Starcloud, a company building AI data centers in space, is developing humanity’s first interstellar probe through a nonprofit effort by its co-founders called “Fermi Explorer.” If all goes to plan, it will launch in 2029 and head for Alpha Centauri, the star system nearest our own — though it won’t arrive for roughly 80,000 years. The thread lit up with a wide range of reactions: disbelief at the almost incomprehensible travel time, half-joking doubts about whether humanity will even still exist by then, and genuine scientific questions about whether the expansion of the universe might affect the probe’s arrival.
Joe Hindy (CNET News) Translation/editing: Editorial staff, September 3, 2026, 6:44 AM
US-based Starcloud is a company that builds AI-focused data centers in space. Its co-founders — Philip Johnston, Adi Oltean, and Ezra Feilden — have launched a nonprofit mission called “Fermi Explorer.”
They’re developing humanity’s first interstellar probe, which, if all goes according to plan, will launch in 2029 and head toward Alpha Centauri, the star system closest to our own. However, it won’t arrive for roughly 80,000 years.
Source: japan.cnet.com / Original article here
2AnonymousSep 3, 2026 21:51
Throwing a rock at them, huh?
Are we trying to pick a fight with Centauri?
3AnonymousSep 3, 2026 21:57
They're calling it an "interstellar spacecraft"…
but really the main point is just escaping the solar system. Doesn't look like it has any way to actually home in on Alpha Centauri, or any comms gear for once it's outside the solar system.
4AnonymousSep 3, 2026 21:58
See you again in 80,000 years.
5AnonymousSep 3, 2026 22:03
I kind of want to put two AI astronauts on one of these and see if they go insane.
7AnonymousSep 3, 2026 22:17
Wait, whatever happened to the Breakthrough Starshot project anyway?
8AnonymousSep 3, 2026 22:27
>However, it won't arrive for roughly 80,000 years.
Can hardly wait.
9AnonymousSep 3, 2026 22:28
Re: #1
A rare on-topic hit for this board.
10AnonymousSep 3, 2026 22:29
Was wondering how many years this would take, read the article — 80,000 years.
Will it actually make it there okay? (That's what you're worried about, huh?)
11AnonymousSep 3, 2026 22:31
Doesn't the rate of cosmic expansion come into play here?
Will it really get there in 80,000 years?
26AnonymousSep 3, 2026 23:29
Re: #11
Cosmic expansion only really starts to matter at much bigger scales — 10 million light-years or more.
Alpha Centauri is about a ten-millionth of that distance (and it still takes 80,000 years).
As long as you're inside the Milky Way's gravity well, expansion basically doesn't touch you.
12AnonymousSep 3, 2026 22:32
A mission where, 80,000 years from now, residents of some space station built ages before it — plus the press — will say "congrats on making it!"
Assuming humanity's even still around by then.
13AnonymousSep 3, 2026 22:42
Humanity's probably extinct by 80,000 years from now, no?
14AnonymousSep 3, 2026 22:51
Thought "wow, they've got money"
but then
turns out the thing is tiny, lol
Still, between that and the 80,000-year timeline, it's got a nice sense of romance to it.
15AnonymousSep 3, 2026 22:57
Makes you wonder if there are already tons of similar fire-and-forget probes drifting through space, built by other intelligent species (with the species that launched them long since extinct).
16AnonymousSep 3, 2026 22:57
However, it won't arrive for roughly 80,000 years.
However, it won't arrive for roughly 80,000 years.
However, it won't arrive for roughly 80,000 years.
17AnonymousSep 3, 2026 22:58
Maybe it'll pick up space junk along the way, grow into something huge, get flung faster and faster through a string of accidental gravity assists, and then slam into a planet at Centauri as a giant meteor, wiping out any intelligent life there.
18AnonymousSep 3, 2026 23:02
WELLLCOME BAAACK (a stretched-out, meme-style way of writing "welcome home" in katakana)
19AnonymousSep 3, 2026 23:06
Humanity will be long extinct by then anyway
so what's even the point?
39AnonymousSep 4, 2026 10:44
Re: #19
Your bloodline might be dead, but humanity carries on.
20AnonymousSep 3, 2026 23:15
Somehow I just don't feel like investing in this.
21AnonymousSep 3, 2026 23:16
Collect donations from rich people, throw a party, and everyone goes "ahh, what a dream."
22AnonymousSep 3, 2026 23:18
Do you have any idea how far that is? If it were me, I'd stash part of my remains on the probe — if aliens ever recover it, maybe they'll clone me back to life.
24AnonymousSep 3, 2026 23:21
It'll probably get overtaken partway there by some ship that launches later.
25AnonymousSep 3, 2026 23:24
Humanity's got a million years of history behind it, so 80,000 years is nothing.
28AnonymousSep 4, 2026 00:02
Maybe if the US builds a ton of giant data centers and floods AI with insane amounts of power, it'll crack faster-than-light travel.
29AnonymousSep 4, 2026 00:22
Let's drop the lame name "Fermi Explorer" and call it the Ascension instead.
31AnonymousSep 4, 2026 01:36
Re: #29
Look at you go.
30AnonymousSep 4, 2026 01:34
Thought: wouldn't it make more sense to launch the probe body, propulsion system, and fuel separately over dozens of launches, assemble it in orbit, then send it off?
But then again, with an AI company's stock soaring the way it is right now, I guess this is their one and only shot lol
32AnonymousSep 4, 2026 07:08
Someday someone might build a faster crewed spacecraft
that just casually overtakes this thing while it's still cruising along on its leisurely 80,000-year trip.
33AnonymousSep 4, 2026 07:17
Big Tech CEOs are seriously chasing eternal life, you know
because they know full well Earth won't be livable by then.
34AnonymousSep 4, 2026 08:10
Pointless.
Forget this, just start building Daedalus already.
35AnonymousSep 4, 2026 08:28
So it'll arrive when I'm 80,040 years old, huh.
36AnonymousSep 4, 2026 08:30
It's fire-and-forget, right?
Seems like its position will drift way off course and it won't actually reach the target.
37AnonymousSep 4, 2026 08:46
By 80,000 years from now, there'll probably be a crowd of tour ships there to watch it arrive.
38AnonymousSep 4, 2026 08:57
For reference, 80,000 years ago Neanderthals were still around.
40AnonymousSep 4, 2026 12:08
The nearest star…
why isn't any national government doing this?
Only some scam-tier company would even have the nerve to bluff this big
Does that mean it's hopeless profit-wise?
Or is it that whatever's common knowledge to some "Galactic Federation"
would just be too harsh a truth for human society to handle?
Seriously, what is going on here.
41AnonymousSep 4, 2026 12:11
Daedalus
Nuclear pulse propulsion
Wonder if the reason that project got shelved
will finally come out in Spielberg's new movie.
42AnonymousSep 4, 2026 12:19
Figured it'd be a few hundred or a few thousand years, but 80,000? That's really slow lol
Feels like the probe would just break down along the way, though maybe there's less cosmic radiation since it's a neighboring star system.
Also, since it can't do reverse thrust at the end, if it ends up slamming into a planet, would it just burn up on arrival if there's an atmosphere?
43AnonymousSep 4, 2026 12:31
A probe that's already doomed to be overtaken, and you can tell that even at the planning stage lol
Still, exploration like this has to start somewhere,
and it says something that America's the one willing to take the leap.
44AnonymousSep 4, 2026 12:38
How's a probe that small supposed to reach escape velocity in the first place?
Background and Talking Points
Starcloud is a company originally known for its business building AI data centers in orbit; the interstellar probe project was launched separately by its co-founders as a nonprofit venture. The fact that this is a private, nonprofit effort rather than a national space agency effort ties into the question raised in comment #40 — “why isn’t a national government doing this?” It’s also worth knowing, as comment #7 points out, that earlier interstellar probe concepts like Breakthrough Starshot never actually made it to launch. As for the cosmic-expansion question raised in comment #11, comment #26 answers it: expansion only becomes a meaningful factor at distances on the order of 10 million light-years, and Alpha Centauri, at 4.37 light-years away, remains well within the Milky Way’s gravitational domain and is essentially unaffected — an easy point to get wrong. The probe also appears to lack any deceleration system, so even when it “arrives” in 80,000 years, it likely won’t be able to make a soft landing or enter orbit.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Science News+) thread “US Company to Launch Probe Toward the Star “Alpha Centauri,” Possibly by 2029.”
