Project Lyra: The Mission to Resolve a Mystery

Adam Hibberd

Project Lyra is the study of the feasibility of a spacecraft mission to the first interstellar object to be discovered passing through our Solar System, designated 1I/'Oumuamua. I have now authored and co-authored a total of nine Project Lyra papers.

The considerable number of science papers (many now peer-reviewed, several still to be submitted) on its own attests to the sheer abundance of mission options available to us should we wish to conduct such an effort. Furthermore it clearly challenges the position of the many doubters, scientists, influencers, and journalists who have in various ways declared the entire enterprise as impossible, a waste of investment and even suggesting that Project Lyra is simply a meaningless exercise.

My opinion on this might be predictable, given that I derived and wrote the software (OITS) which was subsequently used to resolve the many questions which were raised in the study of missions to 'Oumuamua.

I simply do not understand the mindset of these doubters. What future do we see for ourselves? What aspirations do we have in the longer term, for humanity itself? Note that when I use the word 'humanity' I am talking here not merely of humanity as the species, homo-sapiens, but more generally of our knowledge and technological accomplishments.

You see what has come to light as a result of the Project Lyra studies is that the probe in question, bound for 'Oumuamua, would necessarily have to intercept the target OUTSIDE the Sun's HELIOSPHERE, and travel into the LOCAL INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM (LISM).

This therefore would be humanity's first tentative, yet purposeful journey into interstellar space, with all the technological advancements and discoveries which that would entail. Furthermore Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (JHU APL) is at this very moment, as you read this blog now, committing serious resources to the realization of a mission specifically designed to break out of the heliosphere (the solar wind which surrounds the Sun) and study the space beyond it and for that matter study the entire Universe from an extrasolar vantage point, with innumerable rewards to humanity.

Project Lyra would be capable of achieving nearly everything this JHU Interstellar Probe initiative would achieve, and also resolve the enigma which is 'Oumuamua.

I feel I must at this point declare my own opinion on manned missions to worlds beyond Earth, in the form for example of NASA's Artemis program to the Moon and Musk's colonization of Mars. In my view the current prioirity of manned missions over robotic ones (and Project Lyra would be of the latter variety) flies in the face of rational space economics and technological progress.

Why invest in such initiatives, with the inherent risk of human life loss, and in addition with the huge logistical and practical challenges of providing life-support, water and sustenance, for such human travellers, when robotic explorers can do so without the consequent dangers to human life and with less wasteful and costly launcher payload mass?

In this context the resolution of a now 6-year old space mystery surely should take precedence over what in my view amounts to human folly which may well end in tears.

For those of you still doubting the merits of such a mission, and for that matter the feasibility of such a mission, the following table summarises all the scientific literature surrounding Project Lyra.