Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration

Front Cover
Springer Science & Business Media, 2004 - Alpha Centauri - 302 pages
"[T]ells the story of what the key researchers in interstellar exploration are doing, and how they move their projects forward, when most of the relevant science has not been experimentally verified, and most of the engineering is still decades, if not centuries, into the future."--Cover.

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Contents

DESIGNING A MISSION
1
THE TARGET ALPHA CENTAURI AND OTHER NEARBY STARS
31
THE TROUBLE WITH ROCKETS
57
THE ANTIMATTER ALTERNATIVE
75
JOURNEY BY STARLIGHT THE STORY OF THE SOLAR SAIL
95
OF LIGHTSAILS RAMJETS AND FUSION RUNWAYS
123
BREAKING THROUGH AT NASA SCIENCE ON THE EDGE
155
INTERSTELLAR COMMUNICATIONS AND NAVIGATION
183
A SPACECRAFT THAT CAN THINK FOR ITSELF
211
THE FUTURE OF THE INTERSTELLAR IDEA
235
AFTERWORD
257
NOTES
259
INDEX
289
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Astrobiology
Fred Bortz
No preview available - 2007

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