{"id":24130,"date":"2016-03-30T13:49:48","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T20:49:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/reaching-for-the-stars-how-lasers-could-propel-spacecraft-to-relativistic-speeds"},"modified":"2017-06-04T20:04:16","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T03:04:16","slug":"reaching-for-the-stars-how-lasers-could-propel-spacecraft-to-relativistic-speeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/reaching-for-the-stars-how-lasers-could-propel-spacecraft-to-relativistic-speeds","title":{"rendered":"Reaching for the stars: How lasers could propel spacecraft to relativistic speeds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/reaching-for-the-stars-how-lasers-could-propel-spacecraft-to-relativistic-speeds.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a bold but scientifically sound proposal, NASA-funded research has laid out a roadmap toward spacecraft with relativistic speeds for the exploration of nearby stars (Credit: NASA). <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gizmag.com\/laser-light-propulsion\/41980\/pictures\" class=\"\" title=\"View gallery\" data-tracking=\"gallery-caption\">View gallery (8 images)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>How do you send man-made probes to a nearby star? According to NASA-funded research at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), the answer is simple: assemble a laser array the size of Manhattan in low Earth orbit, and use it to push tiny probes to 26 percent the speed of light. Though the endeavour may raise a few eyebrows, it relies on well-established science \u2013 and recent technological breakthroughs have put it within our reach.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gizmag.com\/laser-light-propulsion\/41980\/\">http:\/\/www.gizmag.com\/laser-light-propulsion\/41980\/<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a bold but scientifically sound proposal, NASA-funded research has laid out a roadmap toward spacecraft with relativistic speeds for the exploration of nearby stars (Credit: NASA). View gallery (8 images) How do you send man-made probes to a nearby star? According to NASA-funded research at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), the answer [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":387,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1522,1514],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-innovation","category-space-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/387"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24130"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67864,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24130\/revisions\/67864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}