A privately funded team of scientists and technology titans, led by the Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner and the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, have announced Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, a project to develop and launch a fleet of iPhone-size spacecraft within two to three decades.
It seems that the recently announced Breakthrough Starshot project to send a privately funded fleet of tiny spacecraft to a nearby star may have started a star rush.
Milner has announced Breakthrough Initiatives today, but this has been a work in progress for some time now.
Milner also announced Breakthrough Message, a $1 million annual prize for creating messages about Earth and humanity to be decoded by ET. These program are just the latest in Milner's effort to spur scientific advancements.
Any net profits from investments will also be used to advance this mission….For example, our education work has been funded through a non-profit organization,Startup:Education, the recently announced Breakthrough Energy Coalition will make private investments in clean energy, and we also fund public government efforts, like the CDC Ebola response and San Francisco General Hospital".
Heavy skepticism, albeit necessary for scientific rigor, accompanies every new announced breakthrough, and the most interesting ideas are still elusive beyond special laboratory environments.
Russian billionaire Yuri Milner and physicist Stephen Hawking have announced Breakthrough Starshot, a $100-million initiative to develop spacecraft that would send probes all the way to Alpha Centaurinitiativerestostar system.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC rebel commander 'Timochenko' on Wednesday shook hands — firmly, but drawn together physically by Cuban President Raul Castro — as both sides in Colombia's armed conflict announced breakthrough agreements to end the hemisphere's longest war.
After a meeting in Beijing, the party has announced "breakthroughs" in its thinking about the countryside.
The private sector has announced breakthroughs in the rapid testing of DNA, used by one of LGC's competitors, Key Forensics, to clear a rape suspect in about three hours.
At the same time, key encapsulation firms, including multinationals like 3M and Corning, and specialty companies, like Beneq, Vitex, and Tera Barrier Films, have all announced breakthroughs and improved encapsulation techniques that will open new opportunities [16].
