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bbc.com

Hawking backs interstellar travel

project
By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News
6-8 minutes

Image copyright CHRISTIAN DARKIN/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Image caption This generic artist's concept shows how a solar sail might
work

Stephen Hawking is backing a project to send tiny spacecraft to

another star system within a generation.

They would travel trillions of miles; far further than any previous

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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.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionThe spacecraft would be propelled from earth by a giant
laser, as Pallab Ghosh reports

"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

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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.

Image copyright BBC/RichardAnsett

Image caption Prof Hawking thinks interstellar travel can be turned from a
dream into reality

"But the expert group figured out that because of developments in

technology there appears to be a concept that appears to work."

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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.

This is like a sail on a boat - but it is pushed along by light rather

than the wind. A giant laser on Earth would give each one a
powerful push, sending them on their way to reaching 20% of the
speed of light.

It sounds like science fiction but Yuri Milner, who was named after
Yuri Gagarin by his parents, believes that it is technically possible
to develop these spacecraft and get to another star within our
lifetimes.

"The human story is one of great leaps," he said. "Fifty-five years

ago today, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Today,
we are preparing for the next great leap - to the stars."

Challenging work

There are many problems to be overcome before the first

spaceships capable of going to other stars are built. These include
miniaturising cameras, instruments and sensors so they fit on a
chip, developing a solar sail strong enough to be blasted by a
powerful laser for several minutes and find a way to get pictures
and information of the new star system back to Earth.

Prof Sir Martin Sweeting, who is a researcher at the Surrey Space

Centre and head of Surrey Satellite Technology in Guildford, wants
to be involved in the project.

He founded a company 30 years ago that reduced the size and

cost of satellites.

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"A lot of what we did in the 1980s was considered very wacky but
now small satellites are considered all the fashion. This (project to
go to another star) is currently a wacky sounding idea but
technologies have moved on and now it is not wacky it's just
difficult," he told BBC News.

Image copyright NASA

Image caption Voyager 1 is currently the most distant manmade object
from Earth

Prof Andrew Coates of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory,

which is part of University CollegeLondon, agreed that the project
would be challenging, but not impossible.

"There would be significant difficulties to solve such as

ruggedisation for the space radiation and dust environment,
instrument sensitivity, interaction of the high power accelerating
laser with the Earth's atmosphere, spacecraft stabilisation and
power provision.

"But it is a concept worth looking at to see if we could really reach

another star system within a human lifetime."

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But Prof Hawking believes that what was once a distant dream can
and must become a reality within 30 years.

"There are no greater heights to aspire to than the stars. It is

unwise to keep all our eggs in one fragile basket," he told BBC
News.

"Life on Earth faces dangers from astronomical events like

asteroids or supernovas".

Follow Pallab on Twitter

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