A scientist of Greek origin, Andreas Tziolas has made it his life’s goal to realize the “unreachable” dream of a long interstellar journey to other suns and star systems beyond our own. He is the head of “project Icarus”, which seeks to fulfill the necessary prerequisites, maybe by year 2100, for equipping a spaceship with the newest technologies and organizing, possibly within the next century, an interstellar journey lasting under 100 years.

As A. Tziolas confesses, when, as a young boy, he was still living in Greece, he used to watch “Star Wars” every Sunday morning, and this was what made him understand what he wanted to do with his life.

The list of his scientific accomplishments is exceptionally rich and includes postgraduate degrees in Space Physics, a period of research at NASA’s JLP laboratory, during which he had the chance to participate in several space missions, such as “Gallileo” to Jipiter, “Mars Pathfinder” and “Mars Polar Lander”, as well as the well-known Hubble space telescope, a PhD in Cosmology from Baylor University in Texas and the position of chief sscientist for Variance Dynamical Corps. Today, he is based in Anchorage, where he teaches at the University.

However, the role truly defining his career was that of the head of “Project Icarus”- a voluntary, translational group of scientists, who attempt to set the foundations for a future flight to another star system, several light years away from Earth. Five-year-long “Project Icarus” was launched on September 30, 2009, in London, as an initiative of the British Interplanetary Society. Directed by non-for-profit organization Icarus Interstellar Inc, the plan is aimed at outlining specific theoretical technical suggestions as to how such a journey can be realized, but also at investigating what kinds of  technology, particularly in the critical field of ignition, will be needed for such an unmanned super-spaceship. .

The Icarus team consists of scientists from state organizations, universities and companies. Coordinated by Tziolas are two more Greeks, who both work as designers: Dimos Homatas, specializing in informatics, communications, automation and robotics, and Kostas Konstantinidis, who in 2010 graduated from the School of Applied Mathematical and Physical Sciences of the National Technical University in Athens, attended a master’s program at the Democritus University of Thrace and now works as a researcher at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics in Colorado.