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<\/p>\nInterstellar Flight: Perspectives and Patience
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This morning\u2019s post grows out of listening to John Coltrane\u2019s album Sun Ship<\/em> earlier in the week. If you\u2019re new to jazz, Sun Ship<\/em> is not where you want to begin, as Coltrane was already veering in a deeply avant garde direction when he recorded it in 1965. But over the years it has held a fascination for me. Critic Edward Mendelowitz called it \u201ca riveting glimpse of a band traveling at warp speed, alternating shards of chaos and beauty, the white heat of virtuoso musicians in the final moments of an almost preternatural communion\u2026\u201d McCoy Tyner\u2019s piano is reason enough to listen.<\/p>\n As music often does for me, Sun Ship<\/em> inspired a dream that mixed the music of the Coltrane classic quartet (Tyner, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones) with an ongoing story. The Parker Solar Probe is, after all, a real \u2018sun ship,\u2019 one that on December 24 of last year made its closest approach to the Sun. Moving inside our star\u2019s corona is a first \u2013 the craft closed to within 6.1 million kilometers of the solar surface. <\/p>\n When we think of human technology in these hellish conditions, those of us with an interstellar bent naturally start musing about \u2018sundiver\u2019 trajectories, using a solar slingshot to accelerate an outbound spacecraft, perhaps with a propulsive burn at perihelion. The latter option makes this an \u2018Oberth maneuver\u2019 and gives you a maximum outbound kick. Coltrane might have found that intriguing \u2013 one of his later albums was, after all, titled Interstellar Space<\/em>.<\/p>\n I find myself musing on speed. The fastest humans have ever moved is the 39,897 kilometers per hour that the trio of Apollo 10 astronauts \u2013 Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan \u2013 experienced on their return to Earth in 1969. The figure translates into just over 11 kilometers per second, which isn\u2019t half bad. Consider that Voyager 1 moves at 17.1 km\/sec, and it\u2019s the fastest object we\u2019ve yet been able to send into deep space.<\/p>\n True, New Horizons has the honor of being the fastest craft immediately after launch, moving at over 16 km\/sec and thus eclipsing Voyager 1\u2019s speed before the latter\u2019s gravity assists. But New Horizons has since slowed as it climbs out of the Sun\u2019s gravitational well, now making on the order of 14.1 km\/sec, with no gravity assists ahead. Wonderfully, operations continue deep in the Kuiper Belt.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth remembering that at the beginning of the 20th Century, a man named Fred Mariott became the fastest man alive when he managed 200 kilometers per hour in a steam-powered car (and somehow survived). Until we launched the Parker Solar Probe, the two Helios missions counted as the fastest man-made objects, moving in elliptical orbits around the Sun that reached 70 kilometers per second. Parker outdoes this: At perihelion in late 2024, it managed 191.2 km\/sec, so it now holds velocity as well as proximity records.<\/p>\n 191.2 kilometers per second gets you to Proxima Centauri in something like 6,600 years. A bit long even for the best equipped generation ship, I think you\u2019ll agree. Surely Heinlein\u2019s \u2018Vanguard,\u2019 the starship in Orphans of the Sky<\/em> was moving at a much faster clip even if its journey took many centuries to reach the same star. I don\u2019t think Heinlein ever let us know just how many. Of course, we can\u2019t translate the Parker spacecraft\u2019s infalling velocity into comparable numbers on an outbound journey, but it\u2019s fun to speculate on what these numbers imply.<\/p>\n Image:<\/strong> The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASA\u2019s Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018, from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Parker Solar Probe is humanity\u2019s first-ever mission into a part of the Sun\u2019s atmosphere called the corona. The mission continues to explore solar processes that are key to understanding and forecasting space weather events that can impact life on Earth. It also gives a nudge to interstellar dreamers. Credit: NASA\/Bill Ingalls.<\/p>\n Speaking of Voyager 1, another interesting tidbit relates to distance: In 2027, the perhaps still functioning spacecraft will become the first human object to reach one light-day from the Sun. That\u2019s just a few steps in terms of an interstellar journey, but nonetheless meaningful. Currently radio signals take over 23 hours to reach the craft, with another 23 required for a response to be recorded on Earth. Notice that 2027 will also mark the 50th year since the two Voyagers were launched. January 28, 2027 is a day to mark in your calendar.<\/p>\n Since we\u2019re still talking about speeds that result in interstellar journeys in the thousands of years, it\u2019s also worth pointing out that 11,000 work-years were devoted to the Voyager project through the Neptune encounter in 1989, according to NASA. That is roughly the equivalent of a third of the effort estimated to complete the Great Pyramid at Giza during the reign of Khufu, (~2580\u20132560 BCE) in the fourth dynasty of the Old Kingdom. That\u2019s also a tidbit from NASA, telling me that someone there is taking a long term perspective.<\/p>\n Coltrane\u2019s Sun Ship<\/em> has also led me to the \u2018solar boat\u2019 associated with Khufu. The vessel was found sealed in a space near the Great Pyramid and is the world\u2019s oldest intact ship, buried around 2500 BCE. It\u2019s a ritual vessel that, according to archaeologists, was intended to carry the resurrected Khufu across the sky to reach the Sun god the Egyptians called Ra. <\/p>\n Image:<\/strong> The \u2018sun ship\u2019 associated with the Egyptian king Khufu, in the pre-Pharaonic era of ancient Egypt. Credit: Olaf Tausch, CC BY 3.0<\/a>. Wikimedia Commons.<\/p>\n My solar dream reminds me that interstellar travel demands reconfiguring our normal distance and time scales as we comprehend the magnitude of the problem. While Voyager 1 will soon reach a distance of 1 light day, it takes light 4.2 years to reach Proxima Centauri. To get around thousand-year generation ships, we are examining some beamed energy solutions that could drive a small sail to Proxima in 20 years. We\u2019re a long way from making that happen, and certainly nowhere near human crew capabilities for interstellar journeys. <\/p>\n But breakthroughs have to be imagined before they can be designed. Our hopes for interstellar flight exercise the mind, forcing the long view forward and back. Out of such perspectives dreams come, and one day, perhaps, engineering. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mycbh.com\/Games\/spaceperium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/06\/psplaunch-1.jpg\")
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