Project Icarus is an ambitious five-year study into launching an unmanned spacecraft to an interstellar destination. Headed by the Tau Zero Foundation and British Interplanetary Society, a non-profit group of scientists dedicated to interstellar spaceflight, Icarus is working to develop a spacecraft that can travel to a nearby star.
Rob Swinney, member of the British Interplanetary Society and Project Icarus, investigates the realities of navigating through interstellar space with a vehicle traveling at 12 percent the speed of light.
And that's moving at a mere 12 percent of the speed of light. Things become much more problematic when one reaches relativistic speeds of 90 plus percent c. Traveling at 12 percent of the speed of light just doesn't cut it. if you can't travel fast, then you probably won't ever get anywhere before you die. To read the rest of the article, click here.