It has been about two years since Yuri Milner announced his most audacious piece of science-focused philanthropy: Breakthrough Starshot, an attempt to send hardware to Alpha Centauri by mid-century.

Stable flight of a laser sail is an essential requirement of beam-driven propulsion. Centauri Dreams talked to James Benford about work towards stable beam flight. It places considerable demand upon ...

ON A REMOTE ISLAND in the South Pacific, a black box the size of a loaf of bread houses what could be the future of space flight. The precious cargo is the National Aeronautics & Space ...

Current solar sail materials will let us pass within 30 solar radii of the sun but withstanding the heat and getting closer enables far faster speeds. The right metal solar sail would let us get ...

DAVID LEVIN: You're listening to a NOVA podcast. I'm David Levin. The next generation of spacecraft will travel faster than ever before. But they might not be propelled by rockets. If Dean Alhorn has ...

Scientists working with a synthetic material 100 times thinner than a piece of paper are testing their theory that the sun can power interplanetary spacecraft. They believe that photons — particles of ...