Talk:Project Daedalus

Alan Bond link
Is the link to Alan Bond correct? It currently refers to the Australian enterpreneur, who seems unlikely to be the same person as the MD of Reaction Engines Ltd
 * Appears to be fixed. Piet 13:22, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

would
All the "would" sentences are a bit annoying. Piet 08:55, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

was
What's with all the "was to be" statements? It isn't like Daedalus is some scrapped plan (like, for instance Blue Gemini), wasn't the speculation that it would be built around 2050, when we had advanced technology enough to build it? (DrZarkov 09:20, 8 June 2007 (UTC))


 * Yes you are probably right, the context should probably be changed to something like "The plan/project states", etc. --Hibernian 11:27, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

There it is!
This was one of those "We're going to do this" articles in kids science magazines that never happened, leaving us readers scratching our heads years later and wondering "whatever happened to..."--Pittsburghmuggle 11:45, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Other Daedalus project(s)?
The first Google hit for "Daedalus Project" is http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/. I found this page thinking Wikipedia would have information about that project. As far as I can tell with a quick glance through the site, it's a research project on the players of MMO games.

Curious about others' opinion on an article on the linked project. Other info:
 * http://www.academiccommons.org/commons/showcase/the-daedalus-project
 * http://www.massively.com/2008/02/29/the-daedalus-project-tracks-mud/
 * Nick Yee

(After finding the Nick Yee article on WP, perhaps at least a link to that page?) --BBM (talk) 01:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Image!
There's a cool image I found here from Astroscience.Org (courtesy Joe Bergeron) Suntanman (talk) 21:35, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation
How do you pronounce the name "Daedalus"? 62.0.146.70 (talk) 04:08, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * "Dee-da-las" be the one I'm familiar with ;)Suntanman (talk) 19:35, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The Brits say the first part as "deed" and the Americans as 'dead'. Canadians follow the Yanks, and Australian usage is split. The middle part is a schwa (like the 'a' in "about"). The last part rhymes with "platypus", but not with "bus". — what a crazy random happenstance 05:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a diversity of pronunciations even among Daedalus team members. However, Alan Bond himself says it as DIE-duh-luss. dudegalea (talk) 22:33, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Hitting an obstacle
I realise it would be extremely unlikely, but if the spacecraft were to encounter a planet as it plummeted into the Barnard's Star System at 12% the speed of light, what would happen to that planet? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.255.2.70 (talk) 11:46, 22 May 2012 (UTC)


 * A simple non-relativistic calculation, shows that the kinetic energy of a 980 tons Daedalous is 6e20 Joules, for comparison the impact that killed the dinosaurs (Chicxulub impact) had 5e23 Joules, 1000 times more energy. But, my guess is that being so much faster and so much smaller, it will not create the same type of blast as a meteorite, but instead penetrate the atmosphere and the planet's crust, and only there release the energy. Alfredo 05:33, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

It is more likely that the energy would be released as soon as the object encountered the atmosphere, even thin atmosphere is going to object VERY strongly to an object moving through it at 0.12c! The speed does not lead to penetration, but to extreme compression heating. By the time the object/debris reached the ground or any appreciable depth within the atmosphere, it will be a rapidly expanding cloud of incandescent plasma. Practically speaking, the event would resemble any impact event of comparable energy - the object kinetic energy being converted to heat in a region of atmosphere, that amount of heat in a finite volume of gas gives you the explosion. Seems unlikely that any solid remains would make it to ground level, but the blast wave sure would!178.15.151.163 (talk) 10:57, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Interesting discussion! C = ~300000 km/s; .12C = ~36000 km/s. If we simplify an atmosphere to be 100 km thick, then the atmospheric transit time is 100 km / 36000 km/s = ~.0028 s. I honestly don't think 3 ms is long enough to vaporize 980 t of spacecraft (that was built strong enough to endure 50 yrs of travel at .12C through interstellar particulate). I would guess that the bulk of the mass would very much still be a solid when it hit the ground! Regardless, the planet is screwed. Nwilde (talk) 17:03, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

TZM clarification
TZM is described through various metal suppliers as "Titanium-zirconium-molybdenum" - it's a three-metal alloy additionally doped with carbon. TZM is a generic label for the alloy similar to the way "steel" might be for iron and carbon.

Example: http://www.tungsten.com/materials/tzm-molybdenum/

Wingchild (talk) 15:22, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Project Daedalus++ to Proxima b on a SpaceX vehicle?
Okay, given new empirical data about the nearness of an objective—Proxima b in the Proxima Centuri system just 4 light years away from Earth—are new conceptual projects being seriously discussed to build/fund such a space probe effort?

Could a SpaceX Falcon Heavy put enough mass into orbit at a low-enough cost to make such a project feasible? Fuel load etc. would of course change from the 11973 concept partly due to trades that could be made due to a shorter distance than assumed in the earlier concept study. What are the mission parameters for a realistic mass of the Project Daedulus++ spacecraft? What subset of mission capabilities of Project Daedulus would "fit" into that launch vehicle constraint? What would it cost if it the mass were lofted on United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch systems? Or by 2020 a MCT launch vehicle or by 2021 or so a ULA Vulcan rocket with an much more capable and long-lived ACES upper stage?

This is already being informally discussed between astrophysicists and spaceflight mission and technology experts on the internet today, so acceptable sources may already exist to improve the article. More standard space media are likely to pick up on those discussions and publish articles soon, if they have not already. Suggest we gather and track some of the better quality sources here. Cheers. N2e (talk) 23:17, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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