Pathfinder Special Reports ....................................... July 3, 1997
Goldin Announces Interstellar Probe Within 25 Years
WASHINGTON, DC - July 3, 1997 - A robotic spacecraft that will fly to another star in 25 years should be a new goal for the U.S. civil space agency, NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin said today at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, as the final countdown for Pathfinder�s touchdown on Mars began."I've just made it a goal," Goldin said to agency science chief Dr. Wes Huntress, who looked somewhat startled at the announcement. Goldin disclosed to reporters that he and Huntress have been discussing how such a mission, interstellar spaceflight by a space probe, could be accomplished- as well as its engineering and science goals. The rationale? "We can't stand the status quo at NASA," Goldin said. "We have to set goals so tough it hurts -that it drives technology -in semi-conductors, materials, simulation, propulsion."
Huntress said the key to for any interstellar spacecraft mission would be "to achieve very incredibly high velocities", which might require new types of propulsion systems. He said that one scenario for a star mission might call for the probe to head for the planet Jupiter, and then fall towards the sun, picking up speed in a powered flyby. The probe would then be swept out of our solar system, towards whatever star system was the target. But Goldin cautioned that a whole range of new technology would be needed to sustain such a flight that doesn't yet exist today. "we have a lot of technological problems" in the way of such a flight. But he said that NASA was in the process of change that would allow such bold missions to be attempted. "We want people to violate the rules (that say things can't be done), we're restructuring NASA, getting out of operations, to clear the decks and allow us to do this," Goldin said. Goldin and Huntress were at the JPL awaiting Friday's Mars Pathfinder landing.
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