Its probably nothing new for people interested in the field, but NASA, joined by Stephen Hawking and, according to independent.co.uk, by a team from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, are developing a Starship that can go up to one fifth of lights velocity.
This project was announced by NASA and Stephen Hawking earlier this year, in April, and it seems to be making progresses since then.
The importance of this project is that it would allow us to explore the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri after a trip of just 20 years. The closest star system to ours could be, after this project is successfully completed, just the beginning. This would allow us to transport data and a small sized robot incredibly quickly throughout space, reaching places in our galaxy we could never before dream to do in a matter of decades.
The concept of the “SpaceChip” (how some chose to call it) is pretty simple and its very well explained by this breakthrough animation (video below) and by www.sciencealert.com that I now quote: “using lasers to propel a nano-spacecraft the size of a postage stamp to our nearest star system”. Of course this explanation is quite simple and its complexity is far from the complexity of the project, but I reckon it allows the common reader to understand all this better.
According to both sciencealert.com and independent.co.uk, the issue was that it wasn’t certain if such a small piece of electronics could survive this 20 year journey and still be able to function once it got to its destination. This is where NASA comes in, mostly, according to its researchers, the “SpaceChip” couldn’t safely make it mostly because of the effects of radiation in the circuits. It began then the pursue for the best way of completing the project in a way that it still reaches around 1/5 the light speed and that once it gets to its destination it can do what it was built for, explore and transmit data back to earth.
Only if all these conditions are met the project will be a success.
Several ideas came to solve the issue, but it would almost always affect the “Spacechips” weight, size or distance to travel. We are still expecting NASA and Stephen Hawking to pull through this issues, finishing what can be a reality changing project.
More information regarding this topic can be found in the following website: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/nasa-nano-starship-speed-of-light-stephen-hawking-breakthrough-starchip-space-a7467732.html