> "We do need to learn how to conduct missions over these very long timescales if we are ever going to come close to achieving any of the aspirations of interstellar exploration that are so often posed in the popular media," she says.
> To help understand how to deal with the intergenerational nature of this proposed mission, the research team reached out to Janet Vertesi, a sociologist with Princeton University who has studied the organizational aspects of other projects in space.
> ...
> She's led discussions with the researchers to help them sort through this. Astronomer Carey Lisse, who is working on the interstellar probe study, said these sessions were "very blunt and made us think a lot."
> He's done the math. "I will be 75 in 2036 when we launch. That means that I know I'm not going to be on this mission probably for more than 10 years after launch," says Lisse, adding that the need for handovers is just a fact. "This isn't just theory or just talk. It's going to happen multiple times, probably two or three times at least."
> ...
> Ocker, who doesn't even have a Ph.D. yet, points out that she'll be late in her career by the time this probe reaches interstellar space, if NASA decides to support it and if it launches in the 2030s. "I'm very hopeful that this mission will happen. I really hope it does, in which case I'll be very excited to use the data when it does eventually come down," she says.
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/26/1048358753/if-nasa-green-ligh...
> "We do need to learn how to conduct missions over these very long timescales if we are ever going to come close to achieving any of the aspirations of interstellar exploration that are so often posed in the popular media," she says.
> To help understand how to deal with the intergenerational nature of this proposed mission, the research team reached out to Janet Vertesi, a sociologist with Princeton University who has studied the organizational aspects of other projects in space.
> ...
> She's led discussions with the researchers to help them sort through this. Astronomer Carey Lisse, who is working on the interstellar probe study, said these sessions were "very blunt and made us think a lot."
> He's done the math. "I will be 75 in 2036 when we launch. That means that I know I'm not going to be on this mission probably for more than 10 years after launch," says Lisse, adding that the need for handovers is just a fact. "This isn't just theory or just talk. It's going to happen multiple times, probably two or three times at least."
> ...
> Ocker, who doesn't even have a Ph.D. yet, points out that she'll be late in her career by the time this probe reaches interstellar space, if NASA decides to support it and if it launches in the 2030s. "I'm very hopeful that this mission will happen. I really hope it does, in which case I'll be very excited to use the data when it does eventually come down," she says.