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The first interstellar journeys to find planets similar to Earth are closer than ever to becoming reality.
least they believe and bet the teacher and scientist, Stephen Hawking, the founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and billionaire Yuri Milner .
the latter decided investing US $ 100 million for research and development project Breakthrough Starshot , which was presented this week in New York.
the program is to send micronaves to space to travel much farther and faster than any other in the past, and record, store and send information to Earth .
it sounds like science fiction, but Yuri Milner believes it is technically possible to develop these spacecraft
“55 years ago Yuri Gagarin became the first human to go into space Today, we are preparing for the next big leap. to the stars”. , said at the presentation.
But who is this man of 54 years who bet millions to find new homes for humans?
Yuri Milner was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1961.
choosing your name seems to have marked his destination .
she told Milner himself in an interview with Time magazine in 2015, his parents named Yuri after the Russian astronaut and first man to reach the space, 1961 .
Milner studied Arts and Science at the University of Moscow, but did not finished the race in Physics.
in 1990 he moved to the United States where began to amass his fortune financing new companies in the technology sector, such as Twitter and Facebook , through its investment fund DST Global.
in Russia, it was also the CEO of Mail.ru , the Internet portal largest in the country.
In addition, Milner bet big on Chinese technology companies, including companies and JD.Com Alibaba online sales, and led multiple rounds of financing, as detailed magazine Forbes puts you in the position 612 of the ranking of billionaires in the world .
According to the same list, the employer has a fortune of US $ 2,900 million .
Milner sold its holdings in e-commerce in 2015 for an estimated US $ 700 million.
in 2012, the philanthropist bought the Loire Chateau mansion Palo Alto, about 2,370 square meters in Silicon Valley, as published in the BBC.
That same year Milner joined Sergey Brin of Google and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, among other entrepreneurs, to create the Breakthrough Prize (Revelation Award), an award in several categories that scientists delivered by its progress in this area .
the winners of the different categories of the latest award received in total US $ 22 million , as described by the website breakthroughprize.org.
the recent announcement of the project for interstellar travel with tiny spaceships, is not the first in which Milner invests millions of dollars.
in 2015, and also with the support of professor Hawking, Milner announced participation in financing a project to find out if there really is life or extraterrestrial intelligence by using telescopes advanced technology.
For this project called Breakthrough Listen , which has a term of 10 years, also announced an investment of US $ 100 million .
This is a telescope that will look for signs of distant radio in the Solar System .
“the universe is full of life but probably are not alone. If we’re alone would be a big waste of building space. but I do not want to be the judge of that, just want to help find an answer “Milner said in an interview with the . Time magazine
When asked what will happen to the funding if no findings after 10 years, Milner said. “I will invest money for another 10 years It is our responsibility as human beings continue searching for a signal “.
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