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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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Can anyone remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 13 2016, @05:45PM
Nuclear spacecraft engines would indeed be a big improvement in thrust over our current technology, but according to Wikipedia, Project Orion would still require 130 years to get to Alpha Centauri. That won't seem so bad if we can medically eliminate aging, but until then it's just too long.