Hawking, Milner announce $100m for space voyage
English cosmologist Stephen Hawking and Russian entrepreneur and philanthropist Yuri Milner have announced a $100 million investment for a space voyage to the nearest star system 'Alpha Centauri', 4.37 light years away. The project, to be launched after 20 years, would use a 100 billion-watt laser-powered light beam to accelerate several featherweight robot nanocrafts at 60,000 km per second.