Multigenerational Interstellar Exploration | Larry Thomsen | TEDxYouth@ChoateRosemaryHall
today I'm going to talk to you about multi-generational Interstellar exploration in the spacecraft small spacecraft and I'm going to make a case that we should be doing more of these missions to explore how our how we exist in the solar system how do we exist in the Milky Way and I make that case because it's something that us as students as parents grandparents past civilizations have always had a curiosity about understanding our existence on Earth and in the universe Looking Back in Time this is uh just to look and think about how many civilizations have come and gone that have had the Curiosity of the Stars the Sun and the Moon from Machu Picchu to eastern island GAO Chen different areas all over the Earth different civilizations Egyptian civilizations Encore what and even new Grange all the Curiosity from Eastern civilization to Western civilization to Native America and South America it's exposed to Big curiosity over the ages from different from us from our own religious experiences or Persuasions from monotheistic to polytheistic there's examples of wonder in all our generations and beliefs from eclipses through judeo-christian Parts in the Bible noting eclipses to the Norse gods seeing the Northern Lights to The Druids in early England and Ireland all had the Curiosity for understanding where we exist in our solar system Ptolemy thought we were just uncentric I mean earth-centric where the sun evolved around the Earth and it wasn't until Copernicus and then experimentally shown by Galileo that we're in a heliocentric solar system where we on Earth are orbiting around the sun and the planets orbiting around the Sun today there's numerous questions that are being answered at the far reaches of our universe from the James Webb Telescope we see that going towards first light how did light begin in our universe how did the Big Bang begin in our universe there's a compelling interest that generations of scientists and communities have come together to get this James Webb Telescope launched in the picture is the red galaxies that are at the beginnings of the first civil late we can do more exploring the solar system we've done numbers of missions to different planets but what's beyond our solar system there's very little information between how our solar system interacts with our galaxy foreign missions have taken years to put together and go forward Neptune the Blue Planet it took over 12 years for Voyager to get there Cassini and Saturn took a number of years to hit the Saturn Christmas Pluto that's the green and red planet and the nicuiper belt New Horizons took over 12 years to get there I just put that in there because it was a cool picture the Christmas in the spirit of things and of course Mars The Viking missions and the current missions today and Jupiter the Jupiter Mission by Galileo the Galileo mission is is a mission that took eight years to get there and 1.4 billion dollars in 1980s dollars and it would be over 2 billion today to do it again the size of spacecraft was the size of a school bus that launched on one of the shuttle missions there's very large missions there are a few missions of God Interstellar just the Voyager one and two it's been going over for 44 years going out it's two points two trajectories going out there there's been very little other information other than tell us telescope type information on how the solar system interacts with our galaxy this is just a picture of The Grand Tour just a good idea to like the movie pictures and stuff but it's important because it took up generations of effort to get to those two points two trajectories out beyond our solar system where we are in the Milky Way is the little Sun model up here amongst all a lot of other stars it's a model picture there's very little information on how our solar system interacts with the other portion of spirals in our galaxy and I put a picture here this is Voyager 1 Voyager two this is an artist from rendition just two points and there's so many miles between those two points it's like it's like plotting a map where a Helios sphere bubble with very little information about how that exists but there's a curiosity that I believe all of us share for understanding how we exist in what advice night sky the way it is our nice guys seeing cartographic improvements the Zodiac the map on the left is 17th century map of the Big Dipper Ursa Major Salina Draco the snake all this all the different constellations that we take for granted when we go and see the night sky and we can enjoy that on the other picture is Hubble we can see the cartographic improvements of Hubble bubble sit had so many missions of understanding where we exist in the Galaxy among stars from a telescope it changes the map doesn't it from very simple with a nice cute zodiac symbols I like the berries when I go out and I know everybody goes out parents go out with their children I know you you all hear there's some good night sky in the back here where there used to be the environment goes hazardous to be able to be successful doing multi-generational spacecraft add a small scale of small inexpensive spacecraft have to be able to withstand solar particle events and radiation from the Sun radiation that causes the Northern Lights it's very hazardous between uh in this time period to do that this is the sailboat telescope and it's just it's the Halloween storm of 2003 and I bring this up to you because of the radiation levels during this Mission it causes spacecraft to be lose lifetime some have lost capability lost power all these items are things that we can do as Generations improve the spacecraft to be more reliable to think not just one-year Mission two-year Mission through your mirrors your missions but 30-year missions or 16 nuclear emissions 100 Year missions we have the capability to do multi-generational that radiation level is I have to be configured because it's about time Van Allen builds also cause radiation of the inner proton Health electron proton build those fields actually protect us from a lot of radiation that uh we don't have to deal with them but it's there too causing spacecraft degradation and radiation effects basically limits our time to do Mission so it has to be engineered has to be considered we have to come up with reliability methods to build these long duration missions for mapping and uh just like a tire I prefer a hundred thousand miles higher over twenty thousand miles higher they the radiation effects are basically a hourglass on how long you can have your mission so so these are different things to think about when looking at long-term space missions generational emissions I highlight Voyager again because of its nice poster it was launched in 77 the Disco era okay Generation X hip-hop generation right how many baby boom generation we've got all these Generations that as a community with the Curiosity that we have can actually do things when we think ahead and plan ahead to try to answer some of these questions that have always wondered when we're looking up at the night sky as children grandparents so I want to plant the seeds of multi-generational research like the bok choy that was on the space station that's the thing in the red and just think about it if we develop small spacecrafts Beyond what's currently being gone where we can think Generations 30 years why don't we go for a hundred years to get out there out into interstitial space that we continue nurturing our interests within our communities within our cultures within geopolitical cooperation there's a lot of things that is sort of magical when we get the images and data coming back from space where we think about how do we exist where do we come from how special it is to the community so I made the case that we can do mission is a longer duration by continued efforts of small spacecraft where we can actually have more effective spacecraft in our 2020 2030 Technologies going out to the outreaches beyond our solar system so this is this is one effort been doing just that we can make shielding and make a spacecraft last a long time make it so that we increase the reliability spacecraft so we're not thinking of cute academic missions or small Tech demos but we're looking beyond our own generations and answering those questions what is what is it how do we look beyond our solar system and how do we fit in a Milky Way the cubesat market is over a half billion a billion in the next three years there's we've all seen a rocket lab launches SpaceX all these commercials satellites being launched in constellations it's a tremendous effort going and tremendous technology advances we want to look beyond that wants to look Beyond in the generations typical cubesats can cost one to two million real simple ones but now we're seeing missions three to six million but when looking back at the size of Galileo and Voyager Voyager was a 500 pound satellite hundreds of millions of dollars took to develop those in 1977 Galileo multiple year Mission large spacecraft 1.4 billion in the 80s dollars and now over 2 billion in 20 21 22 dollars to redo that and thinking about these cubesats add six million of them at a uh cost it's just amazing how much you can do with mapping so I propose that we as a community really push the envelope with moving out smaller satellites so that we can expand our curiosity our understanding of our solar system our multi-generational exploration has tremendous effects stem education the training of next Generations technologists it perpetuates the story and gives me forward of gifting forward we've all talked about emptying forward does anybody give things forward recently gifting forward to folks and drive through is it's amazing all the different gifting for scenarios and I propose them to get forward with trying to push the story of Howard how we exist in our solar system and in the Milky Way and and it's just that one other thing these missions expand our community as as a human race as countries all countries have worked together in peace and War for the pursuit of understanding of how we exist in our own on Earth and just to see all the different countries that have worked on previous missions we can do the same within our communities and through our Generations just references from our some of the images I just want to thank a number of my colleagues because I had grown from being a student 1987. through years but it's always been with uh teammates and colleagues out in our own communities [Applause]