{"id":3577,"date":"2016-04-13T22:11:05","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T22:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/?p=3577"},"modified":"2016-04-13T22:11:05","modified_gmt":"2016-04-13T22:11:05","slug":"steven-hawking-wants-to-send-tiny-nanocraft-space-probes-to-alpha-centauri-boing-boing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/13\/steven-hawking-wants-to-send-tiny-nanocraft-space-probes-to-alpha-centauri-boing-boing\/","title":{"rendered":"Steven Hawking wants to send tiny &#8216;nanocraft&#8217; space probes to Alpha Centauri \/ Boing Boing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boingboing.net\/2016\/04\/12\/steven-hawking-wants-to-send-t.html\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/13STARSHOT-articleLarge.jpg?w=625&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Today, we commit to this next great leap into the cosmos,&#8221; Stephen Hawking said today in New York. &#8220;Because we are human, and our nature is to fly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The famed physicist was speaking at a press conference to launch Breakthrough Starshot, a new space initiative that promises to apply Silicon Valley thinking to space exploration. Hawking, billionaire entrepreneur Yuri Milner and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg are the organization&#8217;s board of directors. Hawking says the $100 million program will send small &#8220;nanocraft&#8221; to explore Earth&#8217;s nearest solar system, Alpha Centauri.<\/p>\n<p>Former NASA Ames Research Center director Pete Worden is directing the project, supported by a committee of leading scientists and engineers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cImagine hundreds of spacecraft the size of a butterfly, propelled by light beams at record-shattering speeds and journeying to distant stars 4.37 light years away &#8212; far deeper into space than human-built probes have ever ventured,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2016\/04\/12\/us\/breakthrough-starshot-space-probe-stephen-hawking-feat\/index.html?eref=rss_topstories\">CNN reported<\/a> of what may be the most ambitious space exploration project in history&#8211;one that may not be completed in our lifetimes.<\/p>\n<p>The piece to read on today&#8217;s big space news is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/04\/13\/science\/alpha-centauri-breakthrough-starshot-yuri-milner-stephen-hawking.html\">Dennis Overbye&#8217;s, at the<em>New York Times<\/em><\/a>. He asks, \u201cCan you fly an iPhone to the stars?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Source: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/boingboing.net\/2016\/04\/12\/steven-hawking-wants-to-send-t.html\">Steven Hawking wants to send tiny &#8216;nanocraft&#8217; space probes to Alpha Centauri \/ Boing Boing<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Today, we commit to this next great leap into the cosmos,&#8221; Stephen Hawking said today in New York. &#8220;Because we are human, and our nature is to fly.&#8221; The famed physicist was speaking at a press conference to launch Breakthrough Starshot, a new space initiative that promises to apply Silicon Valley thinking to space exploration. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3pfIY-VH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3577"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3579,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3577\/revisions\/3579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.novonon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}