Project Daedalus Launch

The probes designed over 250 years ago for the Project Daedalus Systematic Unmanned Space Exploration were truly beautiful. Like all well build devices, their technology at no point out shined their pragmatism, durability and style, but likewise was not insufficient. Each Project Daedalus probe was capable of operating without human intervention: all man had to do was to get them into orbit. This was still a tremendous task though, seeing that 5,000 of these probes, each about as large as a refrigerator and five times as heavy, were to be launched. Of the initial 5,000 probes only a lucky 3,432 actually made it into space. At a raw materials cost of over $30,000, the excess probes were adapted for other programs when it became clear that launching them was no longer possible. Twenty three of the probes were taken into orbit each launch. It took a better part of a decade to get the ones that did make the launch from the pad to orbit. From there they all went their separate ways, each probe to travel no less than 100 years away from earth. This project was monumental in its scope - both chronologically and spatially. It was a true investment in the future. With a probe survival half life of 400 years, it was an investment that promised to have great returns for the great-great-great-great-grandchildren of the visionaries that began it. Project Daedalus' first launch, September 26th, 2042 was the date that humanity became serious about space.