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You are here: Home / Who we are / Interstellar artists / Terry Regan

Terry Regan

Terry Regan is a technician and the Chief spacecraft model builder for the Initiative for Interstellar Studies.

Terry Regan lives in Chelmsford, Essex, in England. His love of astronomy began when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon, and he has since developed a keen interest in planetary spacecraft. He is a passionate and enthusiastic member of his local astronomy club, the North Essex Astronomical Society, and the proud owner of a 10" Dobsonian telescope. He acts as Outreach Officer for the society and is often seen supporting stargazing workshop events with local schools and community groups. His other great passion is model building. He is a member of the Chelmsford Scale Model Club, having served as its chairman for ten years, and he mainly constructs 1/48 scale models of aircraft flown by the Royal Air Force. Some of his models are conversions from kits, while others are scratch built. Terry is renowned both in his model club and the astronomy society for his amazing, fantastically detailed scale replicas of spacecraft, including Galileo, Magellan, Cassini-Huygens and Voyager 1, all scratch built. His current project is a model of Daedalus for Project Icarus, a joint initiative between Icarus Interstellar and The British Interplanetary Society. He works for a large truck dealership as a truck technician. In the rest of his spare time he enjoys cycling, clay pigeon shooting and walking.

 

=== Terry Regan Gallery ===

 

Voyager 1 & 2

The planetary grand tour was an ambitious plan to send two unmanned probes to the outer planets of the Solar System. The idea was conceived at NASA and JPL in the 1960s when it found that all four gas giant planets could be visited using gravity assists while needing a minimal amount of propellant and a shorter travel time between planets. The original proposed mission was to send four probes under the Mariner programme: the first two, with proposed launch dates in 1976 and 1977 were to fly by Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto and the other two with launch dates in 1979 were to fly by Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. The spacecraft were to have been designed with multiple redundant system on-board to ensure they would last over the missions spanning up to 12 years. Due to a NASA budget cut in 1972, the grand tour missions were downsized to two “mini Grand Tour” probes and the Voyager programme was born. The two Voyagers were launched in 1977 on board a Titan 111E/Centaur rockets, Voyager 2 was the first to go on 20th August 1977 and Voyager 1 on 5th September 1977 on a faster trajectory which enabled it to reach Jupiter and Saturn, it was decided to make a close flyby of Titan which would remove the chance for the Pluto flyby. On 17th February 1998, Voyager 1 overtook Pioneer 10 to become the most distance man-made object from Earth at the time it was 6.5 billion miles from Earth. Pioneer 10 and Voyager 1 are heading almost in the opposite direction outward from the Solar System. On the 18th December 2004, Voyager 1 passed the “termination shock”- the point where the solar winds slow to a subsonic speed and the tenuous point where the solar system can be said to end. Now in 2017, Voyager is 20,664 billion km (12,827billion miles) from Earth travelling at about 38,200 mph and it takes over 30 hours to transmit and receive radio signals. Voyager 2 is currently 17,075 billion km (10,609 miles) from Earth and is travelling at 35,000 mph, taking over 31 hours to transmit and receive radio signals. Each Voyager probes carries a Golden Record-a gold-plated copper phonograph disc containing sounds and images selected to portray the Earth and its inhabitants. They were intended for any intelligent extra-terrestrial life forms, or even for future human life, who may find them. Both are still sending back information and are expected to carry on until 2025 when their power runs out or when they can no longer be monitored – What an amazing pair of spacecraft!

This is the fourth spacecraft model to be made for Terry’s collection and as with the last three all have been scratch built from plans available online and using plans from a card model. Terry first started to build the main body using styrene plastic card, the material that professional model makers use. A ten sided body, 12mm high and 55mm in diameter, was made and glued, and then shaped and cleaned up to form the main body. He made four thermal control louvers and added them around the side of the body and also not forgetting the famous gold record. He then made up three “V” shape struts that supports the antenna dish and another four “V” shape brackets that held the rocket engine to give the boost from the Earth orbit. The struts was made from plastic rod and then the whole thing was primed and checked for blemishes then a coat of satin black was airbrushed on with the louvers airbrushed in chrome silver. Next he made the R.T.Gs or Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. He cut a length of plastic tube, 50 mm long and 6mm diameter. He cut and shaped 18 fins and added to the tube. These are cooling fins. He also added slithers of plastic strips to show panelling and detail to the R.T.G and finally a round disc was made and added to the end of the R.T.G all airbrushed in a black metallic with the end plate in chrome silver. He then added some brackets to the RTG, these lock the RTG in a folded position on launch. Terry then turned his attention to the long magnetometer boom and yes its long, all of 400 mm long. This was made up the same way as the mag boom on Cassini but this time he used 0.5 mm plastic rod. Again it’s a triangle construction 5 mm wide and 400 mm long and over a thousand pieces and three days' work went into making the boom, it was then airbrushed in metallic dull yellow. The science boom, which is mounted opposite from the RTG, holds, cameras, sensors, various instruments and a large Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer/Radiometer. The boom was again made from 1.2 mm rod made into a square lattice frame work and which supports the equipment, again all airbrushed in black with the cameras pick out in silver to represent the lenses. Now for the antenna dish, he searched through his collection of oil filters until he found the size he needed. He clamped a piece of 0.030 mm plastic card over a large piece of Plywood with a hole in the middle. He then softened up the card and plunged the bottom of the truck oil filter to form a dish shape. A tripod antenna feed cone was then made all sprayed up and mounted. A few bits of detail was added here and there. And finally a base was made from a piece of Pine, the edges was rounded off and the whole thing was then sanded smooth cleaned up and vanished and once dried he made up the NASA logo, the mission badge and the name plaque, Finished. The Model is1/40th scale and its 260mm long from RTG to the edge of the science boom and the antenna dish is a 100 mm diameter and not forgetting the Mag boom of 400 mm long.

Galileo Spacecraft

                   

The Galileo spacecraft was launched on 18th October 1989 aboard the Space shuttle Atlantis. NASA discovered that the main antenna didn’t fully deploy after its first flyby of Earth. After a six year journey it arrived at Jupiter in December 1995 to begin its orbital tour of the planet and its moons. Galileo spent over fourteen years studding Jupiter sending back high resolution data about the planet. It also launch a probe into Jupiter’s atmosphere to study the composition of the atmosphere for the first time. The structure of Jupiter’s magnetosphere was also mapped. Galileo discovered that the Jupiter’s faint ring system consists of dust from impacts on the four Jovian moons. Volcanism on Io was imaged. As well as its interaction with Jupiter’s atmosphere. The theory of liquid subsurface ocean under the ice world of Europa was further bolstered by data collected by Galileo and similar indicators were found to suggest the same occurring under the surface of Ganymede and Callisto. In 1994 Galileo also observed the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. On 21st September 2003, Galileo’s mission was terminated by sending the spacecraft into Jupiter’s atmosphere at a speed of 50 km/s. This decision was made so that there was no chance of Galileo crashing and contaminating any of Jupiter’s moons. The model is the first totally scratch built model using modelling plastic styrene sheets and rods. The plans were originally designed for a paper model. Although the main antenna never fully open on the spacecraft, Terry decided to show what the antenna would look like fully deployed. It is a 1/45th scale model and is 150 mm long and the antenna 110 mm in diameter (the real spacecraft weighing about 5000 Ibs and being about the size of a small car). The model took around six to nine months to make in spare time.

Cassini-Huygens Spacecraft

Cassini-Huygens was a joint mission by NASA, ESA and ASI to study Saturn, its rings and moons. It was launched on15th October 1997 on-board a Titan 1VB Centaur Rocket and after a journey of six years and nine months, it entered into orbit around Saturn on July 1st 2004. The attached Huygens probe was released from Cassini on Christmas Day 2004 and landed on the moon of Titan two weeks later. The mission had two extensions since then, the first in 2008 and the second in 2010, meaning that the spacecraft will stay in service around Saturn until 2017. At 22 feet high and 13 feet wide, the spacecraft is the largest and the most complex built to date, featuring over 1,630 interconnected electronic components, 22,000 wire connections and over 8 miles of cablings and at launch it weighed in at 5,600 kilograms (12,000 Ib). In June 1999, Cassini‘s velocity was recorded at 44.0 kilometres-per-second (98,346 mph). Radio signals to Cassini can take anywhere between 68 to 84 minutes to travel from Earth. This is the second spacecraft model that I have built, again, its scratch build from plastic styrene card, rods and struts, materials that architects and model railway modellers use. The plans were, like the Galileo model, taken from those designed for paper models, meaning features like the fuel cells would be two paper round discs slotted together at 90 degrees. I soften up a sheet of plastic plunge a small light bulb (I used a side light bulb taken from a car) forming a dish/half a sphere, made two of them and glued together to form a round fuel tank. The antenna dish was formed from thick plastic card, softened by a heat gun and pulled down over a bottom of a truck oil filter to give the correct dish shape, then trimmed up and detailed. To make the make the main body of the spacecraft, plastic card was cut to length and rolled to form a tube and ribs were made and added using small strips cut and shape to fit the body. Various pieces went into making the cameras, gyros and rocket engines. The magnetometer boom is, of a triangle lattices construction, and to make this I used (point) 0.6 mm diameter, 300 mm long by 6mm wide and individual pieces was cut to make the lattices structure, there is over 700 parts went into making the boom alone. The model was then painted and a base was made along with the mission logos, badges and a name plaque to display the model. The model is 1/37th scale and is 170 mm long, 90 mm wide with the magnetometer boom 300 mm long and the antenna dish 120 mm diameter. It took 9 months to build.

Magellan Spacecraft

The Magellan spacecraft was the first interplanetary spacecraft to be launched by the Space Shuttle when it was carried onboard the shuttle Atlantis in 1989. Atlantis released Magellan into low Earth orbit, where a solid fuel motor was fired sending Magellan on a fifteen month cruise to Venus – arriving in August 1990. The main objectives for Magellan was to map the surface of Venus using radar, collecting topographical and gravity field data in the process. Due to Venus constant cloud cover, the surface couldn’t be imaged visually so high resolution “synthetic aperture radar” was used to get a near-global images of Venus surface. The spacecraft was designed and built by Martin Marietta and JPL. To save on costs Magellan was made from many spare parts from the Voyager, Galileo, Mariner and Ulysses spacecraft programmes. The main body of the spacecraft was a 10 sided aluminium spare from the Voyager mission containing computers, data recorders and other subsystems derived from the Galileo mission. For communication back to Earth included a two lightweight graphite/aluminium antennae spares from the Mariner 9 spacecraft. This added up to a spacecraft weighing just over a1 tonne (with another 2 tonnes of fuel onboard at launch), standing 15feet high with a 12 foot high-gain antenna. This was all powered by two large solar arrays measuring 2.5 meters across which supplied the spacecraft with 1200 watts of power although this gradually degraded due to the frequent extreme temperature changes experienced at Venus. On the 11th October 1994, Magellan’s mission ended having completed 15,030 orbits of Venus. During its final few orbits, the spacecraft executed a special “windmill” experiment and 2 days later it became caught in the atmosphere and plunge to the surface. Although much of Magellan would be vaporized, some sections were expected to hit the planet surface intact.

As with the other models, Galileo and Cassini-Huygens, Magellan was again scratch built from plastic card and rods using plans for a paper-card kit. As with all paper models they are in 2D and look rather flat! The first task was to find as many pictures of Magellan as possible from the internet and comparing them with the plans. Terry measured up the main spacecraft bus, a 10 sided body, and added detail like the equipment modules. The next step was to sort through various truck oil filter’s that he had acquired, pick out the required filter and plunge mould to form the antenna dish – again from plastic card and then made the tripod and feed cone to detail the dish. A coat of plastic primer so cellulose paint will adhere to plastic and 3 coats of Halfords Appliance Gloss White make’s a very good antenna dish white. Back to the main model, the Forward Equipment Module was then glued to the bus. Next stage was to build the Propulsion Module Truss out of 1 mm plastic rod. The Helium Tank was made from heat gun-softened plastic card with a small ball bearing plunged through. Now on to the Rocket engine Module again made out of 1 mm plastic rod and scratch built to make 8 rocket thrusters. The altimeter antenna along with the Medium Gain antenna was also scratch built. The actual spacecraft appeared to be wrapped in a white blanket held together with what looks like gold tape, possibly to reflect heat from the spacecraft. A good coat of primer, then the model was sprayed again in Halfords Appliance White, the gold trim came from a gold transfer/decal sheet cut and applied to the model, and then a couple of coats of matt lacquer to seal everything in. The last thing was the solar panels. Two square plastic cards were cut out, sprayed silver and then masked up into small squares to represent solar panels, then sprayed with transparent blue and a few coats of pearlescent lacquer. The solar panels and the antenna dish were added to the model. The model looked a little bland in the opinion of Terry, and it needed a bit more detail, so he found a picture of the booster rocket, (this was used to get it to Venus) it wasn’t a clear picture to go on and after a little more research he found some photos that he could work from and scratch built the rocket booster and its fuel tank. And finally a wooden base was made out of pine vanished to a high gloss, mission/badges and the name plaque was made. Back to the solar panels, he wasn’t overall happy the way the panels come out so they were placed in and not glued and could be replaced at a later date when he would find a better way of making solar panels. The model is 1/30th scale and its 200 mm long and 235 mm wide (from solar panel to solar panel).

 

Daedalus Starship

                              

Project Daedalus was a project of the British Interplanetary Society and the 5 year study came to fruition in 1978. Around 2011 Terry took up the challenge to build a model for the BIS which was sponsored by the i4is as a thank you for the inspiration they had given to many over the years in keeping the interstellar vision alive. Daedalus was a theoretical starship powered by an inertial confinement fusion engine that would take around 50 years to get to the nearest stars at 12% of the speed of light. It was unmanned (robotic) and flyby only (no deceleration). The payload was 450 tons in mass and the vehicle carried 50,000 tons of Deuterium and Helium-3 fuel, the Helium-3 of which was to be mined from the gas giant Jupiter. Terry took around 5 years to build the model in rigorous detail and it is now permanently exhibited at the Head Quarters of the BIS in Vauxhall, London, for the enjoyment of all.

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Blog

A Precursor Mission to Proxima Centauri

31 October 2024

A Mission to Five Near Earth Objects in 2030 Adam Hibberd We at i4is, together with our collaborators on the Phase I NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) at Space Initiatives Inc., have been contemplating precursors to the ultimate mission of sending laser sails to swarm our nearest neighbouring star, Proxima Centauri. A summary of the […]

Deflecting Apophis

26 October 2024

Adam Hibberd There have been some developments. I have been addressing the problem of how to deflect Apophis from its path if it were indeed on a collision course with Earth. My Apocalypse Plot gives the magnitude of ΔV at different points in Apophis’s orbit to send it on a course to JUST strike the […]

Apophis: More Monolythical Mathematical Musings.

29 September 2024

Adam Hibberd Apophis gets awfully close on Friday April 13th 2029 (within GEO altitude). Its orbit is altered by the encounter with Earth and the obvious question is will there be any further possible encounters? Some of you may remember I have worked on the practicalities of sending laser-accelerated sails to intercept Apophis as it […]

Errors in Velocity Due to an Interstellar Probe’s Fast Encounter with a Star

23 July 2024

Adam Hibberd A spacecraft is travelling on a very hyperbolic orbit w.r.t. an object X (possibly a star) which has gravitational mass, μ, meaning the spacecraft is only slightly deflected from its direction of motion. Our task is to quantify the errors in velocity, both longitudinal and transverse, associated with this encounter compared to simply […]

‘Oumuamua: Lasers in Space

16 May 2024

Adam Hibberd In my latest research, I have been considering the case of using laser structures in space to accelerate space laser sails to sufficient speed so that they will ultimately reach the first discovered interstellar object, 1I/’Oumuamua, within a matter of years from launch, or even as soon as a year. This is clearly […]

Measurement of Mass by Space Sails

16 February 2024

Adam Hibberd I’ve been doing a little algebra. Let me state the problem. Let us say we have a swarm of space sails flying edge on to the interstellar medium (ISM). This swarm lies in a plane at right angles to its velocity relative to this ISM. Now lets bring in an element of the […]

Project Lyra Mission Guide

26 January 2024

Adam Hibberd I provide for you a chart of some missions to 1I/’Oumuamua investigated by Project Lyra. The green rows use chemical propulsion, the blue use nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) and the pink exploit laser sails. This table will be updated when new research becomes available. For more detail, zoom in with your mouse (Ctrl+scroll […]

Project Lyra: A Solar Oberth at 10 Solar Radii

5 January 2024

Adam Hibberd I have recently returned my attention to the Solar Oberth mission to ‘Oumuamua. For readers not familiar with this celestial body, 1I/’Oumuamua was the first interstellar object to be discovered passing through our Solar System, is now out of range of our most powerful telescopes and has left scientists with many questions in […]

Swarming Proxima

20 November 2023

Adam Hibberd Breakthrough Starshot is the Initative to send a probe at 20% light speed (0.2c) to the nearest neighbouring star Proxima Centauri. But how do we achieve such a high speed? It turns out that if we have an extremely powerful laser (and exponential advances in tech over the next decades will mean that […]

Laser and Sail in Earth Orbit with Evolutionary Neurocontrol

24 October 2023

Adam Hibberd In my last post I explained how my software development, Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software (OITS), seems to achieve miracles of intelligent design in a fashion analogous to evolution, though in fact with both cases evidently no intelligence is involved – instead simple mechanisms combined with iteration are at work. This concept stimulated me […]

OITS Takes on Evolution

10 September 2023

Adam Hibberd The more I think about evolution through natural selection the more I see analogues to my software development Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software. (I should make it clear at this early stage in my post that OITS does NOT employ a genetic/evolutionary algorithm approach, I shall elucidate below.) You see there is NO intent […]

How Close did ‘Oumuamua Approach Each of the Inner Planets?

2 September 2023

Adam Hibberd A view of the distance of ‘Oumuamua from each of the Inner Planets as it rounded the sun, reached perihelion and then sped away again. Mars was just about as far away as it could possibly have been from ‘Oumuamua. ‘Oumuamua came very close to Earth (around 0.16 au). It came no closer […]

Was Loeb’s Bolide Interstellar?

1 September 2023

Adam Hibberd Loeb’s interstellar spherules have caused controversy and indignation amongst experts in the science community. For those of you not-in-the-know, Loeb travelled to the site of a proposed interstellar meteor (his designation: IM1) which he had identified in a catalogue of bolides held by NASA and then discovered in the ocean tiny metallic blobs he […]

‘Oumuamua – a Sci-Fi Story or Reality?

23 August 2023

Adam Hibberd Let me tell you all a story. It is the story of life and its purpose. I ask you to bear with me here as Project Lyra and ‘Oumuamua will make an appearance eventually – I promise. Many of you will be familiar with the idea that the universe might be some kind […]

‘Oumuamua: The Mystery Unfolds

20 August 2023

Adam Hibberd Those of you who have been following my Project Lyra blogs know that I have over the past year or so done some extensive analysis of ‘Oumuamua’s trajectory. You may refer to previous posts on the i4is website to get an understanding of exactly what I have been up to, or alternatively continue […]

Psyche: OITS has Something to Say

18 August 2023

Adam Hibberd Here’s a mission to asteroid Psyche for you. Initial theories favoured Psyche as a core of a failed protoplanet, containing vast reserves of metals. More recent research, however favour alternative origin theories. Whatever is the case, we are about to discover its true nature and this would be a huge step forwards for […]

Project Lyra: Ignore the outlier and miss an opportunity

31 July 2023

Adam Hibberd Wouldn’t you like an answer to the question: What is ‘Oumuamua? There have been many theories, but there is no real consensus. The only way to answer this would be to send a spacecraft to observe ‘Oumuamua in situ but the total lack of will-power to get this question answered, in my view, […]

The Case of Fireball CNEOS 2017-10-09

28 July 2023

Adam Hibberd Around the middle of last year I read an article by Siraj and Loeb in which they analysed closely a database of bolides (which are meteor fireballs) maintained by NASA-JPL CNEOS (Center for Near Earth Object Studies). In so doing they identified at least one bolide as having an interstellar origin (designated CNEOS […]

Project Lyra: The Mission to Resolve a Mystery

4 July 2023

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 […]

Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software: The Secrets Revealed

25 June 2023

Adam Hibberd In the UK Spring of 2017, I derived the theory for solving interplanetary trajectories, which enabled me to develop a powerful software tool for optimising hight thrust spacecraft missions, a tool which I called Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software (OITS). For those of you fascinated by mathematics, in particular mathematical formulae, the two equations […]

Laser Sails: Trajectories Using Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software

16 June 2023

It struck me a while ago that I have developed this extremely effective tool for solving interplanetary trajectories (OITS), so how would I be able to exploit it for alternative applications – applications which would be beyond its originally intended purpose, that of designing trajectories for chemically propelled spacecraft (and in the process assuming impulsive […]

Mars Ride-Share: an Opportunity Not to be Missed

14 June 2023

Adam Hibberd I was recently discussing with my colleagues across the pond, the potential for mounting a cheap mission to some alternative, yet interesting destination in the inner Solar System, by exploiting a ‘ride-share’ with a more important mission, possibly one organised by NASA or ESA. It struck me that since there have been, and […]

C/2014 UN271 the comet which will NOT collide with the Earth

4 April 2023

Adam Hibberd An Oort cloud comet is composed primarily of dust and ice and has spent most of its life in the far-flung distant reaches of our Solar System (2,000 au to 200,000 au from our Sun). It is eventually nudged inward towards our Sun by gravitational influences such as galactic tides or some passing […]

Project Lyra: Falcon Heavy Expendable

27 March 2023

Adam Hibberd Following on from my previous blog where I studied the capability of the up-coming Ariane 6 4 launcher in terms of delivering a spacecraft on a course to intercept the first interstellar object to be discovered, ‘Oumuamua, I continue this logical progression with analysis of a more powerful launcher, the Falcon Heavy. The […]

Project Lyra: Using an Ariane 6

16 March 2023

Adam Hibberd Ariane 6 is the up-and-coming successor to the old Arianespace workhorse, Ariane 5, and may secure its maiden flight later this year. There will ultimately be two strap-on booster configurations from which to choose, one with two boosters, and the more powerful version with four. I thought it might be worthwhile assessing the […]

Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software (OITS)

15 February 2023

Adam Hibberd I started development of this software, OITS, in April 2017 on a holiday near the little town of Cheadle, in the county of Staffordshire, UK. I started from the very basics, deriving the theory during the holiday and continuing shortly thereafter, and then immersed myself in the implementation of the equations I had […]

Music of ‘Oumuamua

30 January 2023

Adam Hibberd If you have a fascination for the mysterious interstellar object ‘Oumuamua and are musically inclined, please check out these two pieces by my musician friend Robin Jax based on recordings of me playing two piano compositions of mine. Whether it be Robin’s neurodivergence, or my own schizophrenia, we have both overcome our respective […]

Things to Come

22 January 2023

Adam Hibberd I sometimes wonder at the short-sightedness of people. The sort of people who scoff and scorn at the far-sighted work which most of my work colleagues and I have dedicated a good deal of our lives to pursue, largely voluntarily. They may argue: We have such and such a problem NOW, how are […]

Project Lyra: Using Jupiter Alone to get to ‘Oumuamua

9 January 2023

Adam Hibberd Here is a ‘pork chop plot’ of missions to ‘Oumuamua using a Jupiter powered gravitational assist (or a Jupiter Oberth Manoeuvre, JOM). Refer to the Figure (1). Essentially, what we have are three coordinates where firstly the horizontal axis shows the launch date, the vertical axis shows the flight duration, and for every […]

‘Oumuamua: The State of Play

30 December 2022

Adam Hibberd In 2017, an interstellar object was discovered, the first ever to be detected. It was observed by the Hawaiian observatory Pan-STARRS, subsequently studied by many telescopes before disappearing into the distance in January 2018. An estimate on the number density, N (how many per unit volume), in interstellar space was determined based on […]

Why the Stars?

24 November 2022

Adam Hibberd November 2022 People may ask the question why we should venture beyond our solar system to explore the stars? Why should we commit precious resources to such an endeavour? I have an answer to this which may to some degree be a personal one. The question boils down to why are we curious? […]

Exploring ‘Oumuamua’s Trajectory – Further Notes

9 November 2022

Adam Hibberd November 2022 In my last blog I reported the progress of my work regarding the intriguing little conundrum of the first interstellar object (ISO) to be discovered, designated ‘Oumuamua, in particular my research into its orbit. In fact ‘Oumuamua is puzzling on many counts and I have also in a previous blog elaborated […]

Exploring ‘Oumuamua’s Perihelion Date

31 October 2022

Adam Hibberd October 2022 This blog may be a bit cheeky but do take heed of the last line before jumping to any conclusions! I’ve been mucking around with ‘Oumuamua’s orbit on my computer lately. Mucking around in the sense of playing with its orbital parameters and seeing what crops up. Those of you who […]

3I/ATLAS: What if?

17 July 2025

Adam Hibberd My paper with Adam Crowl and Avi Loeb is out today, and we have collectively been doing what scientists and philosophers have been doing since time immemorial, and that is asking questions, and exercising our imaginations in the process. In this case the question goes like this: ‘is 3I/ATLAS, the third interstellar interloper […]

Missions to 3I/ATLAS

8 July 2025

Adam Hibberd The third interstellar object is causing a bit of a stir. What could it be exactly? Judging by its predicted path, we should get a ring-side view of it from Earth, except for an important viewing outage as it approaches perihelion – the closest approach to the Sun – simply because it will […]

Members Newsletter – June

29 June 2025

I4is Workshops at the Royal Institution London 7/8th AugustThe i4is education team will be once again bringing the Skateboards to Starships workshops to the Royal Institution in August. For those not familiar we show how the physics and maths of jumping off a skateboard can be used to understand how rockets work and how different […]

Principium 49

9 June 2025

Principium 49 has gone out to subscribers and is now accessible to all.

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Starship Blog

A Precursor Mission to Proxima Centauri

Deflecting Apophis

Apophis: More Monolythical Mathematical Musings.

Errors in Velocity Due to an Interstellar Probe’s Fast Encounter with a Star

‘Oumuamua: Lasers in Space

Measurement of Mass by Space Sails

Project Lyra Mission Guide

Project Lyra: A Solar Oberth at 10 Solar Radii

Swarming Proxima

Laser and Sail in Earth Orbit with Evolutionary Neurocontrol

OITS Takes on Evolution

How Close did ‘Oumuamua Approach Each of the Inner Planets?

Was Loeb’s Bolide Interstellar?

‘Oumuamua – a Sci-Fi Story or Reality?

‘Oumuamua: The Mystery Unfolds

Psyche: OITS has Something to Say

Project Lyra: Ignore the outlier and miss an opportunity

The Case of Fireball CNEOS 2017-10-09

Project Lyra: The Mission to Resolve a Mystery

Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software: The Secrets Revealed

Laser Sails: Trajectories Using Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software

Mars Ride-Share: an Opportunity Not to be Missed

C/2014 UN271 the comet which will NOT collide with the Earth

Project Lyra: Falcon Heavy Expendable

Project Lyra: Using an Ariane 6

Optimum Interplanetary Trajectory Software (OITS)

Music of ‘Oumuamua

Things to Come

Project Lyra: Using Jupiter Alone to get to ‘Oumuamua

‘Oumuamua: The State of Play

Why the Stars?

Exploring ‘Oumuamua’s Trajectory – Further Notes

Exploring ‘Oumuamua’s Perihelion Date

3I/ATLAS: What if?

Missions to 3I/ATLAS

Members Newsletter – June

Principium 49

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The Initiative for Interstellar Studies is entirely dependent upon the goodwill of its volunteer teams, the minor amounts we receive from our activities and the sale of our merchandise but also the kindness of donors. In order to advance our mission of achieving interstellar flight over the next century, we need your help and support. If you are feeling generous we would very much appreciate your help in moving our mission forward. Make a donation » about Donate

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