Space Access 2019 - Saturday afternoon

Here are some notes from the last presentations at Space Access 2019

John R Bucknell on Turbo Rockets - A Paradigm Shift for Space Access

Reviewed some of the challenges with rockets: expensive to build, costly, reusable makes more complex, 

Turbo Rocket - single stage to orbit, air breathing, has a rocket fan blade, would be cheaper

Like to use it to develop cheaper power which drives universal prosperity.  Wants to get below $25 per Megawatt hour.

James Benford on Ultrahigh Acceleration Neutral Particle Beam-Driven Sails

A magsail was proposed to be used to decelerate into a solar system

Magsail need to operate around 4 Kelvin.  Now instead of decelerating into a solar system, could create a neutral particle beam to drive the magsail

Thirty years they had BEAR (Beam Experiment Aboard Rocket) to test this basic concept, the experiment was successful

Gerald D Nordley on Mass Beam Propulsion, An Overview including Jordin Kare's Sailbeam Concept

Reviewed the physics of a mass beam to drive a magsail.  Looking at getting to other stars.  One proposal is to have guiding rings along the way to keep the pellets focused.  

Peter Klupar - Breakthrough Starshot - Plans for a Near-Term Interstellar Probe

There is a Breakthrough Junior Challenge - child 12 to 18 makes a short film about a big idea in science or math, win a $250,000 scholarship

Trying to figure out where is everyone and have several projects.

There is a Breakthrough Listen - use two of the largest telescopes, collecting two petabytes a day

Breakthrough Watch - looking for exoplanets within 15 light years

Breakthrough Starshot - plan to build a small silicon chip, use lasers to push chips to other stars.  Do need to be careful about NOT hitting stuff in orbit around earth.  The trip will be 20 years, take pictures for about 12 to 24 hours, and take years to send the pictures back.  Don’t really know how to send the images back.  There is a big problem with interstellar dust - don’t know what it is, single atoms, bits of dust, small rocks???

Panel: Extremely High-Velocity Propulsion Concepts

Portland State Aerospace Society

A Space 2.0 Business Simulator, open source, crowd funded

Founded 20 years ago, flown 14 flights.  They showed some flights.

OreSat - Oregon’s First Satellite, a CubeSat, high school students can connect and see pictures as Cube Sat goes over Oregon.

Pete Worden, Breakthrough Prize Foundation Chairman, on What We Might Do With A StarShot Capability