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Atomic Spaceship Could Chase Future Oumuamua, See What the Fuss Is All About

Back in 2017, a University of Hawaii telescope discovered a strangely-shaped object we ended up calling Oumuamua. Some claimed it was an alien spaceship, others just a piece of interstellar rock that just happened to wander into our solar system, but the sad reality is we’ll never know.
Radioisotope-electric-propulsion spacecraft concept 1 photo
Photo: Christopher Morrison
That’s because the damn thing was too far away to see properly. When first detected, it was at a distance of 21 million miles (33 million km), but it was already on its way towards the Sun and fast. We presently have no spacecraft capable of chasing it and taking close-ups.

Distance is the greatest hurdle to overcome in space exploration. To give you a sense of that, imagine it will take the OSIRIS spacecraft more than two years to come back 185 million miles from asteroid Bennu.

We mentioned OSIRIS because that was a sample collection mission, and it is related to what we have here. The machine touched down and pinched 2 ounces (60 grams) of asteroid material, and it will bring it back home.

Sure, Bennu is a boring asteroid in our solar system, but everyone involved (and a lot of others) are incredibly hyped about it. Imagine how much more interesting sending such a mission to catch up with Oumuamua would have been.

Of course, we would have needed a spaceship capable of going really, really fast, and keeping at it for long periods of time. And that is what you’re looking at here, as imagined by Christopher Morrison from the Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation.

The concept is called radioisotope-electric-propulsion spacecraft and relies on a so-called Chargeable Atomic Battery (CAB) that promises a power density over 30 times that of Plutonium-238.

It's not clear yet how it is supposed to work, but according to the one behind the concept, the ship should be capable of going after a target such as the runaway Oumuamua and back home with a piece of it in missions lasting as much as ten years.

The idea is backed by NASA through the Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, but there’s no guarantee it will ever be made.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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