This generic artist’s concept shows how a solar sail might work – via BBC
They would travel trillions of miles; far further than any previous craft.
A $100m (£70m) research programme to develop the computer chip-sized “starships” was launched by the billionaire Yuri Milner, supported by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Interstellar travel has long been a dream for many, but significant technological hurdles remain.
But Prof Hawking told BBC News that fantasy could be realised sooner than we might think.
“If we are to survive as a species we must ultimately spread out to the stars,” he said.
“Astronomers believe that there is a reasonable chance of an Earth-like planet orbiting one of the stars [in] the Alpha Centauri system. But we will know more in the next two decades from ground based and space based telescopes.
“Technological developments in the last two decades and the future make it possible in principle within a generation.”
Prof Hawking is backing a project by Mr Milner’s Breakthrough Foundation, a private organisation funding scientific research initiatives that government funders think to be too ambitious.
Expert group
The organisation has brought together an expert group of scientists to assess whether it might be possible to develop spaceships capable of travelling to another star within a generation and sending information back.
The nearest star system is 40 trillion km (25 trillion miles) away. Using current technology it would take about 30,000 years to get there.
The expert group concluded that with a little more research and development it might be possible to develop spacecraft that could cut that journey time to just 30 years.
“I’d have said that even a few years ago travel to another star at that kind of speed would not be possible,” said Dr Pete Worden, who is leading the project. He is chairman of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation and a former director of Nasa’s Ames Research Center in California.
“But the expert group figured out that because of developments in technology there appears to be a concept that appears to work.”
The concept is to reduce the size of the spacecraft to about the size of a chip used in electronic devices. The idea is to launch a thousand of these mini-spacecraft into the Earth’s orbit. Each would have a solar sail.
Learn more: Hawking backs interstellar travel project
The Latest on: Interstellar travel
via Google News
The Latest on: Interstellar travel
- Scientists Suggest How To Spot Wormholes To Make Interstellar Space Travel Realon January 14, 2021 at 3:53 am
Scientists have been speculating about wormholes – bridges between far off points in spacetime, for quite a few years now. In theory, these wormholes can serve as shortcuts for those travelling ...
- Astronomical Society of Geelong member pictures show locations outside the limits of human travelon January 8, 2021 at 5:15 am
These images are a window into the vastness of the universe. They go beyond the realms of our solar system, stretching distances only comprehended when measured in. Th ...
- “Sent By an Alien World?” –Extraterrestrial Object Visited Our Solar System in 2017on January 6, 2021 at 11:48 am
The idea of the existence of advanced extraterrestrial life is no more speculative than extra dimensions or dark matter. It fact, he says, it is less so,” says Harvard astrophysicist, Avi Loeb. In ...
- Matt Damon talks space travel as the new trailer for The Martian debutson January 3, 2021 at 5:22 pm
Matt Damon has said he is in no hurry to travel into space, despite portraying astronauts in two movies in quick succession. The Hollywood star played an astronaut left on an ice planet in ...
- ESA/Hubble public information officer Bethany Downer attempts to simplify space scienceon December 28, 2020 at 9:40 am
In Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, children in schools are ... I think space tourism is an important step of opening the door to space travel to more people, but it will take a few more ...
- 'Tenet' and the Past and Future of Christopher Nolanon December 23, 2020 at 2:43 pm
Interstellar marks the point where Nolan becomes more confident with his own sentimentality as a filmmaker, through the idea that love is the cosmic language that can travel through time and space.
- Let’s Search for Alien Probes, Not Just Alien Signalson December 22, 2020 at 5:22 am
Interstellar probes could also maneuver to ... allowing more of them to travel through the habitable zone and spy for any technological signatures there. In the outer envelope of the solar system ...
- Factors Suppliers Consider Before Sending a Memory Device to Spaceon December 21, 2020 at 2:03 pm
This is necessary because space travel creates unique stressors (downloads as PDF ... alongside BJT and FPGA technologies—are built to withstand interstellar radiation. Circuits contained within are ...
- NASA is planning an interstellar mission for 2069, may head to nearby Alpha Centaurion December 18, 2020 at 4:00 pm
If NASA, or any other space agency or private company for that matter, manages to achieve interstellar travel, Alpha Centauri will almost certainly be their first target. We just don’t know what ...
- The Physics of Tenet Is Shaky, but It Still Kicks Arseon December 17, 2020 at 5:46 pm
Why Doesn’t The Black Hole Image Look Like The One From Interstellar ... We don’t learn more about how they develop this time travel technology in the future, other than that its creator ...
via Bing News
 research programme to develop the computer chip-sized "starships" was){kind=link}