacturer) that was celebrating the top internal patent applicants within the organization. It occurred to me that this is how companies are positioning themselves for the future. Then Simon said “duh”

Howdy!

The Whistler Verse returns 🙌 🔥 👌 😍

One issue not touched on.... These light sail probes will have no way to correct course, move directional cameras or antennas, nor have any way to slow down once they get to their destination. So, one traveling at 20% C will be traveling at 20% C past the objects it would be investigating and then onward forever until it smacks into something. It will be less a "probe" and more a very fast sensor and transmitter that will hopefully be pointing in the right direction for a few minutes at the right time.

Sounds amazing, never heard of it. I do hope I get to see this kind of tech. Very inspiring

I must have missed the part where the size of the laser bank and the power required were mentioned as technical hurdles.

I always love how these things are based on something that hasn’t been invented yet. There used to be a cartoon that had a calculation and tucked in to it was “then a miracle happens”

Nice ! Really enjoyed that Simon & Team. Keep up the excellent entertainment.

They can send one of these probes to HD 162826 star which is Sun's sibling born in the same region.

I responded to this post notification at the speed of light

Brilliant minds: “Let’s sail to another star!” Facebook users: “No, stop! You’ll break the dome!"

Fantastic as always

The most fascinating video I've seen for a while!!!

It feels like we are in the heady days of Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gragarin again

You produce high quality and quantity content that helps us dream! Thank you for your work!

I love the sparkles added when showing things in space

The Trisolaris comment at 3:07 is in reference to The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu.

Jesus Christ Stephen Hawking…I’m tearing up…

Hate to be pedantic but the closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri

I met one of the NASA scientists that worked on this project at a comic book convention. It was epic.

Well done. Very interesting.

1:25 - Chapter 1 - Touching from a distance 4:25 - Chapter 2 - Golden wind 8:55 - Chapter 3 - The starshot 13:35 - Chapter 4 - I think it's gonna be a long, long time 17:50 - Chapter 5 - The road to nowhere - Chapter 6 -

The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present.The key to financial freedom and great wealth is a person's ability to convert earned income into passive and/or portfolio income."

I wonder if you could use the clockwork radio principle to power a probe that won’t be needed to be activated for decades, or possibly even longer. Like a probe sent to Alpha Centauri perhaps, with Solar Radiometers on the probe to both activate the probe as it nears the Solar system its aimed towards, and recharge the clockwork mechanism like a giant self rewinding watch that never stops running. The electronics would have to be powered like a clockwork radio, negating the need for batteries or Nuclear power, which will degrade over extremely long periods. This is the issue with the voyager probes as they age, despite the fact that the electronics and computers within the probe are functioning perfectly after nearly half a century of constant use. The probe would have to be large and capable of making independent decisions, which may require a large amount of older hardier computer chips. You could even go a step further, and have small landers on the larger probe that could be fired and directed towards other planets. They could be hardy probes, with a self contained non rechargeable clockwork power source of their own. Preferably a hardy probe to gather planetary data quickly, similar to the Venetian and Titan probes of the past. The only issue would be having a secondary rechargeable clockwork mechanism to power the transmitter, which would have to be very powerful for the extremely long distances to earth. Storage of information until broadcast would be vital. If Spacex can reduce the cost of launches further, perhaps we could have a mother ship probe that could launch smaller satellites like a Clockwork Cassinis, to examine planetary systems and their moons, as well as launch the aforementioned smaller probes. This is a bit long winded and hypothetical but its worth thinking about

Using sails in space to travel the black ocean around Earth is almost poetic.

11:25 Moore's Law is mostly dead at this point, sadly. Even Intel conceded defeat after 14nm was hit and got stuck on in 2015. Now it takes 2-3 times longer than before to double transistor counts per sqmm and that will only get even slower over time and eventually hit a wall at around 1nm, with the big assumption the light wavelength limit isn't hit before that since using e-beams isn't at all economical enough for a mass manufacturing method (1 trillion per sqmm without 3D stacking, which is around 50 years away from commercial manufacturing and require carbon nanotubes replacing copper wires among other leaps of tech). And that's no where near it's only problem. Sometimes the laws of physics sucks. Pretty sure this pipe dream project is just another thing that will always be right around the corner or in the next 10-20 years that never actually happens. To me it's doubtful humans will ever send anything beyond the Oort cloud before they extinct themselves.

Thank you, Simon! Once again, you have BOGGLED my mind!😱😨🥶😰

I'll start getting hopeful when we have a moon base with humans in it.

I was wondering if you were going to do a video on this glad you didn't disappoint

Things like this are why I want to live forever. I want to see how far we go. Do we spread across the universe like a plague of locusts? Do we fizzle out here on our little ball of mud? Do we get enslaved by advanced intergalactic incects? These are things that I (and I'm sure Simon) want to know.

Cool one step closer to warp speed then we get to make first contact with the Vulcans

I like the way you are, Simon Whistler! The way you think is unique, keep doing what you do.❤️⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Great stuff!

Amazing video!

Rocheworld was first published as Flight of the Dragonfly, that's the edition I have, it has a technical report at the end describing the solar sail mission and how you can make it a return trip as well.

One snag is that the faster the light sail travels, the longer the wavelength of the light pushing it along becomes, and the longer the wavelength the less the energy. Add to that the normal attenuation of a laser with distance, and it wont be long before the acceleration slows. Laser light spreads out much less than normal light, but it still spreads and attenuates. The journey would therefore take much longer than it would if the sail maintained its starting acceleration all the way to the target. The journey to Alpha centauri would take centuries.

This is much better .....the old Simon back with real informative stuff 👈👍

The most exciting project I have heard of.

Such exciting times. I only wish I could be around long enough to see it all come to fruition

A beautiful concept, but a small correction at 1:32 : Moore's Law applied primarily to development of CPUs in the 90s. It was weakening in the mid-00s and outright dead by 2010 as technology started to approach the limits of what is physically possible. Science has made some progress possible since, but the main reason we have multicore processors in consumer devices is because Moore's Law is dead. Multicore systems are harder to program, less efficient than multitasking on a single core due to synchronization issues, and require more complex hardware and software to function effectively. There's no way we'd have them if Moore's Law was still real.

Light sails is one of the most magical, under-celebrated technologies in the world. It's the fastest spaceflight technology achievable using existing and near-future technology. A simple, ultra-thin sail that can accelerate way, WAY faster than any other existing technology, to a significant percentage of the speed of light, and can fly to another solar system within just 20 years, without carrying engines or propellant. Unbelievable !

So as soon as you mentioned the phrase 'light sail', I get an advert pop up for 'the ulitmate high performance auxiliary LED driving lights'. Literally, a light sale.

Amazing video.

20, or even 40 years from now.... Simon will be gray. (and probably bald). And this may be one of the most important videos ever done. I'm proud I was here at the beginning. Ill be gone, but I love that my future littles... (all of them) will know that. Thanks Simon. This may be more monumental than even you may know. Or any of us.... for now.

Brilliant video 🍺🍺👍🏻

The thing I don't understand with solar sail or Starshot is the problem of course correction... Space does not work like an ocean. Also, Starshot probes would run a gauntlet of a helluva lot more particles within the solar system than they will, once it's exited all of our solar debris. Then while the cosmic debris might be less, there still will be some. I don't see it happening... Still, the course correction problem, to me, is a challenge that cannot be overcome, even with retro rockets.

Dam Simon!!!! You got down right poetic there at the end!!!! and correct my favorite Lyme!!

Thank you for your video on this. It truly is mind blowing what Starshot could achieve. And forget just Alpha Centauri, there are many stars that these probes could reach at 20% of lightspeed in less than half a century. Sirius, Ross 248, 61 Cygni, Barnard's Star, Tau Ceti, etc.

Cool video as always. Do wonder why LighSail from the Planetary Society wasn't mentioned. We had an active solar sail satelite in orbit for a bit in 2019, and they are continuing work towards next version. They also demonstrated in orbit that using the sail worked.