An expedition that will take 80,000 years to reach its destination

A nonprofit organization called Fermi Explorer has announced plans to launch a small spacecraft toward Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to our solar system, by 2029. The journey will take approximately 80,000 years to complete, meaning no one alive today will witness its arrival. The mission aims to make the first feasible step toward interstellar travel and inspire future generations to push beyond current boundaries. Philip Johnston, co-founder and president of Fermi Explorer, emphasized that the goal is to demonstrate that sending a probe beyond our solar system is both possible and affordable. He described the endeavor as a way to ignite curiosity and drive innovation for future exploration. Johnston, a British mathematician and physicist, is also a co-founder of Starcloud, a company valued at over two billion euros focused on building large space data centers. According to the team behind the project, the primary objective is to realize the concept of interstellar travel and address one of humanity’s greatest unanswered questions: “Where are we?” This question was famously posed by physicist Enrico Fermi in 1950, highlighting the paradox of why we have yet to detect signs of extraterrestrial life despite the high probability of planets existing throughout the galaxy. Alpha Centauri is a binary star system consisting of Alpha Centauri A and B, with Proxima Centauri nearby, forming a triple system. Alpha Centauri A is a G-type star slightly more massive than the Sun, while Alpha Centauri B is a cooler K-type star with about 90% of the Sun's mass. Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth, is a red dwarf and much smaller and cooler. While no planets have been discovered around Alpha Centauri A and B, Proxima Centauri hosts two confirmed exoplanets. The organization explained that they chose Alpha Centauri because it consists of stars similar to the Sun. They noted that Alpha Centauri emits significantly more energy compared to Proxima Centauri, making it a more attractive target for future human or alien civilizations interested in establishing a base. Additionally, since Alpha Centauri is moving across the night sky, the spacecraft will aim for its position approximately 80,000 years into the future, which will place it in the constellation Cancer. The planned launch is set for before the end of 2029, with the total cost estimated to be less than 13 million euros. Johnston wants to prove that sending a probe beyond our solar system is achievable with current technology and does not require excessive resources. One of the main challenges in interstellar travel is distance, everything is so far away, and our spacecraft are relatively slow. As Johnston explained, discussions with experts revealed that solar cells would be insufficient for such a long journey due to the low energy production needed to escape Jupiter's orbit. To overcome this challenge, Johnston collaborated with physicist Alex Wissner-Gross, founder of Physical Superintelligence, a company working on artificial intelligence technology. Together, they devised a method for the spacecraft to travel around the Sun for the first ten years after launch. Simplified, the spacecraft would reduce its distance from the Sun from one astronomical unit (about 150 million kilometers) to 0.42 astronomical units. This maneuver would utilize gravitational acceleration to gain speed. After 12 years, the spacecraft would reach an escape velocity of 25 kilometers per second (90,000 km/h), allowing it to travel to Alpha Centauri in approximately 77,000 years. The project highlights the potential of using existing technologies to achieve ambitious goals in space exploration. It underscores the importance of long-term thinking and the need to invest in research that may yield results far into the future. The spacecraft will serve as a symbol of human ingenuity and determination, even though its success will not be witnessed by anyone currently living. The mission represents a unique opportunity to lay the groundwork for future interstellar missions and to spark interest in the mysteries of the universe.