Top all-time · #464
Centauri Dreams
Personal blog · centauri-dreams.orgscience
Centauri Dreams is a personal blog at centauri-dreams.org about science. Since 2009, 125 different Hacker News readers have linked it 314 times, most often “The Dipole Drive: A New Concept for Space Propulsion”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 10 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
Commenters link Centauri Dreams as a go-to blog on interstellar travel and propulsion concepts, including solar sails, nuclear propulsion and exoplanet missions. Its back catalogue is cited as a resource.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The Dipole Drive: A New Concept for Space Propulsion4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-06-29
- The Gravitational Lens and Communications3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2011-07-18
- Voyager as Technosignature3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-06-12
- An Interesting SETI Candidate in Hercules3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2016-08-27
- A 'Manhole Cover' Beyond the Solar System?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-01-08
- A Method for Creating Enormous Space Telescopes3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-03-07
- Wind Rider: A High Performance Magsail3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-11-20
- How Far Can Civilization Go?2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-06-25
- Assessing the Oberth Maneuver for Interstellar Probe2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-10-07
- A Space Catapult with Interstellar Potential2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-08-01
What Hacker News says?
A very different mode of Statite system operation is possible that would allow the Statite to be placed at any point around the Earth, at all times of the year, even over the sunlit side, at the expense of slightly greater operating distance. Instead of the Statite being balanced by sunlight in the gravitational field of the Earth, the Statite would be placed in orbit around the Sun, at such a distance from the eart…
Comment linking /2010/07/29/statites-hovering-over-the-pole/
on “Carbon Removal Technologies”Submitted Black Hole Propulsion as Technosignature as a story · 235 points
HN discussionheh, as you say; apparently there was a previous signal; reading the article about the find at centauri dreams, http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=36210 - and it does mention a pre-2016 Doppler signal with a period of 11.2 days around specifically Proxima, that was unconfirmed, and that this mission was to investigate that more closely. "The HARPS Pale Red Dot campaign was created to confirm or refute this 11.2-day s…
Comment linking /?p=36210
on “Planet Found in Habitable Zone Around Nearest Star”Submitted Seven Dyson Sphere Candidates as a story · 191 points
HN discussionThere are ideas for slowing them down and even returning them back to Earth, at least in principle: http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=31913 Nothing that could be implemented in any foreseeable future though.
Comment linking /?p=31913
on “Planet Found in Habitable Zone Around Nearest Star”Submitted An Interesting SETI Candidate in Hercules as a story · 189 points
HN discussionIndeed. But then developed it hitch hikes a ride on asteroids and spreads virally. See Dr Zubrin’s recent discussions https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2017/12/21/interstellar-comm...
Comment linking /2017/12/21/interstellar-communication-using-microbes-implications-for-seti/
on “Two potentially life-friendly planets found orbiting a nearby star”Submitted The Plasma Magnet Drive: A Simple, Cheap Drive for the Solar System and Beyond as a story · 185 points
HN discussionYou can --- you use a thing called a magsail. The short version is: remember the old Bussard ramscoop idea? You use a magnetic field to collect interstellar hydrogen which you then fuse for thrust? Turns out that in our part of the galaxy, you get more drag from the sail than you do from the fusion thrust, so the idea was scrapped. An embarrassingly long time later people finally realised that they'd invented a fuel…
Comment linking /?p=22138
on “A Visionary Project Aims for Alpha Centauri, a Star 4.37 Light-Years Away”Submitted A Visualization of Galactic Settlement as a story · 175 points
HN discussionI submitted a site as a joke and now I feel bad because there are a lots of interesting sites submitted. So let me contribute with 2 other sites, maybe not the "coolest" but I think they will be of interest to some fraction of the people here (for those who dont know them) - http://www.astronautix.com/ A labor of love of just 1 person, almost of 80000 pages! on humanity space programs,you can spend hours and hours r…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What's the coolest website you know?”Submitted ‘Oumuamua, Thin Films and Lightsails as a story · 174 points
HN discussionHere it is: https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2017/11/10/project-lyra-send... Jupiter flyby first that drops the perhelion to 3 solar radii (!) and the a high thrust SRB burn for maximum Obert effect on reaching perhelion. Looks like it can give you up to 70 km/s of delta-v. :)
Comment linking /2017/11/10/project-lyra-sending-a-spacecraft-to-1ioumuamua-formerly-a2017-u1-the-interstellar-asteroid/
on “New nuclear engine concept could help realize 3-month trips to Mars”Submitted Uncertain Propulsion Breakthroughs? as a story · 162 points
HN discussionCheck out https://www.centauri-dreams.org/ , it's a blog dedicated to interstellar travel. It's on hiatus at the moment, but there are plenty of back articles to read! However, I recommend you figure out how to reduce your anxiety, because after reading it for a while it will become clear that interstellar travel isn't happening any time in the foreseeable future. Fortunately, I don't think that a species that flour…
Comment linking /
on “IAC confirms existence of a Super-earth in the habitable zone of a Sun-like Star”Submitted Can life emerge around a white dwarf? as a story · 147 points
HN discussionSolar sail might help slow it down at destination + possibly a close solar Oberth maneuver to capture in an orbit in the target system. Being a probe sized craft, deceleration as well as a very close flyby close to a star should be much more doable than with a big honking interstellar ark. As for power - even a small nuclear reactor would be fine initially if it can last long enough for it to land somewhere suitable…
Comment linking /2021/10/06/assessing-the-oberth-maneuver-for-interstellar-probe/
on “Project Hyperion: Interstellar ship design competition”Submitted Interstellar Mission to a Black Hole as a story · 142 points
HN discussionIf you put a radio at ~10X the distance of Pluto, you can use the sun as a gravitational lens, and communicate with another star using milliwatts of power: http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=10123 You're still bound by the speed of light, unfortunately.
Comment linking /?p=10123
on “‘Diamond-age’ of power generation as nuclear batteries developed”Submitted The Dipole Drive: A New Concept for Space Propulsion as a story · 140 points
HN discussionhttps://www.centauri-dreams.org/2020/12/10/developing-focal-... (and its critical analysis) https://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.06351 I believe that work on such a project would be interesting, even if it isn't ever done. It is something that if you worked on it as a grad student, and then became a professor and your grad students worked on it ... and they became professors and their grad students worked on it - they'd be th…
Comment linking /2020/12/10/developing-focal-mission-concepts/
on “The Webb Telescope further deepens the Hubble tension controversy in cosmology”Submitted Is Planet Nine Alone in the Outer System? as a story · 119 points
HN discussionThere's a nice article on centauri dreams just published looking at solar and nuclear options for such a mission. https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2022/07/26/getting-there-qui...
Comment linking /2022/07/26/getting-there-quickly-the-nuclear-option/
on “Mission to reach and operate at the focal region of the solar gravitational lens”Submitted Can We Catch the Next ‘Oumuamua? as a story · 113 points
HN discussionI've never heard it called anything fancy, just the "wait calculation" or the "wait equation" https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2006/11/24/barnards-star-and...
Comment linking /2006/11/24/barnards-star-and-the-wait-equation/
on “Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design”Submitted Interstellar Flight: Perspectives and Patience as a story · 101 points
HN discussionGilster writes about it every few months https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2024/01/19/data-return-from-...
Comment linking /2024/01/19/data-return-from-proxima-centauri-b/
on “A “meta-optics” camera that is the size of a grain of salt”Submitted The 'Freakish Radio Writings' of 1924 as a story · 82 points
HN discussionThis is part of a short series on Centauri Dreams, starting with this article: https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2019/03/04/pondering-the-dys... As it says in that article, > Such concepts obviously imply an interstellar civilization capable of reaching the objects in the first place. But once there, the energies to be exploited would be spectacular. The paper discussed in these articles is not proposing that we puny…
Comment linking /2019/03/04/pondering-the-dyson-slingshot/
on “Black Hole Propulsion as Technosignature”Submitted SETI: No Signal Detected from KIC 8462852 as a story · 77 points
HN discussion
