Breakthrough Starshot: Venturing Beyond

 

Reaching into the stars.

Breakthrough Starshot - Tech that ventures beyond our system

–

Malachi Jenkinson

One of my fascinations ever since I was young was the expanse and beauty of the cosmos, but we’ve practically been trapped to a planet for practically all our history, and our solar system has only been breached by machines, with the unbelievably large universe out of our grasp; but while many might believe in ‘born too late to explore the Earth, born too early to explore the stars’ motion, I believe a few projects harbour real promise of us being the forthbringers of space exploration. 

So how will this be achieved? And how will developing technologies contribute to this?

You might have heard of Breakthrough Starshot, proposed by renowned scientists like Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking, with Mark Zuckerberg, (yes, the Mark Zuckerberg) being a board member. Although,not much has come to light on this project past the overly ambitious premise and the funding it had gathered back a few years ago, before COVID which has now distorted all our memories of everything pre-pandemic, so to those hoping space probes in the next few months being sent out the solar system, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but how can this be achieved with our lifetimes?

This project specifically wants to send nanocrafts, miniature space probes with a light sail, to the Proxima Centauri system, our closest star system that isn’t our own. 

However, we haven’t fully figured out how we will use light propulsion to make the nano crafts reach speeds of 20% of light. Furthermore, there seems to be many risks and already established time delays between receiving information back and forward to these spacecraft, after all, the Proxima Centauri system is over 4 light years away, taking 8 years to send and receive a message between there and Earth.

To overcome these obstacles, new developments in technology have to be made which are in the process of being done. One example is the StarChip, the star technological piece of the project requires having camera systems, photon thrusters, navigational systems and the whole collection of necessary space probe equipment all in a gram scale wafer. But between the original project's conception to now, Moore’s law has shown that this possibility is becoming real, and for cheap. Currently, each StarChip can be mass produced at the cost of an iPhone, (quite costly in some eyes for ‘mass produced), but hopefully costs can be brought down.

Furthermore, the idea of a light sail, which would be used to help propel the ships, requires increasingly thin and lightweight materials to be used. Needing to be focused on by a light beam to increase the nanocrafts speed to such a fast velocity never seen before, new materials have to be used. Nanotechnology developments in recent years have given way to these potential candidates for what should be used to construct light sails.

Will light propulsion be feasible for all the nanocrafts?

So overall, the project holds real promise for us stepping beyond our Earth into the expanse of space, maybe allowing us to finally realise the dreams of being a space faring civilisation. Do you think in our lifetime we’ll see this envisioned project achieve our hopes of venturing beyond? Leave a comment below.

Sources

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/how-design-sail-wont-tear-or-melt-interstellar-voyage 

https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/initiative/3 

https://www.astronomy.com/science/breakthrough-starshot-a-voyage-to-the-stars-within-our-lifetimes/