Proxima Centauri: The Nearest Star We Still Can’t Reach (Here’s Why)

Описание: Proxima Centauri: The Nearest Star We Still Can’t Reach (Here’s Why)

Imagine knowing the closest star to our Sun is “right next door” in cosmic terms… and still completely out of reach.

In this cinematic space documentary, we dive into the brutal physics that keeps Proxima Centauri locked away from humanity—despite the discovery of Proxima b, a potentially habitable, Earth-sized exoplanet orbiting in the star’s habitable zone. We compare the real scale of interstellar distance using Voyager 1 (traveling ~17 km/s), and why at that pace a mission to Proxima would take tens of thousands of years.

So what would it actually take to reach another star within a human lifetime?

We explore the most serious propulsion concepts ever proposed—from ion and plasma engines, nuclear thermal rockets, and VASIMR, to extreme ideas like Project Orion (nuclear pulse propulsion). Then we reach the most realistic near-future path: solar sails, laser sails, and the bold plan known as Breakthrough Starshot—a swarm of tiny “StarChip” probes accelerated to ~20% the speed of light toward Proxima Centauri, arriving in just a few decades.

Even if we don’t find alien life, a flyby of Proxima b could deliver humanity’s first close-up data from another star system—changing how we understand planets, habitability, and our place in the Milky Way.

If the stars are the next shore, this is the story of why the ocean between them is so hard to cross.

Chapters
0:00 The Nearest Star Paradox
2:30 Why Voyager Can’t Get There
5:00 The Propulsion Wall
7:30 Orion, Sails, and the Dangerous Ideas
10:00 Laser Sails & Breakthrough Starshot
12:30 What Reaching the Stars Means for Humanity

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