"Humanity's adventurous, stubborn, mad and glorious aspiration to reach the stars" is the subject of Physics World's lead feature in January.
Sidney Perkowitz, Candler Professor of Physics Emeritus at Emory University, Atlanta, US, reports from the 100 Year Starship Study (100YSS) conference and discusses the challenges that interstellar travel presents.
With current propulsion technology only able to move spacecraft at 0.005% of the speed of light, a one-way trip to the star system nearest our Sun, Alpha Centauri?, would take 80,000 years to travel the four light-years to our nearest stellar neighbours.
An 80,000 year voyage to the nearest stars system is obviously impractical, and not how it's being done. To read more, click here.