Centauri Dreams

Sending a space probe even to the nearest star presents scientists and engineers with apparently insurmountable obstacles. Yet researchers at NASA and in space agencies and institutes around the globe are thinking seriously about, and even making plans for, how we will send a spacecraft to the Centauri stars and beyond. Many of the scientific issues under discussion and the engineering solutions proposed sound like the products of science fiction, and in fact many of them have been inspired by science fiction. But the real work of building a pathway out of our solar system is already underway, and Paul Gilster describes the issues and efforts in startling detail: ...