>>19860788Have a very big plate of radioactive material.
A thin sheet one football field across, is rolled out after being launched by a rocket into space.
The sheet contains a radioactive material on one side, and a particle reflector on the other.
The entire space vehicle is one giant rocket engine that propells it for up to 20 years at which point the nuclear material has fizzled out.
Point the spacecraft in the direction of alpha Centauri, and half way through turn the spacecraft 180 degrees slowing it down.
The whole trip would take a little over 10 years.
Total cost of the spacecraft:
Using Americum 241 as fuel : 1516780$/kg.
Using heavy water as a reflector : 1000$/liter
Our sheet only needs to be approximately one centimeter across.
It will only weigh a approximately 30 kilograms.
it can be launched from a very cheap falcon 9 or Soyuz rocket given it can be either rolled out, folded out, or otherwise self-assembled in orbit.
We could build one of these probes in less than a month and launch it immediately.
I took these number out of my ass, and made everything up, you're never going to see another star, space does not exist.
