A solar gravitational lens will be humanity's most powerful telescope (2022)

The most complete plan for this was proposed by JPL's Slava Turyshev and team. It has been selected for Phase III of NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts. [0]

> In 2020, Turyshev presented his idea of Direct Multi-pixel Imaging and Spectroscopy of an Exoplanet with a Solar Gravitational Lens Mission. The lens could reconstruct the exoplanet image with ~25 km-scale surface resolution in 6 months of integration time, enough to see surface features and signs of habitability. His proposal was selected for the Phase III of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts. Turyshev proposes to use realistic-sized solar sails (~16 vanes of 10^3 m^2) to achieve the needed high velocity at perihelion (~150 km/sec), reaching 547 AU in 17 years.

> In 2023, a team of scientists led by Turychev proposed the Sundiver concept,[1] whereby a solar sail craft can serve as a modular platform for various instruments and missions, including rendezvous with other Sundivers for resupply, in a variety of different self-sustaining orbits reaching velocities of ~5-10 AU/yr.

Here is an interview with him laying out the entire plan.[2] It is the most interesting interview that I have seen in years, possibly ever.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slava_Turyshev#Work

[1] https://www2.mpia-hd.mpg.de/~calj/sundiver.pdf

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqzJewjZUkk

Stop. For whatever reason, he has people call him Slava and does not correct them when they do so.

>For whatever reason

The reason is that you won't bother to pronounce Vyacheslav so Russians have to use a short version of their name.

No, they don't have to - they are chosing to. To pretend otherwise is to say they don't have agency in this, which they do.

Even if somebody puts a gun to your head and orders you to change your name, you'd still have a choice and it would be your decision what to do. That's not much of an argument though.

No one put a gun to his head though. Discomfort of English speakers isn't enough reason to not use your real name if that's your preference. Again, speaking from experience.

Many Chinese (speaking) students in the US pick an English language name like “William” or “Wendy” because they know people they meet will struggle with a name which could be several short words with unfamiliar vowels and consonants and tone that matters.