Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Hawking, Zuckerberg, and Team to Launch #StarshotProject


image via spaceref.com

Tiny rockets are going to be sent into space to study the far universe in the most ambitious space exploration project in history.
 
Scientists including Stephen Hawking and backers such as internet investor Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg will send “nano craft” deep into space to explore the most remote regions that humans have ever seen, by far. The hugely ambitious project could reveal deep secrets of the universe and will allow people to photograph one of the most likely places to hold life on other worlds. 
The Starshot Project hopes to get the tiny robots out to the Alpha Centauri star system, 25 trillion years away. Getting there through normal means would take 30,000 years – but the new project hopes that using the tiny rockets will allow them to get there in just 20.
Wow. Just wow. This is stuff NASA should be doing, but OK, still, this is awesome.

Little computers lead the way. Little drones. Then more little drones, then more ... as we get better at, we can send ones that are a little bigger, and if we push a bunch of a little drones out there, maybe, just maybe, they can find the raw materials to start building things. Little things at first, then bigger things, gaining size and complexity ...

Mining, building, preparing. A space station could be waiting for us before we even get there. (And, if we can do that, maybe we can build a way station, something in between to reduce the risk in case we can't get all the way there in one shot.)

It may not be possible. But imagine what we could do if gave settlers a chance at a fresh start, a new world with a new constitution that at least avoids the mistakes of all the ones up to now ...

Things could better in a way they may never where we can't escape our own history.





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