This was the second day of the workshop and was chaired by Professor Roman Kezerashvili, on the theme of 'Sails and Beams'. Roman is himself the Chairman of the Physics Department at the City University New York, and also the co-chairman on the organizing committee, along with Kelvin F. Long. The theme was picked as a strong nod towards the recently announced Breakthrough Initiatives Project Starshot and so many of the technical challenges that the team needs to address featured.
The first speaker of the day was Edward Montgomery from MontTech LLC discussing interstellar sail ship roadmaps. Next up was Professor Philip Lubin from the University California Santa Barbara, who gave an excellent overview of the Project Starshot program and physics issues. This was followed by a talk from the i4is Dr Andreas Hein, who discussed the Andromeda probe project, a theoretical study to build a space based architecture that met an earlier model of Project Starshot pre-April 12th announcement. Professor Gregory Matloff discussed the effects of enhanced graphene in Sun-launched interstellar Arks. Al Jackson of the Lunar and Planetary Institute discussed the deceleration of Starshot like probes into the stellar system of another star. Eric Malroy from NASA Johnson Space Centre discussed Rigid light sail dynamics and control for launch and acceleration using controlled optical metamaterials. During the afternoon their was significant focus given to the issue of particle bombardment due to dust grains and interstellar ions. This was in two talks. The first was by Kelvin F. Long who explore theoretical calculations and preliminary modelling to estimate the erosion rates and charged particle stopping power on interstellar starshot vehicles. The second talk was by Andrew Higgins from McGill University who focussed on the experimental aspects of understanding particle bombardment from dust. These two talks provided for interesting discussing during the discussion sessions and it was broadly agreed that both dust and charged particles were a problem that we need to get a better handle on. These talks and the discussions will be compiled for the i4is Principium magazine.
During the evening all participants assembled at the Hotel Sheraton Brooklyn to enjoy a wonderful sit down conference dinner. Speeches were made by principals, Elena Ancona was especially thanked for her excellent work as secretary for the workshop. The artist C Bangs awarded three of her historical drawings of a beamed energy concept, Project Daedalus and the Interstellar Ramjet, to Kelvin F. Long, Robert Kennedy III and Roman Kezerashvili, and thanked them for their efforts organising the amazing meeting. These unique drawings appeared in the famous text book 'The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneers Guide to Interstellar Travel' by Eugene Mallove and Gregory Matloff.
