Comparison of reproducing and nonreproducing starprobe strategies for galactic exploration
Abstract
Reproducing and nonreproducing strategies for missions of interstellar and galactic discovery are compared. Self-reproducing probes are found to be the method of choice for active exploration programs lasting more than 10,000 years, involving searches of more than 1 million target stars to distances greater than 1000 light years in the Galactic Disk, and are superior to one-shot 'Bracewell probes' for searches of more than 1000 stars to distances greater than 100 light years in the Galactic Disk. Any nonreproducing alien probes discovered in the solar system during the normal course of future SETI research would most likely have been sent by extraterrestrial civilizations located within an approximately 1000 light-year radius of the sun, whereas any self-reproducing devices similarly detected probably originated far outside this exploration sphere.
- Publication:
-
Journal of the British Interplanetary Society
- Pub Date:
- November 1980
- Bibcode:
- 1980JBIS...33..402V
- Keywords:
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- Extraterrestrial Intelligence;
- Interstellar Space;
- Milky Way Galaxy;
- Project Seti;
- Space Exploration;
- Space Probes;
- Astronomical Models;
- Star Distribution;
- Astronomy