A version of this article was first published in August 20205 issue of Pricipium, the quarterly publication from the Initiative for Interstellar Studies. You can download the full issue here without charge.
The audio interview on which this piece is based (episode 122) is available for download here.
On 14 October 1959, a spacecraft, Luna 2, impacted the Lunar surface close to Mare Imbrium. It was launched by the USSR and arrived on the Moon two days after launch. It is the first object made on Earth to travel to the surface of another world. A decade later, spacecraft from Earth arrived on Venus and Mars. In the 21st century, spacecraft have arrived on the surface of Titan, asteroids, and even a comet. Five spacecraft have left or are on a trajectory to leave the solar system. In one lifetime, Interplanetary exploration has become almost routine. But where are we on our quest for interstellar exploration?
So far, exploration of the Solar system has been within the purview of national governments, predominantly the USA and the Russian Federation (formerly the USSR), as well as the European Space Agency and the Japanese Space Agency, in the case of Cassini-Huygens and Hayabusa. Interstellar exploration is many orders of magnitude more challenging. The immense challenges of interstellar exploration include vast distances, technological innovations, enormous timescales, and a novel funding source. Could the Starshot Initiative from the Breakthrough Foundation be the solution?
The Breakthrough Initiatives are the brainchild of physicist, entrepreneur, and investor Yuri Milner.
Breakthrough Starshot is a $100 million research and engineering program aimed at demonstrating the proof of concept for new technology, enabling ultra-light, uncrewed spaceflight at 20% of the speed of light and laying the foundations for a flyby mission to Alpha Centauri within a generation. The Starshot initiative, a proof-of-concept launched by Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking in 2016, is funded by the foundation established by Yuri and Julia Milner.
Milner identified the discrepancy between the outstanding scientific question of our time, Life in the Universe. But he says, “On the bright side, that means it could offer considerable scientific return on investment”.
Initiated in 2012, the Breakthrough Prizes are a set of annual international awards in the fields of Mathematics, Life Sciences, and Fundamental Physics. The awards are part of the “Breakthrough initiatives” founded by Yuri Milner and his wife, Julia Milner. Laureates receive $3 million each in prize money (funded by Yuri and Julia Milner and others, including Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg) during a televised award ceremony designed to celebrate their achievements and inspire the next generation of scientists. Breakthrough Prize was the first and is now joined by Breakthrough Listen, Breakthrough Watch, Breakthrough Message and Breakthrough Starshot.
Breakthrough Listen is targeting the 1,000,000 closest stars to Earth and is the largest-ever scientific research program seeking evidence of civilisations beyond Earth. The radio and optical surveys will cover a larger portion of the sky, deploy more instruments in multiple locations, have higher sensitivity, and utilise state-of-the-art digital signal processing and artificial intelligence tools.
Breakthrough Watch is a program to look for Earth-like planets within 20 light-years away, starting with the nearest Alpha Centauri system. If life exists on these planets with Earth-like characteristics (in terms of temperature, pressure, rocky surface, and potentially water), then the tell-tale signs of biosignatures and techno-signatures could make that breakthrough and detect the very first unambiguous signs of extraterrestrial life.
Breakthrough Message is an initiative designed to address the question: if the existence and the whereabouts of the first extraterrestrial intelligent civilisation is finally confirmed, what do we say to them? The content of the message is the primary focus, but so are the questions of who decides what form (language) the message will take, how it is constructed and who will send it. As the Apollo 8 astronauts recalled following their 1968 trip to the Moon, “We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth”. This is perhaps the most profound of all the initiatives, as it will allow us to learn about ourselves – even if no message is ever sent.
These initiatives can inform and complement one another. Results from Watch and/or Listen may direct Starshot and message.
Dr Pete Worden chairs the Breakthrough Discuss conferences and actively discusses the themes of all the Breakthrough initiatives, emphasising their interdisciplinary nature and focus on fundamental questions about life and intelligence. His interest in space and astronomy started as a boy when he asked his mother, “’Okay, what do people do that study stars?’ And she called them astronomers”.
Pete Worden had a long, distinguished career with a background in the military, specifically working with the Air Force, Space Command, missile defence, and being instrumental in the responsive space program during his active duty. He worked on arms reduction with the USSR during the Cold War.
In around 1982, long after the Apollo program, Pete Worden applied unsuccessfully to NASA’s astronaut program. During his time as the director of Ames Research Centre, he met Apollo 15 Command Module Pilot Al Worden. Both came from Michigan and were able to determine that Al Worden’s family was part of the extended Warden family in Michigan that had adopted Pete Worden’s grandfather.
In 2015, he left as head of NASA AMES Research Centre to become the chairman of the Breakthrough Foundation. In this role, he provides strategic leadership and oversight of the Breakthrough Initiatives suite. Reflecting on his 2015 meeting with Yuri Milner, he recalls, “he asked me to be the chairman of the overall farm foundation, not just the executive director of the initiatives, and so we’ve been at it about 10 years, and I think we’ve made major accomplishments”.
In his 2021 publication “Eureka Manifesto”, Yuri Milner asserts that “unlike organisations, businesses, companies or even nations, human civilisation can be seen as an entity that lacks a common mission. In the absence of that vision, humanity hinders its collective progress and, thus, in the end, its potential for long-term survival”. However, he does not simply assert his views as words on a page; by funding a series of apolitical, multidisciplinary, and international initiatives, he hopes to make progress on the most challenging questions of our time.
Reflecting on the big question at the root of all the initiatives, Worden says, “I think we’re going to find pretty strong evidence of life within a decade. Probably with our own solar system… so I think we’ll find life within a decade…. but I’m virtually certain we’re going to find life everywhere within a decade”. On the “whether we find evidence of intelligent life that’s .. who knows. You know, and again it depends on what we mean by intelligence..”
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