Flying to the Moon or Mars may sound ambitious, but those journeys are a mere jog around the block compared to a 1970s British plan to send a spaceship to one of the nearest stars beyond our solar system.

Project Daedalus was a proposal to send a craft some 5.9 light years to Barnard's Star, a journey which they figured could be achieved in about 50 years at around 70 million miles per hour.

Due to its truly massive size, the 54,000 ton Daedalus would be built in Earth orbit over several years, then sent on its way. The two-stage fusion rocket would only have enough fuel for about four years, after which Daedalus would coast for 46 years to reach the star.

Alas Project Daedalus never went beyond the drawing board, but you've got to give them credit for thinking freakin' huge, as these impressions by artist Adrian Mann show.

Via Discovery.com