Starlight (interstellar probe)

[1] Starlight aims to accelerate the spacecraft with powerful lasers, a method the project refers to as DEEP-IN (Directed Energy Propulsion for Interstellar Exploration),[2] thus allowing them to reach stars near the Solar System in a matter of years, in contrast to traditional propulsion methods which would require thousands of years.

[1] They would fly at one-fifth of the speed of light, and in the case of Alpha Centauri, they would arrive after traveling more than twenty years from Earth.

[1] Starlight is a program of the Experimental Cosmology Group of University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and has received funding from NASA.

C. elegans have been used extensively in biological research as a model organism, as the worm is one of those having the fewest cells for an animal possessing a nervous system.

A backup option for C. elegans are tardigrades, micro-animals that are known for their resilience to various conditions lethal to other animals, such as the vacuum environment of space and strong doses of ionizing radiation.