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(3) stories found containing 'sailing to alpha centauri with graphene'


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  • Starshot Alpha Centauri lightspeed travel solar sail Nano Letters spacecraft

    New design for Alpha Centauri light sail

    Shane Lasley, Metal Tech News|Updated Jun 8, 2023

    Liquid fuel rockets are adequate for jetting humans to the most popular destinations across our solar system in a reasonable amount of time – about three days to the Moon and six months to Mars. We, however, need a way of traveling near the speed of light to shave enough of the 75,000-year journey to get to Alpha Centauri, our closest solar system neighbor, in a human lifespan. This futuristic problem may be solved with one of humankind's earliest transportation t...

  • NASA Artemis 1 Marshall Space Flight Center NEA Scout Alpha Centauri asteroid

    Solar sail craft ready for space mission

    Shane Lasley, Metal Tech News|Updated Jul 12, 2022

    While it is not quite a space yacht sailing to Alpha Centauri at 134 million miles per hour, NASA's Near-Earth Asteroid Scout will be the first spacecraft to sail on solar winds to a destination beyond Earth's orbit. "NEA Scout will be America's first interplanetary mission using solar sail propulsion," said Les Johnson, principal technology investigator for the mission at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. "There have been several sail tests in Earth orbit, and we are now...

  • Graphene could make light sail spacecraft imagined by Carl Sagan a reality

    Sailing to Alpha Centauri with graphene

    Shane Lasley, Metal Tech News|Updated Jul 10, 2022

    From coronavirus killing facemasks, to ultra-fast charging superbatteries and high-performance headphones with "stunning" sound quality, graphene has emerged as a miracle material with qualities that are likely to change life on Earth. Now, researchers believe this high strength 2D material could unlock mankind's ability to travel to other solar systems. Liquid fuel rockets can get humans to the most popular destinations across our home solar system in a reasonable amount of...