A summary of work to date was given by Millis in a talk at the 2017 Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop, Breakthrough Propulsion Study.
In April 2017, NASA awarded Tau Zero a $500,000 grant for the study of breakthrough propulsion programs in a funding proposal entitled Interstellar Propulsion Review. Notable Tau Zero leadership includes board directors Walter de Brouwer, cofounder of Starlab, fellow Starlab alumnus and NASA-trained commercial astronaut, quantum technologist Christopher Altman founder of XCOR Aerospace, Jeff Greason joined as chairman of the board in 2017. Millis retired from NASA on February 3, 2010, continuing interstellar research at Tau Zero. The name stems from the science fiction novel Tau Zero, which chronicles an interstellar voyage and the lives of its participants. Its “Chapter 3: Prerequisites for Space Drive Science” provides a deeper explanation of several proposed spacecraft propulsion methods.įollowing the close of the program in 2002, Millis joined several project members to establish the Tau Zero Foundation, a nonprofit organization advocating research into interstellar travel. Frontiers of Propulsion ScienceĪfter conclusion of NASA funding into the program, principal investigator Marc Millis and physicist Eric Davis documented the results in the book Frontiers of Propulsion Science, published in February 2009 by the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). At the end of the project, four research avenues were identified as opportunities for continued research. The program examined propellantless propulsion, hyperfast travel, and breakthrough propulsion. The NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program was a 1996–2002 research program that aimed to find ways to achieve interstellar spaceflight on realistic mass and energy timescales.
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