NASA and DARPA Plan ‘Hundred-Year Starship' To Bring Humans to Other Worlds And Leave Them There Forever
Mars Mining This Mars miner will probably never go home again. NASA If NASA ever gets a clear directive for interplanetary exploration, a new Hundred-Year Starship could be their version of the Mayflower. And like the first pilgrims, Martian explorers might set sail with the knowledge they would never return home. NASA and DARPA have joined forces to build something called a Hundred-Year Starship, according to the director of NASA's Ames Research Center. Simon "Pete" Worden said NASA contributed $100,000 to the project and DARPA kicked in $1 million. "The human space program is now really aimed at settling other worlds," Worden said, according to a Singularity University blog that covered the event. "Twenty years ago you had to whisper that in dark bars and get fired." (Worden added that he was fired by President George W. Bush.) Beyond that, there are no details. But the prospect of a DARPA-NASA spaceship collaboration...