“Can we literally reach the stars, and can we do it in our lifetime?”Even after it reaches Alpha Centauri, the team feels that it would take another four years for the spacecraft to collect and beam back information to the earth”. This is pretty good going, seeing as our current fastest ship would take a whopping 78,000 years to cover the 4.3 light years of open space between us and the next star.
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“Today, we commit to this next great leap into the cosmos”, Hawking said alongside billionaire entrepreneur Yuri Milner at a press conference Tuesday in NY. The Facebook CEO, along with physicist Stephen Hawking, just announced he’s part of a new plan to send a legion of miniscule spacecraft (or “nanocraft”) to outer space.
The first step in the program involves researching and developing “light-propelled nanocrafts” that, while no bigger than a computer chip, would be capable of moving at 20 percent the speed of light.
“But now we can transcend it. With light beams, light sails and the lightest spacecraft ever built, we can launch a mission to Alpha Centauri within a generation”. It will involve sending off tiny space probes towards the Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to ascertain the possibility of having alien life in space. “It is time to launch the next great leap in human history”, he said.
The Silicon Valley science philanthropist Yuri Milner and the world’s renowned cosmologist Stephen Hawking have announced a new Breakthrough Initiative focusing on space exploration and the search for life in the Universe.
ABC News reported that with the ultra-high-speed spacecraft will be able to reach the destination star within 20 years.
The craft would come equipped with a “StarChip”, a gram-scale wafer carrying cameras, photon thrusters, power supply, navigation, and communication equipment. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg also sits on the board of the Breakthrough Starshot.
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While the group admits it has a handful of hurdles left to overcome before the project truly gets off the ground, the brainpower and financial backing of those involved may help to make this dream of reaching the stars a reality. The project is led by Pete Worden, former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, and advised by a committee of top scientists and engineers.
