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| Daedalus First Stage Separation |
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Project Daedalus was an engineering study carried out by members of
the British Interplanetary Society to determine if interstellar travel
is possible using current (1970s) technology. The concept developed was
an unmanned space probe which would detonate helium and deuterium
pellets using electron beams fired from diodes located around the base
of the engine nozzle. This near-continuous series of fusion detonations
(approximately 250 per second!) would provide thrust to acc
elerate
the probe for it's half-century voyage to Barnard's Star, a fast-moving
red dwarf star only 6 light-years distant. With no way to decelerate
the Daedalus would streak through the Barnard's system in a matter of
days. (Quite a similar mission to NASA's New Horizon probe to Pluto and
the Kuiper Belt...except that Daedalus would take fifty years to reach
its target rather than ten!)
I'm a huge fan of such studies as Daedalus and the somewhat similar
Orion program (an actual practical R&D effort by General Atomics in
the late 50s-early 60s); these amazing flights of fancy reflect
hard-headed science and engineering in an ivory-castle fantasy world
where budgets are inconsequential and no R&D program is ever
canceled by Congress.
Someday we will reach the planets, and
perhaps even the stars...maybe someone will dust off the Orion or
Daedalus plans when the time comes to make that next "Giant Leap".
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| Daedalus with a Saturn V for scale |
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