Ever since watching my first episode of Star Trek I wanted to see the day come when we can travel to the stars. We may never have the ability to travel at the leisure we see on that TV show. However we may be able to at least travel to nearby stars. Before people can go there, we will probably send probes. Sending people to the stars may be a few centuries away. However, sending a probe to Alpha Centauri, part of a three star system that is the closest to Earth, may be just a few years away. Alpha Centauri is a little over 4 light years away. When I was a kid, they told us traveling to the stars was impossible. They are too far away. With today’s technology, our rockets would take over 40,000 years. But with these new plans, the probe will take 20 years. That is much better. So from Space.com:
-SJ Otto
The famed cosmologist, along with a group of scientists and billionaire investor Yuri Milner, unveiled an ambitious new $100 million project today (April 12) called Breakthrough Starshot, which aims to build the prototype for a tiny, light-propelled robotic spacecraft that could visit the nearby star Alpha Centauri after a journey of just 20 years.
"The limit that confronts us now is the great void between us and the stars, but now we can transcend it," Hawking said today during a news conference here at One World Observatory. [Stephen Hawking: 'Transcending Our Limits' With Breakthrough Starshot (Video)]
"With light beams, light sails and the lightest spacecraft ever built, we can launch a mission to Alpha Centauri within a generation," he added. "Today, we commit to this next great leap into the cosmos. Because we are human, and our nature is to fly."
The Starshot spacecraft will consist of a wafer-size chip attached to a super-thin sail. This paired duo will be launched to space aboard a mothership, and then propelled to the stars by laser light beamed from a high-altitude facility here on Earth.
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