Following are two related links from a little over a year ago.
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtop...1792&hl=sputnik
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtop...1807&hl=sputnik
These were very long threads and the most important concepts of mine appears in the first 2 or 3 posts each.
Now I re-visit these concepts with a greater vision and hopefully better armed with a better, though certainly not 100% accurate, understanding of how useful anti-matter drives are.
Let me just start by saying that I learned as I did more research that some of the info in those threads about just how powerful anti-matter is as a powersource for space flight were severerely wrong. It turns out an anti-matter drive is approximately 6-10 orders of magnitude more powerful than I had orginally thought. I am not sure exactly why I was off by so much, other than simply trying to comprehend it in graphical terms similar to conventional rocketry. Anyway, to see a much more accurate analysis of how an anti-matter engine can work, see here.
http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtop...=0&#entry419307
Anti-matter Powered Deep Space Probe Networks
The primary thrust of this thread is in laying a basic groundwork for preparing deep space human colonization. Obviously, a most important step in that process is in scouting out planets in various star systems with a reasonably habitable environments, preferably within a 100 light-year radius of earth. For the purpose of this mission, I must assume quantum entanglement has not yet been mastered for the purposes of long distance communication, else some of my measures become unnecessary.
Because of the incredible distances and time-scales involved, and because the greatest portion of the cost of any of these missions is the cost of the anti-matter to power the engines for space flight, etc, these missions must all be "over built" like mad to maximize the chance of success. This means backup processors, backup cameras, backup power supplies, backup recievers and transmitters, backup instrumentation, etc. I shall go into more detail on this later. Essentially everything as far as the probes are concerned, must be designed to survive for centuries. They may even be self maintaining, with the ability to use robotic arms to repair damage, loosen frozen joints, etc. Well, crap, getting ahead of myself.
The Mother Probe
This is the whole point of this mission. This probe is the one which actually flies into a star system, and sends out smaller orbiting probes and landers to all the most likely planets and moons. With anti-matter engines, maneuvering around the solar system is a snap.
This, if constructed, would be the single most complete and comprehensive probe ever constructed. It will have:
12 Surveyor probes
-Each surveryor is equipped with a lander/rover probe to land on a body.
-Each surveyor orbits a target planet(or moon), mapping it and looking for best conditions to land the probe and best conditions for human colonization.
-all of this has transmitters and recievers for communication with the Mother Probe.
4 Solar probes
-These will double as additional relays which set up orbits around the star differing by 90degrees such that either one of these, or the Mother Probe always has contact with every probe in the solar system and as well, the interstellar relay probes I shall discuss shortly.
- These also study the star itself.
-Several cameras, spectrometers, telescopes and other recievers of all types.
Once the Mother probe has delivered these payloads, its primary function will be to continue to map and survey the solar system and the galaxy through its various cameras and telescopes of every reasonable type.
It will continue to send its messages to the Earth using the "interstellar relay" either directly, or through one of the 4 solar probes if it is on the wrong side of the star, etc.
Total cost: $5.2 billion or less per star system (ignoring cost of antimatter.)
Much of this cost will probably go down due to miniaturization of computer components and spintronics.
Signal Degradation and the Interstellar Relay
Because of the way electromagnetic waves propagate, signals from a probe will degrade after about 1 or 2 lightyears or so. Therefore, we need several relatively cheaper "booster" probes stationed somewhat along the way between each Mother Probe and the Earth. This is needed anyway to maintain contact between the earth and its colonies, at the very least for information sharing so each planet can benefit from the technological progress of the others.
Since we are sending something expensive(antimatter is still the biggest part of the cost,) we may as well do it right. The Interstellar Relay is a two-way communications booster for recieving signals from distant probes or planets and then re-sending the same signal to its inteded destination (i.e. "boosting".) However, each relay station is itself an observatory which would put the Hubble to shame. They are much smaller than the Mother Probe, but still larger and more powerful, and with a bigger tool chest than anything NASA has currently built. These will each have hubble-size telescope for studying the stars, and many, many other observational gear. They will send their observations both to Earth and to the Mother probe for their lifetime. The info is sent both ways to benefit both civilizations, obviously.
Each of these will come with several additional smaller probes with cameras which are sent out along a plane orthogonal to the axis formed between the sun and the target star. These would basicly be more like the pioneer and voyager missions, just having tons of cameras and things to look at the stars from very wide angles. They would travel along these projected paths until they lost contact w/ the array (decades later.) These travel at "normal" speeds like a few kilometers per seconds.
To minimize risk, each Relay is built with exactly enough anti-matter fuel to get it to its destination and slow back down to non-relativistic speeds, and then match average stellar motion between the sun and the target star. We would set up about one Relay every half light year. Those closest to earth needs less fuel to get there, etc. They run on miniscule amounts of anti-matter, but can jettison the reactor if something goes wrong, and rely on a alternate power supply instead.
To avoid collision with the future manned colony ship, these are not positioned absolutely in a straight line to the star, but in a very slight curve away from it.
Each of these would probably cost a few hundred million, and to gaurantee signal integrity you'd need 2 per light year for the targetted star.
That is, if we are probing a star 10 light years distant, we need the mother probe and its complement, plus 20 relays (maybe a few less than that, but the first mission will figure that out.)
Total cost for mission to ten light years distant star:
(ignoring anti-matter): ~$9.2 billion or less
Costs to future missions to farther star systems on the other side of the star would be abotu the same, but the advantage is you could use existing Motherprobes relay components to help facilitate transmission. you would still need to send 1-2 relays per light year beyond that though.
Mega-Long Chain Array Telescope
In the process of probing distant stars, we have automatically established an inter-stellar array of telescopes of every known spectrum. I would propose that early probe missions should be sent one or two missions approximately 4-10ly in every major direction:
The target star systems are chosen primarily for:
1) Survivable human habitation
2) Distance,
3) maximize layout of the Relays as an "Array" of telescopes..
above the galactic rim: 2 missions ~45degree seperation
below the galactic rim: same as above, preferably non-coplanar with above.
Inward: 1 mission
Outward: 1 mission
Ahead of the sun's orbit of galaxy: 1 mission
behind the sun's orbit of galaxy: 1 mission
This gives us a 3 dimensional spectrographic array of telescopes in every major direction and plane of the galaxy, like a 3 dimensional spider web radiating out from earth's sun. It allows a network of communication and signal boosting between these eventual colonized star systems, and allows for the most accurate and detailed very long range observations ever conceived, by observing interstellar and even inter-galactic phenomena with a wider "lens" than ever possible, in many cases observing from very different angles..