Laser Sail for Future Alpha Centauri Mission Now Costs $25 Million, Not $200 Billion

Laser Sail for Future Alpha Centauri Mission Now Costs $25 Million, Not $200 Billion

Laser pushed sails—ultrathin need reflective structures that are square meters but weight a gram. If the sails and the payload each weigh a gram, such a spacecraft could accelerate to one fifth of the speed of light. This would be 200 times faster than the Voyager probe. Richard Norte of Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, ...