Space Daily August 31, 2026 • 22:30

At the space shuttle’s orbital speed of roughly 28,000 kilometres per hour, the journey to Alpha Centauri would take about 165,000 years. Breakthrough Starshot proposes sending a gram-scale chip attached to a metre-wide sail—accelerated by Earth-based la - Space Daily

The 165,000-year shuttle comparison is sound arithmetic rather than a mission profile, while Starshot’s 20-year result depends on a gram-scale flyby probe, a metre-scale sail and an unbuilt Earth-based laser array.

At orbital speed, the space shuttle crossed a continent in minutes. It circled Earth about once every 90 minutes, moving fast enough for its crew to see a sunrise or sunset roughly every 45 minutes.
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At the space shuttle’s orbital speed of roughly 28,000 kilometres per hour, the journey to Alpha Centauri would take about 165,000 years. Breakthrough Starshot proposes sending a gram-scale chip attached to a metre-wide sail—accelerated by Earth-based la - Space Daily

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