Pretty neat idea:
http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/introducing-project-voyager-interstellar-trajectory-and-mission-planning-tool/

From Icarus Interstellar website:

Project Voyager is about mapping a path to the stars. Not tomorrow, not in a decade, but today.

In essence, the project involves the creation of a mission planning software system, to enable interplanetary and interstellar trajectory planning. This program will enable scientists, engineers, and enthusiasts from Icarus and other space organizations to accurately plan missions not only to bodies in our solar system, but to the known bodies in other star systems as well. We are building the program to be extendable, so that every new discovery (whether an asteroid, dwarf planet, or exoplanet) can be added to the system and used to plan more accurate missions. As our knowledge of the universe around us expands, so will our map.

We are planning the software to be divided into two distinct parts. The first is the mission planning stage. Here, we will have a graphical interface that allows the user to visually travel around the entire mapped region of space. In this component all of the bodies will be on ‘rails’ in their respective predicted orbits. The user should be able to manipulate their vessel’s trajectory in real time (using patched conics), and produce a relatively accurate trajectory to their chosen destination. After this is done, the second part of the software will come online. All force vectors from the earlier planning stage are logged, and the start time determined. Starting from this data, a full gravitational simulator is run to determine a trajectory more accurate than that provided by the PCA. Once this has been determined, the map will overlay the two trajectories, and switch back into real-time mode, allowing the user to iteratively design their mission plan.

We are currently based in Toronto Canada, and have a team of nearly twenty. Most are undergraduate, or graduate engineering students from the University of Toronto, and a few are hackers and coders who have shown a great deal of enthusiasm for the project. The team is divided into programmers, researchers, and physicists, and all working together toward making this Project a reality. We have just begun the software, and we look forward to sharing our work with the world.

Pretty neat idea:
http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/introducing-project-voyager-interstellar-trajectory-and-mission-planning-tool/

From Icarus Interstellar website:

Project Voyager is about mapping a path to the stars. Not tomorrow, not in a decade, but today.

Hi ... SJB,

Thank you very much for your post ... very interesting web site.
I made you link active ... (or clickable)

Best wishes
Byron

Pretty neat idea:
http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/introducing-project-voyager-interstellar-trajectory-and-mission-planning-tool/

From Icarus Interstellar website:

Project Voyager is about mapping a path to the stars. Not tomorrow, not in a decade, but today.

Hi ... SJB,

Thank you very much for your post ... very interesting web site.
I made you link active ... (or clickable)

Best wishes
Byron

It looks like fun. I hope their Mission Elapsed Times can be output in exponential notation for the interstellar missions.

Cheers, thanks!
Spencer

Spencer - "pretty neat idea" is an understatement! :) Very interesting! Thanks for the info and the link :)

Glad some folks on these boards can appreciate it as well :)
Spencer

I have always been curious about how real interstellar navigation would be accomplished other than point and shoot.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

well it had to happen a bit late but at least it's being done now . Just like in the movies click on a planet and the computer does the rest

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While on the subject of interstellar travel, the following YouTube video is also pretty amazing, as it attempts to visualize (sub-light speed) interstellar travel. While the video is just a few minutes long - and I believe uses footage taken from an episode of "how the universe works", I think it is well done and stirs the imagination about how daunting a challenge it will be to travel between the stars and how immense the distances are between them. I really like the music on that clip as well, it perfectly embodies the mind-boggling nature of the topic. Highly recommend to check it out.
Enjoy,
Spencer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnV0YqoDMj8

(sorry, I'm not sure how to make the URL active). You can also search the term "Interstellar Space Travel" on Youtube...watch the one that is 4:08 long.
Keep on crunching!

[/url]

While on the subject of interstellar travel, the following YouTube video is also pretty amazing, as it attempts to visualize (sub-light speed) interstellar travel. While the video is just a few minutes long - and I believe uses footage taken from an episode of "how the universe works", I think it is well done and stirs the imagination about how daunting a challenge it will be to travel between the stars and how immense the distances are between them. I really like the music on that clip as well, it perfectly embodies the mind-boggling nature of the topic. Highly recommend to check it out.
Enjoy,
Spencer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnV0YqoDMj8

(sorry, I'm not sure how to make the URL active). You can also search the term "Interstellar Space Travel" on Youtube...watch the one that is 4:08 long.
Keep on crunching!

Hi Spencer,

thank you for the Link,

here you go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnV0YqoDMj8

like the following :)

[url] you Link [/url]

While on the subject of interstellar travel, the following YouTube video is also pretty amazing, as it attempts to visualize (sub-light speed) interstellar travel. While the video is just a few minutes long - and I believe uses footage taken from an episode of "how the universe works", I think it is well done and stirs the imagination about how daunting a challenge it will be to travel between the stars and how immense the distances are between them. I really like the music on that clip as well, it perfectly embodies the mind-boggling nature of the topic. Highly recommend to check it out.
Enjoy,
Spencer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnV0YqoDMj8

(sorry, I'm not sure how to make the URL active). You can also search the term "Interstellar Space Travel" on Youtube...watch the one that is 4:08 long.
Keep on crunching!

[/url]

Hans Zimmer-Time, from the Inception soundtrack :)

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Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club.

Thank you kindly for the tip on how to activate URLs, and the info on the music track used in the video :)
Spencer

Thanx for this interesting thread Spencer:)

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rOZZ
Music
Pictures

You're welcome, hope it expands the mind a bit, for those interested :)

It seems to me the biggest obstacle to overcome is the lack of having a fixed reference point to tie navigation to. Every object in the galaxy, let alone the universe, is moving relative to every other object. Navigation across the face of the earth is childs play in comparison. You know that after leaving point a to travel to point b getting back to point a has a calculable bearing and distance regardless of time.

But in interstellar space, or spacetime, how to get back to point a depends on the elapsed time from when you left point a and knowing which direction it was travelling when you left. This appears to be a very difficult set of equations to solve with too many variables.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.