That would be Banard’s Star, at six light years. And an unmanned mission there using completely new technology would still take fifty years.
Most posters seem to be ignoring this aspect of things. It appears to me that DARPA is actually asking for a commercial construct that could function over such a long time horizon. I noticed someone mentioned space bonds. I was thinking of something similar - a company that would hold rights to whatever possible scientific information that comes out of the project, and be funded by selling stocks. Let entrepreneurs who see returns in this make a business plan and invite investment. People who believe in the idea can buy stocks. Returns don’t necessarily have to come at the end of the 100 year window if the stocks are allowed to be traded. The returns would be based on how likely or not it seemed for the ship to make money. For instance, if the stocks are floated tomorrow, and 10 million people buy them for a 10 dollars each, and somehow, with this 100 million in equity, 5 years from now the company actually launches the vehicle with a credible proposition for making money off it when it reaches the star, the stock value could go up.
For the most part though, I think a market based solution, as DARPA seems to be looking for, is unworkable because markets simply are not built to handle things like long horizon, investment intensive scientific research, which has high externalities, low reward/risk ratios, and high asymmetries of information. Which of course raises the point, should this particular project be carried out?
There are also opportunities to profit not just on what information comes back from the spacecraft, but what goes out on it. After all, certain money now is better than uncertain money 100 years from now.
-Create a small cargo area and sell the rights to it. You want your ashes sent to a star, now you can.
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Install a small stereo system. You want your favorite music broadcast continuously from an interstellar vehicle, now you can.
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Sell off design decal space for all non-essential paneling (inside & outside). This thing could be covered in profit producing graffiti.
All these things should be marketed to all types of entities: individuals, corporations, and countries.
At first blush this does sound a bit silly. But lets look at it like this. If DARPA just hired a company to study this problem 500,000 dollars would would only pay for about 5 professionals working/thinking about it for a year (and maybe not even that). What are the chances of those few people working for that short a time coming up with a good idea?
Now, since its a contest, you’ll have WAY more many people than 5 or so thinking and working on it hoping to “win” the big bucks. Of course all the losers are suckers really if they spend any real amount of time and effort on it. Its almost like a lottery where you have to spend hundreds to thousands of dollars to have an even chance of wining 10.
And while the goal may seem silly, unrealistic, or just plain unachievable thats kinda beside the point. Many smart people (like mathematicians for example)have sat around solving problems that appear to have no bearing on real life or just arent important. Then a paper gets written up. Then, later somebody comes along and realizes that the solution can be applied to a real world problem.
DARPA (or somebody else) IMO could end up with a “solution” thats worth WAY more than half a mill. And, if nothing else is doing their gambling on the cheap.
Cite?
I find this mildly libelous. From my viewpoint DARPA has always seemed to understand that defense =/= killing. Defense involves killing, lots of it and they would love to show you new and better ways to do in, but there are other things involved and they study those too. Things like not keeping all our people in one spot where they are one big target, but spreading them out to other planets. This contest is totally within their sphere of operations and consisting of their usual *modus operandi *of geting outsiders to do most of the work so as to maximize spread of reaserch money. If you want to covince me of anything else you’ll have to produce some evidence, because right now you just come off as insulting and ignorant.
I don’t think anybody is clicking on the first link in the OP. DARPA is not looking for the space exploration plan, they’re looking for the means of maintaining the focused research and development for space exploration over a long period of time.
This reminds me of the Long Range Foundation in one of Heinlein’s novels, which invested in really long-shot technologies.
Moderator Note
Boyo Jim, I am sure you know that political jabs are prohibited in GQ. No warning issued, but don’t do this again.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
My 500k idea.
- Take a billion dollars,
2.Put it in a big pot.
3.Solicit,the best ideas from around the world on how to go to space in a hundred years. - Give the best ideas the billion dollars on a quality of suggestion basis.
I’ll take the 500k in small bills please.
Since the OP will require more along the lines of opinions, let’s move this from General Questions to IMHO.
samclem, Moderator
::sniff, whimper::
GQ, I hardly knew ye’ 
::/sniff, whimper::
“…So, if Voyager 1 was travelling in the direction of the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, how long would it take to get there? At a constant velocity of 60,000 km/hr, it would take 76,000 years (or over 2,500 generations) to travel that distance. And what if we could attain the record-breaking speed of Helios 2′s close approach of the Sun? Travelling at a constant speed of 240,000 km/hr, Helios 2 would take 19,000 years (or over 600 generations) to travel 4.3 light years…”
“Fastest (theoretical): Nuclear Pulse Propulsion = 85 years”
We haven’t even made a warp bubble yet…:rolleyes:
I think you’re missing the point. The intent is to come up with a way to drive consistent R&D toward the long term goal of going to another planet. Yes, the ultimate going to another planet will never pay out in these investor’s lifetimes, so the point is to develop ideas on how to drive investment that will pay out. Because the stepping stones to an eventual star ship do not have to only pay out with the eventual star ship. Each stepping stone can have independent use in a much shorter time frame, that also has an eventual use in the bigger plan.
As explained, this investment isn’t for developing a star ship. This investment is for developing a plan that will create long term sustained investment in space technologies toward an eventual goal of creating a star ship 100 years from now. Are you saying that 100 years of consistent dedicated technology development has zero hope of developing anything?
No, the experts they’re looking for now aren’t aerospace experts, they’re technology development and investment specialists. They want some combination of business types who know how to put together an innovative business plan and make it pay off with technology types who can direct and guide the R&D aspects.
They’re not trying to get to the moon, they’re trying to find ways to run.
You’re still not grasping the essence. Nobody is suggesting launching a vehicle five years from now. What they want is to launch a vehicle 100 years from now, after spending that 100 years on dedicated research toward making space drives, making space vehicles power efficient, whatever. Look at the example they listed - the Nobel Prize. This was an investment of money and a mechanism to award that money in the aims of driving innovation and improvement of society. That’s what they want - a mechanism to drive innovation and development of technology with the ultimate aim of a star ship.
I don’t know if there’s anyone willing to even legitimately consider this proposal. I’m certainly not an investment type or business plan innovator. But I find this an inspiring idea.
I think you’re wrong. Most of us DO “grasp the essence”. And I say the idea cannot be reasonably fulfilled, because investment strategies involve return and profit, neither of which are likely in such a plan.
I also think the Nobel Prize is very poor example. It is certainly not an investment strategy, it is the fulfillment of the will of a rich dead guy.
Now, that may be a possibility – convince the ultra-rich (while they are alive or after death doesn’t matter a lot) to offer prizes to those who are able to achieve milestones of technology that would be needed in order to carry out the mission. So maybe a foundation established to create such a list and to convince the wealthy to simply give money to get the job done without an expectation of reward is an option, maybe even the only one given the project parameters. But it’s just a craps shoot.
Agreed. My statement was exagerrated. I was pointing out that they are not looking for someone with just a good idea, but someone who can demonstrate an ability to implement that idea (which is not an idea for how to make a starship, but how to form an entity that will maintain focused R&D into the future). However, the aerospace players will be at an advantage. It’s the way things work.
First, we must define Sol to be outside our solar system…
Perhaps, even probably. But the point of this competition is to come up with ideas for how to make an investment strategy that would involve return in a reasonable time frame. You’re right, normal means don’t seem to be able to meet the need. This is an attempt to rethink the means.
Investment is perhaps not quite the right word. Nobel (the rich dead guy) wanted to inspire and incentivise technology developments for the betterment of society, so he did that by turning his fortune into a reward for people who made improvements to society. It may not be a viable model for what is needed here, hell it may not be particularly effective for driving the development of practical improvements. The prize has limited role in providing motivation to make practical technological improvements, because the connection between the act and the award are so distant. But it was pointed out as a means of providing for a structure that lasts beyond the founder’s life and continues to play a role in the realm of science and technology development.
I was going to point to the B612 Foundation as a possible example to consider, but the website appears to be defunct, so I’m not really sure what is going on with it. That may be a sign of the effectiveness of this kind of plan.
I read somewhere that the original intention with the Nobel prizes was to award work done during the previous year, so that there wasn’t supposed to be such a big gap between the act and the award.
Edited to add, Nobel’s will actually states, “The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”
Yes, but that could mean the benefit came in the previous year, even if the work was done many years before.
That’s true; sometimes it takes a long while to see the impact of work done. Like the quasi-crystals that were the reason that a scientist received the chemistry prize this year.