Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking reveal program to develop interstellar probes

The Atlantic : On 12 April Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, joined by Stephen Hawking, announced the newest of Milner’s Breakthrough Initiatives : Starshot, a $100 million research program to build spacecraft capable of traveling to Alpha Centauri in 20 years. For comparison’s sake, the current fastest-moving spacecraft is NASA’s New Horizons, which would take tens of thousands of years to reach Alpha Centauri. And at just 4.4 light-years away, Alpha Centauri is the star system closest to Earth. The program involves deploying an array of lightweight disks fitted with photon thrusters for navigation, a power source, cameras, and a communication system. Propulsion would come from a ground-based laser shining onto one side of the disk, providing pulses of energy to accelerate each probe away from Earth. Milner thinks the technology for interstellar travel can be developed within his lifetime.