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- stupid question: how much energy, power and what kind of systems would you need to run something for 80000 years to go all the way to proxima centauri

- how many redudancies would you need, how would it affect the payload?

- what kind of materials?

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Power is possible, Thorium-230 has been pointed out as the ideal fuel for such a scenario. Very nice, long and energetic decay chain, 75ka half-life, many of the daughter products are relatively long-lived which helps to flatten out the power curve.

I don't think anyone has any clue how to build electronics that survive even a tenth of that time, though.

Also a bit of a pet peeve, if it takes you 80k years, you are not going to Proxima. The stars themselves are moving rather fast, and which is closest changes over time. The Alpha Centauri main binary becomes the closest in ~26ka with a close pass at ~3ly, Ross 248 also comes within 3ly in ~37ka. Lastly, Gliese 445 does a ~3.5ly flyby at ~45ka. After that, all the closest stars are receding, and Proxima is 5ly away.

Then eventually a million years later Gliese 710 does a 0.16ly flyby, straight through our oort cloud.

Relevant for Voyager I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQTfUB9AAnM&t=0

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