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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 13 2016, @12:29PM
oh lasers?
i was hoping for a unscalable blackhole engine the size of a soda can or something ...