Stephen Hawking And Billionaire Team Up On $100M Quest To Find Alien Life

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Yesterday, Stephen Hawking and billionaire Yuri Milner announced that they plan to build a fleet of tiny interstellar spacecraft that can travel at twenty percent the speed of light. Hawking said he believes this project is the first step in finding life on other planets.

Stephen Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner are teaming up in a $100 million hunt for alien life that will rely on a fleet of postage stamp-sized spacecraft to explore the universe. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will also join Milner and Hawking on the board of Breakthrough Starshot, a philanthropic initiative to focus on space exploration and the search for life in the universe. Astronomers believe an Earth-like planet could exist within the "habitable zones" of Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth, located 25 trillion miles (or 4.37 light-years) away.
 
Each nanocraft would carry cameras, photon thrusters, power supplies, navigation and communication equipment, and the newly engineered "lightsail," which would propel each probe. If a single nanocraft makes it to Alpha Centauri after a 20-year journey, it would take an additional four years to transmit that information back to Earth.
Click to expand...

I think they would have better luck finding bigfoot. But hey, its their money.
 
What if sending out these probes attracts the attention of an interstellar species intent on killing us?
 
ruffbytes said:
What if sending out these probes attracts the attention of an interstellar species intent on killing us?
Click to expand...
If a laser focused down to a postage stamp target and even a million little postage stamp size craft are detectable by the Space Terrible Monster Crowd we are already in trouble.
 
What if these aliens consider the postage sized craft or the lasers an attack and decide they have no choice but to retaliate?

Or maybe they will consider them litter and come to punish us for damaging the galaxy?
 
nutzo said:
What if these aliens consider the postage sized craft or the lasers an attack and decide they have no choice but to retaliate?
Click to expand...

Or maybe they will laugh and say, "this is their attack armada?" Bwahahahha!!!
 
I'm curious how they intend to slow down to look around at different things....

Ohh that kinda looks like a habitable planet right in front of us... *Crash*

Axe
 
I think they were already here and realized how stupid humans are and left us to die. I do see this as a massive waste of money, look how many homeless veterans could be treated, homes and cared for or used to shut big pharma down to legalize weed and other natural cures or buy africa and make it an agricultural powerhouse or help me pay my daughters phone bill or develop an alternative cable service that let me pay for the shows I wanted and watched.
 
Kudos to them for thinking of this, but... By the time we get any return signal (if anything is captured at all) - plus images taken at 134,100,000 mph... it may be fruitless. I would think we would have telescopes that can see those objects at that distance by then the way technology is moving. I am more of a forward thinker I guess. And if they are actually going forward with this, why not target a few different systems than all at just one?
 
So basically we are going to invest in the greatest question involving the existence of every species on this planet on what we will spend on 1 modern military fighter jet (F35).

Or put in another way what we give to one human being for winning a Powerball lottery.

Makes sense to me.

But I applaud these men for trying and this is the approach that I have always taken. Just send a bunch of shit out in all directions and see what happens. It's a long term investment, but basically flooding the cosmos with beacons is the best way to say "Hey! Detect me!!"

Voyager 1 and 2 were great......but there needed to be a Voyager 30...or 50.
 
I think its a great idea and I am glad he chose to put his money to such great use for all of humanity.

Even if they don't immediately find life. They will still be furthering space travel technology and exploring planets that are potentially habitable for us in the future.
 
Axehandler said:
I'm curious how they intend to slow down to look around at different things....

Ohh that kinda looks like a habitable planet right in front of us... *Crash*

Axe
Click to expand...

One could assume a attitude flip to aim the sail at the incoming star. Don't know if they could decelerate to a system navigable speed. Or maybe it's a high speed pass, no intent on hanging around, one and done, bend a trajectory to yet another star.
 
Wasn't there one point where Hawking suggested that it would be a bad idea to seek out intelligent life? What changed?
 
Aliens be like "Water Bears have evolved! They are building tiny space ships and have invaded our solar system. We must find the Tardigrade homeworld and destroy them!"
 
can i get the money for knowing theres nothing else out there and that GOD made man from his image :D
 
AK0tA said:
I think they were already here and realized how stupid humans are and left us to die. I do see this as a massive waste of money, look how many homeless veterans could be treated, homes and cared for or used to shut big pharma down to legalize weed and other natural cures or buy africa and make it an agricultural powerhouse or help me pay my daughters phone bill or develop an alternative cable service that let me pay for the shows I wanted and watched.
Click to expand...
Not sure if serious. You couldn't help that many veterans with 100 million dollars. Argument makes sense for military weapons, though. You know, things we spend like 5 thousand times more on per year. Anyways, this is private money.
 
AK0tA said:
I think they were already here and realized how stupid humans are and left us to die. I do see this as a massive waste of money, look how many homeless veterans could be treated, homes and cared for or used to shut big pharma down to legalize weed and other natural cures or buy africa and make it an agricultural powerhouse or help me pay my daughters phone bill or develop an alternative cable service that let me pay for the shows I wanted and watched.
Click to expand...

You were doing great up until that weed bull....
 
I would rather we spend money on finding a habitable planet and find the means to get there. Course, that could just be me playing out Cowboy Bebop in my head, but hey.
 
DocSavage said:
If you read the the Scientific American article, they mention it will cost about one trillion dollars to create the laser propulsion array. That is hardly what I would call chump change.
Click to expand...

Thing is...it is inefficiently silly to build such a laser array on Earth, when you have to shoot through the atmosphere.

Also the wholy thing is silly because NOTHING powered by a 1-gram RTG has enough signal power to ever send data back to Earth.
 
Alien life != Intelligent life

Also, the chances of there being life at literally the nearest star system to us, are close to zero. Unless life is very common in the universe, but there is nothing that would indicate that.
 
AK0tA said:
I think they were already here and realized how stupid humans are and left us to die. I do see this as a massive waste of money, look how many homeless veterans could be treated, homes and cared for or used to shut big pharma down to legalize weed and other natural cures or buy africa and make it an agricultural powerhouse or help me pay my daughters phone bill or develop an alternative cable service that let me pay for the shows I wanted and watched.
Click to expand...
You live in a fantasy world, can I come?
 
M76 said:
Alien life != Intelligent life

Also, the chances of there being life at literally the nearest star system to us, are close to zero. Unless life is very common in the universe, but there is nothing that would indicate that.
Click to expand...
What if they find a primitive species 10k yrs behind us? Prime Directive?
 
Mike_Hawk said:
What if they find a primitive species 10k yrs behind us? Prime Directive?
Click to expand...

Leaning on your bone-tipped spear for support, you rise to your feet. A sound draws your attention upwards, where a strange creature hovers high above you. It is unlike the birds you hunt by the lake's edge – it has no head and no wings yet somehow it flies. It is a beast of shining silver; hanging motionless in the sky like a cloud. You sense it is watching you, studying you.

Raising a hairy fist, you shake your spear at it in anger and the creature rises up quickly until it disappears from view. With a satisfied grunt you make your way back to your caves and the rest of the tribe.
Click to expand...
 
I think it's cool. It's his money and he wants to explore the universe. Fine with me. I think we need more space exploration (manned and unmanned). Not just for the new habital planets, but for the knowledge of the other systems. Lots of new stuff could be learned.

I think space exploration and technology should be a higher priority than it is. Mostly because I think it's cool and fun and there is a lot of stuff to learn. Plus, we get duct tape and other awesome new technology advancements. :D
 
DocFaustus said:
I think its a great idea and I am glad he chose to put his money to such great use for all of humanity.

Even if they don't immediately find life. They will still be furthering space travel technology and exploring planets that are potentially habitable for us in the future.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. I think its wonderful. Even if it doesn't net any Earth shattering results simply making it there is incredible. I hope it actually happens.
 
boocake said:
Wasn't there one point where Hawking suggested that it would be a bad idea to seek out intelligent life? What changed?
Click to expand...

Since we don't listen to Alpha Centauri radio (First with all the hits!) he's must be looking for 'stupid life' which is much easier to manage.
 
DocFaustus said:
I think its a great idea and I am glad he chose to put his money to such great use for all of humanity.

Even if they don't immediately find life. They will still be furthering space travel technology and exploring planets that are potentially habitable for us in the future.
Click to expand...

This is really the main purpose. The statement of going to the nearest star, although being a good goal, isn't the real goal. The purpose of this is to drum up excitement and support. What they really want to do is prove feasibility of a new propulsion system that can be used to better get around our solar system, and then maybe the nearest start. There are many steps first before we actually send a probe to Alpha Centauri.
 
DocSavage said:
If you read the the Scientific American article, they mention it will cost about one trillion dollars to create the laser propulsion array. That is hardly what I would call chump change.
Click to expand...

They key difference here is that this propulsion array is reusable. It can be used to propel many different optic sailing craft, not just this one mission. It's more of a spend-up-front approach that will recoup cost over time.
 
Skripka said:
Thing is...it is inefficiently silly to build such a laser array on Earth, when you have to shoot through the atmosphere.

Also the wholy thing is silly because NOTHING powered by a 1-gram RTG has enough signal power to ever send data back to Earth.
Click to expand...

Adaptive optics are coming a long ways and we're already using adaptive optic telescopes that compensate for atmospheric disturbances. It's not a far stretch of development to deal with the atmospheric issues.

The big difference in communication is the method. Right now most things use radio for communication. These little probes will use laser for communication. As long as you know where the signal is coming from and point your receiver in that direction, you will pick up the signal. The large size/power/sensitivity is needed on the receiver side, not necessarily the transmitter.
 
starshot-starchip-alpha-centauri-160412b-02.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Youn
like this
boocake said:
Wasn't there one point where Hawking suggested that it would be a bad idea to seek out intelligent life? What changed?
Click to expand...

More attention whoring and $100 million dollars to fund his buffoonish ideas.
 
Xrave said:
Adaptive optics are coming a long ways and we're already using adaptive optic telescopes that compensate for atmospheric disturbances. It's not a far stretch of development to deal with the atmospheric issues.

The big difference in communication is the method. Right now most things use radio for communication. These little probes will use laser for communication. As long as you know where the signal is coming from and point your receiver in that direction, you will pick up the signal. The large size/power/sensitivity is needed on the receiver side, not necessarily the transmitter.
Click to expand...

Adaptive optics can't compensate for the light loss of shooting through the couple hundred miles of atmosphere gas and dust
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top