![]() "Without new methods of propulsion we simply cannot get very far," Hawking said at the announcement. Each pinging photon of light would impart a slight momentum to the sail and its cargo in the microgravity vacuum of space, the torrent of photons unleashed by a gigawatt-class laser would rapidly push a nanocraft to relativistic speeds. “Breakthrough Starshot,” the program Milner is backing, intends to squeeze all the key components of a robotic probe-cameras, sensors, maneuvering thrusters and communications equipment-into tiny gram-scale “nanocraft.” These would be small enough to boost to enormous speeds using other technology the program plans to help develop, including a ground-based kilometer-scale laser array capable of beaming 100-gigawatt laser pulses through the atmosphere for a few minutes at a time, and atoms-thin, meter-wide “ light sails” to ride those beams to other stars. Today, we are preparing for the next great leap-to the stars.” “55 years ago today, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. “The human story is one of great leaps,” Milner said in a statement released shortly before the announcement. Flanked by physicist Stephen Hawking and other high-profile supporters today in New York, Milner announced his most ambitious investment yet: $100 million toward a research program to send robotic probes to nearby stars within a generation. For Yuri Milner, the Russian Internet entrepreneur and billionaire philanthropist who funds the world’s richest science prizes and searches for extraterrestrial intelligence, the sky is not the limit-and neither is the solar system. ![]()
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