The Breakthrough Starshot project will tackle the difficult engineering hurdles between us and our nearest stellar neighbors
Until very recently, this idea remained solidly within the realm of science fiction. But today the outlook is beginning to change. In April, the physicist-turned-internet-billionaire Yuri Milner, together with Stephen Hawking and other notable scientists and engineers, announced that the Breakthrough Foundation would begin funding work on the concept of a laser-propelled starship, with the long-term goal of reaching the closest neighboring star system to our own, Alpha Centauri. Their initiative, dubbed Breakthrough Starshot, is a Silicon Valley take on Forward’s vision that imagines shrinking the spacecraft down to a mass of a few grams. A fleet of such “nanocraft”, each tethered to a light sail a few meters wide, could be economically launched into space and then accelerated toward Alpha Centauri with a terrestrial laser system. Illuminated by tens of gigawatts of laser light, the miniature spacecraft would reach 20 percent of the speed of light in about 4 minutes. After a 20-year cruise, they would zip through the Alpha Centauri system in a few hours and send data and images back to Earth from the brief encounter.