Scientists Propose New, Faster Method of Interstellar Space Travel - VICE

The interstellar concept mission would harness shifting winds generated by the Sun in order to accelerate a spacecraft to as much as 2 percent the speed of light within two years, allowing it to soar into the vast expanse beyond our solar system.

The team found that their “new concept for spacecraft propulsion that invokes dynamic soaring” appears “feasible for a vehicle to achieve velocities approaching 2 percent of [the speed of light] after a year and a half” or “0.5 percent of [the speed of light] after 1 month,” depending on its trajectory through the solar system, according to a recent study published in Frontiers of Space Technologies.

“Inspired by the dynamic soaring maneuvers performed by seabirds and gliders in which differences in wind speed are exploited to gain velocity, in the proposed technique a lift-generating spacecraft circles between regions of the heliosphere that have different wind speeds, gaining energy in the process without the use of propellant and only modest onboard power requirements,” Larrouturou and his colleagues said in the study.

In the right parts of the solar system, the field created by the magnets could interact with solar wind flows in different directions in much the same way that birds exploit wind turbulence to create lift.