Acquiring Antimatter
Antimatter is obtained by sending a spacecraft into the comet's tail and catching antimatter dust particles that are being blasted off the comet's surface by the solar wind and dust particles. The spacecraft's configuration would look similar to artist's representation on left.
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The first unmanned spacecraft will take about a year to retrieve antimatter dust particles. However, after antimatter is obtained, the time can be significantly reduce to months, then weeks, and eventually days. Antimatter will be used as a source of energy for sending spacecraft to the comets.
Initially, gram quantities of antimatter will be obtained. As technology advances, kilogram quantities of antimatter will become available as prices drops from $1 billion/gram to less than $1 million/gram. At $1 million/gram, antimatter power plants become economical.
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