Russian billionaire Yuri Milner plans to launch jointly with Stephen Hawking is a joint project of Breakthrough Starshot – the most ambitious space mission in the history of mankind.
The plans of the authors of the project is really ambitious. Goal Breakthrough Starshot – shipping miniature robots to star in the alpha Centauri system, which is one of the first goals of interstellar flights. In today’s technology can not provide fast transportation between the Sun and alpha Centauri, because the overcoming of this distance would have taken about 30 thousand years.
However, using such technology as solar sail, the flight may take only a few decades. The idea of space travel using solar sails belongs to the Soviet scientist of the Friedrich Tsander, who in 1920, proposed to use the pressure of sunlight on the reecting surface, which leads the spacecraft in motion.
Widely renowned scientist Stephen Hawking told me about his new project concept, through which a flight to a nearby star system will become a reality. The basis idea is reducing the size of the spacecraft to the size of the conventional chip used in many electronic devices. These miniature ships are scheduled to launch about a thousand, each ship will be equipped with a solar sail. To make the devices acceleration from the Earth, they will be sent to the laser – it will replace the fuel, giving the ship too much weight, and thus reduce its speed.
“Nanopart will consist of a miniature robot equipped with cameras, photon engines, power supply, instruments communication and navigation, as well as light sails with a thickness of only a few hundred atoms and a weight in grams” – said Hawking.
There are many theories of the existence of a planet that has similar to Earth, it also rotates around the star and probably has a similar atmosphere, but may be its form of life. Anyway, the confirmation or refutation of these theories will have to wait till after nano-satellites after 20 years will reach alpha Centauri and send the data to Earth. If the scientists launch a project, perhaps, people of our generation will be able to see the look of planets outside our solar system.
According to Hawking, overcoming the limits is what makes a person unique. The limit of human capabilities, which is now facing humanity is a huge void between us and the stars. “But this limit we are now able to overcome”.
