Nonprofit plans to launch 80,000-year probe to Alpha Centauri by 2029 - everythinglubbock.com

Alpha Centauri sits 4.4 light-years from the sun, and Fermi's plan puts the mission's price tag at just under $15 million, a shoestring budget by space program standards. The nonprofit has already mapped out a trajectory for the tiny craft, with liftoff planned before the decade ends.

Fermi Explorer co-founder Philip Johnston said the millennia-long wait is the whole idea behind the project. "None of us will be here when this journey ends, and that is the point," Johnston said. "It's about taking the first achievable step and inspiring future generations to keep pushing beyond the limits we inherited."

For people here who grew up watching moon landings and Mars rover footage arrive in real time, this is a different kind of space story. No live feed. No astronaut interviews. No countdown clock most of us will ever see finish. The mission exists as a bet on people not yet born, funded on a budget smaller than plenty of local construction projects.

A spacecraft launched in 2029 could still be drifting toward Alpha Centauri long after every trace of Lubbock as we know it today is gone, and it still won't have arrived.