Interstellar propulsion by SunLensing Available to Purchase

In this paper we investigate a seemingly new possibility for propelling a spacecraft over interstellar distances. The idea is that the light from nearby stars reaching the Sun neighborhood is focused by the Sun mass of the into a narrow beam in the direction opposite to the star’s location on the celestial sphere. This phoenomenon is called the “Sun Gravitational Lensing,” or “SunLensing,” and the nearest focusing point is located over 550 AU away from the Sun depending on the light frequency that is focused. Beyond this minimal focal distance, every point along the focal axis is a focus too “up to infinity.” One is thus led to wonder whether a suitable “sailcraft,” like Dr. Robert Forward’s “Starwisp,” could possibly be pushed out of the solar system by this narrowly focused light beam, of course only in directions opposite to the brightest stars. In addition, some thought are given in the present paper to the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background), i.e. the “relict” radiation that has been filling the universe since about 300,000 years after the Big Bang when matter and radiation decoupled. Discovered in 1964, CMB has a perfect back-body spectrum (Planck spectrum) with a temperature $T=2.728 K,$ as conclusively proven by the COBE space mission (1989–1993). As such, the CMB has always been regarded as a central topic in cosmology only. In this paper, however, some thoughts are given on the possibility “to apply” the CMB as a propulsion beam focused upon any spacecraft by the gravitational lens of the Sun. Our feeling is that the CMB focusing by the Sun does indeed exist, but it is a very tiny effect. In fact the amount of focused CMB in any direction around the Sun simply equals the amount of CMB radiation shielded by the Sun’s disk in that direction.