Staircase Program
First appears in Book 3: Death's End, chapter 7 (Crisis Era, Years 1–4 Cheng Xin)
Appearances
B1
B2
B3
What you know
Book 3: Death's End
- Ch 7Code name for the feasibility study of en-route propulsion; the probe gains speed stepwise with each bomb, aiming above one percent of lightspeed.
- Ch 7The Staircase Program proposed a probe pushed by a radiation sail to 1 percent of lightspeed, to intercept the Trisolaran Fleet.
- Ch 7Feasibility studies concluded the sail could shrink to 25 square kilometers and 20 kilograms, but the whole probe must be only 200 kilograms, leaving 180 kg for instruments.
- Ch 7The PDC voted down the Staircase Program: four of seven permanent members said no, citing the probe's near-nil intelligence value.
- Ch 7The probe could not decelerate, so it would pass the Trisolaran Fleet at about 5 percent of lightspeed, with a tiny intelligence window and only passive sensing.
- Ch 9NASA's tests show the spacecraft must be one-twentieth its planned mass; the sail can be under ten kilograms, limiting payload to half a kilogram.
- Ch 9The plan was modified to send a person to the Trisolarans, as a hidden 'ticking bomb' using human deception.
- Ch 10Launched at the beginning of the Crisis Era, it used only primitive technology to boost a small probe to 1 percent of lightspeed.
- Ch 10The probe has no engine; nuclear bombs placed along its route detonate as the sail passes, propelling it, with timing precision beyond the nanosecond range.
- Ch 10Probe direction is controlled by small thrusters on each bomb adjusting the distance to the sail, altering the angle of the explosion's propulsive force.
- Ch 10The text calls it a desperate attempt drawing on everything humanity's primitive technology could offer; it could not bring about a new Space Age.
- Ch 11It aims to accelerate a probe to 1 percent of lightspeed using the combined power of nuclear warheads launched into orbit.
- Ch 11Because the subject must be killed before launch, candidates had to be chosen from terminally ill patients.
- Ch 12The program sent a human brain by a nuclear-bomb-propelled radiation-sail craft to meet the Trisolaran Fleet.
- Ch 17The Staircase Program is forgotten by history; the Trisolarans never intercepted the probe, and Tianming's brain is lost in space.
Connections
- created byCheng Xin
- includesFlying BladeMaterial of the cables connecting sail to payload
- includesradiation sail
- has memberYun Tianmingchosen candidate
Key moments
- Book 3 · Ch 7Staircase Program voted down
Feasibility studies show the probe must be only 200 kg, and Wade reveals that the PDC rejected the program for its minimal intelligence value.
- Book 3 · Ch 10Staircase Program described
A retrospective account explains how the Staircase Program accelerated a probe to 1 percent of lightspeed using timed nuclear explosions behind a radiation sail, with a payload on very long Flying Blade cables.