XPost: alt.fan.heinlein, rec.aviation.military
On 6/2/24 04:11,
kymhorsell@gmail.com wrote:
It was the first confirmed interstellar visitor.
But was it a rock or was it something else.
Several groups want to find out and are trying to cook up reasonable
ways to get out to the fast-receding 'Oumuamua. But it's close to
impossible.
It's estimated a very fast probe might catch up with it 150 AU
out in several decades.
Man O' Man. It is gone. As in Goners.
Spend money on looking and planning for next one.
I'm reminded of the "Starglider" in James C. Clarke's
book "Fountains of Paradise". It was also an
"interstellar visitor" that was a artificial intelligence
scout, ambassador, announcer and greeter.
Some greedy scientist types realized how advanced it was
and wanted to chase after it to capture it, but wiser heads
prevailed.
from
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2023/12/06/talking-to-starglider/
Talking to Starglider
by Paul Gilster | Dec 6, 2023 | Astrobiology and SETI | 30 comments
When we’ve discussed interstellar ‘interlopers’ like ‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov, the science fiction-minded among us have now and then noted
Arthur Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama (Gollancz, 1973). Although we’ve
yet to figure out definitively what ‘Oumuamua is (2/I Borisov is
definitely a comet), the Clarke reference is an imaginative nod to the possibility that one day an alien craft might enter our Solar System
during a gravitational assist maneuver and be flung outward on whatever
its mission was (in Rama’s case, out in the direction of the Large
Magellanic Cloud).
Since we’ll never see ‘Oumuamua again, we wait with great anticipation
the work of the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which will be
run via the Vera Rubin Telescope (first light in 2025). Estimates vary
widely but the consensus seems to be that with a telescope capable of
imaging the entire visible sky in the southern hemisphere every few
nights, the LSST should produce more than a few interstellar objects,
perhaps ten or more, every year. We probably won’t find a Rama, but who knows?
Meanwhile, I’m reminded of another Clarke novel that rarely gets the attention in this regard that Rendezvous with Rama does. This is 1979’s
The Fountains of Paradise (BCA/Gollancz). Although known primarily for
its exploration of space elevators (and its reality-distorting
geography), the novel includes as a separate theme another entry into
the Solar System, this time by a craft that, unlike Rama, is willing to
take notice of us. Starglider is its name, and it represents a
civilization that is cataloging planetary systems through probes
scattered across a host of nearby stars.
Go to citation to read much more........
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