
$100M for “starshot”: laser-accelerated nanocraft for interstellar travel - AnthonyAguirre
http://breakthroughinitiatives.org/Initiative/3
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AnthonyAguirre
This is a pretty cool initiative — I looked into beamed propulsion a bit while
teaching a course this past fall, and it seems to me that if we (or human
technologies) are going to reach a star in our lifetimes, this is by far the
most likely way. Still _very_ challenging though.

For a quite detailed recent treatment of optical/IR propulsion see: [this
paper by Philip Lubin]([http://www.deepspace.ucsb.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2015/04/A-R...](http://www.deepspace.ucsb.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2015/04/A-Roadmap-to-Interstellar-Flight-15-h.pdf))

For a thorough, if somewhat outdated, treatment of the
[“starwisp”]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starwisp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starwisp))
idea using microwaves rather than optical/IR lasers, see [this
paper]([http://path-2.narod.ru/design/base_e/starwisp.pdf](http://path-2.narod.ru/design/base_e/starwisp.pdf))
by Robert Forward.

To poll the success of this overall endeavor, as well as start to make
predictions about which components will/won’t work,
[Metaculus]([http://www.metaculus.com/questions/#/?order_by=-publish_time](http://www.metaculus.com/questions/#/?order_by=-publish_time))
is launching a series of questions —check it out if you have expertise or
opinion.

