Speculative Fact #329: A Tiny Little Starship

After years of budget cuts, NASA has been forced to adopt the policy of smaller faster cheaper. That boils down to fewer rockets in favor of more affordable robotic probes. Fortunately for the human race, a joint project between three wealthy visionaries (Yuri Milner, Stephen Hawking, and Mark Zuckerberg) propose a novel endeavor.
            Using Earth based lasers, they hope to push the sails of a tiny (20 gram) light sail craft to explore our nearest galactic neighbor (Alpha Centauri). If it could achieve the intended mark of one-fifth light speed it would be the fastest craft created by humans.
            While this tiny little ship might not be as sexy as a Galaxy class star cruiser, it is within in technological and economical means. Long before humanity reaches the nearest stars, we may explore them using swarms of tiny, cheap ones.

-Jonathan Hernandez