--- title: Yuri Milner Project Plans to Use Lasers to Propel Probes description: New technology would use lasers to help a small device travel near the speed of light canonical: https://time.com/4292182/space-stars-yuri-milner/ author: Cubie King article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-13T17:30:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:50:04.982Z article:section: Science og:title: Inside the Plan to Send Tiny Probes to Explore Far-away Stars og:description: New technology would use lasers to help a small device travel near the speed of light og:url: https://time.com/4292182/space-stars-yuri-milner/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc9ff936d0a49c806/69888ef4ab6d776af76a93c9/laser-sail.png?branch=production&width=711&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 711 og:image:height: 400 og:image:alt: Laser Sail og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Inside the Plan to Send Tiny Probes to Explore Far-away Stars twitter:description: New technology would use lasers to help a small device travel near the speed of light twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc9ff936d0a49c806/69888ef4ab6d776af76a93c9/laser-sail.png?branch=production&width=711&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Inside the Plan to Send Tiny Probes to Explore Far-away Stars > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is TIME's weekly climate and energy newsletter, written by senior correspondent Justin Worland. It connects the energy transition to the decisions reshaping business, technology, policy and markets. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=3006c554-a186-47af-840e-315476c88543&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Mapping The Stars: How to Get to the Nearest Star in Twenty Years [Watch (HLS stream): Mapping The Stars: How to Get to the Nearest Star in Twenty Years](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oJiBtWvc.m3u8) (4:13)  _Published 2016-04-13. Philip Lubin, physics professor at The University of California, Santa Barbara, explains how sending laser-propelled probes into outer space can further mankind's exploration and knowledge about our universe._ by [Cubie King](https://time.com/author/cubie-king/) and [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/) Apr 13, 2016 5:30 PM UTC by [Cubie King](https://time.com/author/cubie-king/) and [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/) Apr 13, 2016 5:30 PM UTC Reaching another star with [a human-built spacecraft](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/science/alpha-centauri-breakthrough-starshot-yuri-milner-stephen-hawking.html) has for decades seemed like a challenge as distant as, well, any far-off star humans might try to reach. But now [new technology](http://www.wired.com/2016/04/rich-dude-yuri-milner-wants-100-million-mph-laser-powered-satellites-much-ask/) utilizing [small unmanned spacecrafts directed by lasers](http://fortune.com/2016/04/12/stephen-hawking-yuri-milner-breakthrough-starshot/) could offer a path forward in the coming decades, scientists say. Astrophysicist Philip Lubin is one of those scientists. He’s developing wafer-thin crafts that will be guided through space by lasers that push the device close to the speed of light. The total travel time to Mars could be just a few days, Lubin says. The idea may sound like science fiction, but Lubin says recent advances make the project feasible. And he’s attracting the capital to test it. Russian billionaire Yuri Milner just [committed $100 million](http://www.wired.com/2016/04/rich-dude-yuri-milner-wants-100-million-mph-laser-powered-satellites-much-ask/) in the hope that Lubin will be able to build a proof of concept. Watch the video above to learn more. ## Transcript Why do people explore? You know that's really a profoundly interesting question. We've looked at the sky for as long as we've been alive and we've dreamed in stories and in movies of traveling to the stars. Why? We want to see what's out there. The problem is that while we can go to the moon, and while we actually have it within our power to go to Mars, we don't have a well defined way to get out to the stars. So what we're proposing. Is precisely that. A well defined and logical way to go to stars. Not with humans, but with robotic hopes. I'm a professor in the physics department at the University of California at Santa Barbara. This department is one of the Top ten departments in the country in physics. We have a group in our department, the experimental cosmology group, that we started in 1987. And it's a very dynamic group. Some of those students are also focused on applications of directed energy systems. The main mission behind the experimental cosmology group is to advance science and advance directed energy studies and its application. There's an aircraft flying overhead that you hear. That aircraft can only fly about the speed of sound. But that's way too slow to explore the stars. If you were to maintain that same speed and wanted to go to the nearest star, it would take you more than five million Ten years in that aircraft. In our system, with the smallest probes it could take as little as 20 years. If we wanna get to Alpha Centauri in 20 years, we have to take our ideas and scale them down. And in order to do that, we've set up a vacuum chamber to simulate space conditions. [ MUSIC ] The energy system is basically Like a laser pointer. Take a laser or a flashlight, turn it on, you direct energy. That means can be used for many purposes. When it's taken to extremes, it can be used to deflect an asteroid coming into the Earth. It could be used to propel a spacecraft. In order to get to the future Sure when you take small steps, I like to think baby steps. Some of those include just laboratory measurements of the thrust that you can get from a [ UNKNOWN ] and Asterope. The thrust you get from building spacecraft. You scale that up to large guild directed energy systems like what we're proposing, that forest becomes significant. Theoretically the wafer spacecraft is actually four inches. Inches by four inches, almost as thin as your hair. And these probes would literally be a spacecraft on a chip. The propulsion system is the laser, which stays [ UNKNOWN ] on the moon nearby. You fire it And then it's gone. If we reduce the spacecraft to a wafer, which we have things like imaging sensors, cameras for looking at the stars for orientation, and then a laser communication system to communicate back to the Earth. But keep in mind the same system, this is a very important point, the same system is used not just to send out one probe, but to send out And are monochromes. It takes about 10 minutes to accelerate a wafer to 30 % of the speed of light. And that's it. You can send a hundred per day or more. You can send nearly 40000 per year. Once we have thousands of space crafts out in space, we can look at many things out in space that we've never been able. To explore before, such as the solar gravity events, Alpha Centauri, and the closest star. When we really begin to look at the issues of sending humanity into interstellar travel it becomes very different than the movies. We're not really the ideal creatures to be traveling. Really what we want is not necessarily. To spread our bodies throughout the universe but to spread the capability of replicating ourselves, our spirit, our inquiry, our biological subsystems. Obviously you're going to start out with critics and people that are going to question you. But then we can actually see people starting to like our idea more and more and Like coming to it and I think that's really special and that's where the optimism comes from. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4292182/space-stars-yuri-milner/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4292182/space-stars-yuri-milner/"},"headline":"Inside the Plan to Send Tiny Probes to Explore Far-away Stars","datePublished":"2016-04-13T17:30:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-05T08:50:04.982Z","description":"New technology would use lasers to help a small device travel near the speed of light","url":"https://time.com/4292182/space-stars-yuri-milner/","keywords":["space travel","Space"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc9ff936d0a49c806/69888ef4ab6d776af76a93c9/laser-sail.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cubie King","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cubie-king/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"Justin Worland","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/justin-worland/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc9ff936d0a49c806/69888ef4ab6d776af76a93c9/laser-sail.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Laser Sail","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space-travel/","name":"space travel"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4292182/space-stars-yuri-milner/","name":"Inside the Plan to Send Tiny Probes to Explore Far-away Stars"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Mapping The Stars: How to Get to the Nearest Star in Twenty Years","description":"Philip Lubin, physics professor at The University of California, Santa Barbara, explains how sending laser-propelled probes into outer space can further mankind's exploration and knowledge about our universe.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/oJiBtWvc/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-04-13T15:27:44.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oJiBtWvc.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4292182/space-stars-yuri-milner/","duration":"PT4M13S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4292182/space-stars-yuri-milner/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```