At the One World Observatory in New York City earlier today, Physicist Stephen Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announced Breakthrough Starshot, a new $100 million dollar program that hopes to lay the groundwork for interstellar travel.
The first step in the program involves researching and developing “light-propelled nanocrafts” that, while no bigger than a computer chip, would be capable of moving at 20 percent the speed of light.
The craft would come equipped with a “StarChip,” a gram-scale wafer carrying cameras, photon thrusters, power supply, navigation, and communication equipment.A Lightsail, a meter-scale sail no more than a few hundred atoms thick, would move the ship forward after an array of lasers back on Earth are used to accelerate it.
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The first step in the program involves researching and developing “light-propelled nanocrafts” that, while no bigger than a computer chip, would be capable of moving at 20 percent the speed of light.
The craft would come equipped with a “StarChip,” a gram-scale wafer carrying cameras, photon thrusters, power supply, navigation, and communication equipment.A Lightsail, a meter-scale sail no more than a few hundred atoms thick, would move the ship forward after an array of lasers back on Earth are used to accelerate it.
Continue reading…
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