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The BBC and the Guardian both carry stories about an unmanned interstellar spacecraft designed to reach the Alpha Centauri system "within a generation" (30 or so years).
The spacecraft would be miniaturised to the size of an average silicon chip, and be propelled by a solar sail which would receive a boost from a powerful laser on the Earth.
Milner's Breakthrough Foundation is running a project, backed by Hawking, to research the technologies needed for such a mission, which they think will soon be feasible.
takyon: The campaign is called Breakthrough Starshot. Breakthrough Initiatives also announced the release of initial observational datasets from the Breakthrough Listen 10-year SETI effort.
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Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner's $100 Million Interstellar Spacecraft Plan
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A Smith & Wesson beats four aces.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday April 13 2016, @08:26AM
> The article says it'll send back a laser signal, but it might be too weak to even see.
Send a chain of them, as far apart as their transmitters / receivers will allow. Have them relay the signals from the frontmost probe back to Earth.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Wednesday April 13 2016, @04:36PM
That is the proposed idea. As the first batch reach a certain point, launch subsequent batches in series to maintain comm's.
I RTFA, and it seemed well thought out, and may be doable down the road. They openly admit that the success depends on advances in tech that have not been made yet, but are plausible in the near future. The plan is more of a 'let's see if we can figure out how to do this, and if feasible, then do it within 30 years', instead of an actual, detailed, final plan.
One thing I did notice was how they proposed to power the 'craft' with 'expected advances'; most other areas they at least had a starting point, or suggestion.
To be fair though, they have listed 20 'items' that needed to be overcome/solved to make this work...power supply was on that list.
I started reading the submitted articles for entertainment purposes long ago, and it has worked astoundingly well. ;-)
Reading the comments brings about the same feeling I used to get as a kid, watching Looney Tunes on Saturday morning. :-)