If we’ve learned anything from recent science fiction flicks like “Interstellar” and “The Martian,” it’s that space travel is difficult. There are so many variables to consider, so many hazards and dangers, and then there’s the worst factor of all: time. The nearest star is Alpha Centauri, and it’s really, really far away. That’s why internet investor and science philanthropist Yuri Milner, physicist Stephen Hawking and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg have come together to make interstellar travel less of a nightmare. And they’re planning on doing it with what they call “starchip nanocrafts.”
Recently announced at the One World Observatory on the 55th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s space flight, Breakthrough Starshot Project has one goal. Their mission: send a spacecraft at least 25 trillion miles away at 100 million mph to nearby stars. Oh, and to do that within a generation, collect some data, and perhaps change all of society as we know it.
But what they want to do isn’t as important as how they proposed to do it.
The StarChip Journey
Alpha Centauri is 25 trillion miles (or 4.37 light years) away. The best modern spacecraft would take about 30,000 years to get there. That’s definitely much longer than a generation. The Breakthrough Starshot Project hopes to use the aforementioned nanocrafts–or “StarChips”–to reach other stars by using solar sails. Solar sails, a long-favored concept for interstellar travel, work by catching solar radiation–or “solar wind”–to be propelled through space. With a nice little boost from a few ground-based lasers, the light-propelled starchip nanocrafts should be able to reach 20% of the speed of light and get to Alpha Centauri within 20 years of launch.
For a visual look at how this works, check out the following video from Breakthrough:
The StarChip Mission
Since information is the priority of this mission, and not the transportation of cargo or personnel, the starchip is being designed to be small: about the size of a gram-scale wafer. Even so, it will still carry cameras, photon thrusters, a power supply, navigation and communication equipment and more to function as what is basically a space probe. The project hopes it will aid in detecting Earth-crossing asteroids at large distances, searching for “habitable zone planets” along the way, and more.
The project is to be led by Peter Worden, the former director of NASA AMES Research Center, with a board consisting of Hawking, Milner and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg, and advised by “a committee of world-class scientists and engineers.” More interesting is that the project will also be entirely based on research that is in the public domain, leading to a more transparent and collaborative approach. It will be committed to publishing new results and granting full, open access to not only all experts in relevant fields, but to the public, who can also contribute ideas through the online forum.
This is a major, major step towards both long-distance space travel and collaborative scientific work. In the past, we’ve talked about about how many companies and tech developers are in favor of an open source revolution where all information is freely shared for the sake of progress, not money. We’ve already seen it building with the car industry, and how Tesla has increased the profile of electric cars–and themselves–by sharing their ideas and working with other companies. How it will turn out depends on all of us, and any success or progress made is shared by the planet as one unified unit.
And that’s something all of us can get behind.
To find out more, check out the Breakthrough Initiatives website. Tell us what you think in the comments below, along with the first thing you would do if you traveled to another planet in another star system.
Image Source: Breakthrough Initiatives