Starship (interstellar spacecraft)

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A starship, starcraft or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between planetary systems. [1]

Spacecraft manned vehicle or unmanned machine designed to fly in outer space

A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, planetary exploration, and transportation of humans and cargo. All spacecraft except single-stage-to-orbit vehicles cannot get into space on their own, and require a launch vehicle.

Interstellar travel term used for hypothetical manned or unmanned travel between stars

Interstellar travel is the term used for crewed or uncrewed travel between stars or planetary systems. Interstellar travel will be much more difficult than interplanetary spaceflight; the distances between the planets in the Solar System are less than 30 astronomical units (AU)—whereas the distances between stars are typically hundreds of thousands of AU, and usually expressed in light-years. Because of the vastness of those distances, interstellar travel would require a high percentage of the speed of light; huge travel time, lasting from decades to millennia or longer.

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The term is mostly found in science fiction, because as of 2019 no such craft has ever been constructed. Reference to a "star-ship" appears as early as 1882 in Oahspe: A New Bible . [2] [3]

Science fiction Genre of speculative fiction

Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction that has been called the "literature of ideas". It typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, time travel, parallel universes, fictional worlds, space exploration, and extraterrestrial life. It often explores the potential consequences of scientific innovations.

<i>Oahspe: A New Bible</i>

Oahspe: A New Bible is a book published in 1882, purporting to contain "new revelations" from "...the Embassadors of the angel hosts of heaven prepared and revealed unto man in the name of Jehovih..." It was produced by an American dentist, John Ballou Newbrough (1828–1891), who reported it to have been written by automatic writing, making it one of a number of 19th-century spiritualist works attributed to that practice. The text defines adherents of the disciplines expounded in Oahspe as "Faithists".

Whilst the Voyager and Pioneer probes have travelled into local interstellar space, the purpose of these uncrewed craft was specifically interplanetary and they are not predicted to reach another star system (although Voyager 1 will travel to within 1.7 light years of Gliese 445 in approximately 40,000 years. [4] ) Several preliminary designs for starships have been undertaken through exploratory engineering, using feasibility studies with modern technology or technology thought likely to be available in the near future.

Voyager program American scientific program about the probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2

The Voyager program is an American scientific program that employs two robotic probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, to study the outer Solar System. The probes were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Although their original mission was to study only the planetary systems of Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 2 continued on to Uranus and Neptune. The Voyagers now explore the outer boundary of the heliosphere in interstellar space; their mission has been extended three times and they continue to transmit useful scientific data. Neither Uranus nor Neptune has been visited by a probe other than Voyager 2.

Pioneer program series of United States unmanned space missions

The Pioneer program was a series of United States unmanned space missions that were designed for planetary exploration. There were a number of such missions in the program, but the most notable were Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11, which explored the outer planets and left the Solar System. Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 carry a golden plaque, depicting a man and a woman and information about the origin and the creators of the probes, should any extraterrestrials find them someday.

<i>Voyager 1</i> Space probe and the farthest human-made object from Earth

Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977. Part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System, Voyager 1 was launched 16 days after its twin, Voyager 2. Having operated for 41 years, 11 months and 3 days as of August 8, 2019, the spacecraft still communicates with the Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and to transmit data to Earth. At a distance of 146 AU from Earth as of July 11, 2019 it is the most distant man-made object from Earth.

In April 2016, scientists announced Breakthrough Starshot, a Breakthrough Initiatives program, to develop a proof-of-concept fleet of small centimeter-sized light sail spacecraft, named StarChip , [5] capable of making the journey to Alpha Centauri, the nearest extrasolar star system, at speeds of 20% [6] [7] and 15% [8] of the speed of light, taking between 20 and 30 years to reach the star system, respectively, and about 4 years to notify Earth of a successful arrival.

Breakthrough Starshot research and engineering project by Breakthrough Initiatives

Breakthrough Starshot is a research and engineering project by the Breakthrough Initiatives to develop a proof-of-concept fleet of light sail spacecraft named StarChip, to be capable of making the journey to the Alpha Centauri star system 4.37 light-years away. It was founded in 2016 by Yuri Milner, Stephen Hawking, and Mark Zuckerberg.

Breakthrough Initiatives is a science-based program founded in 2015 and funded by Julia and Yuri Milner, also of Breakthrough Prize, to search for extraterrestrial intelligence over a span of at least 10 years. The program is divided into multiple projects. Breakthrough Listen will comprise an effort to search over 1,000,000 stars for artificial radio or laser signals. A parallel project called Breakthrough Message is an effort to create a message "representative of humanity and planet Earth". The project Breakthrough Starshot, co-founded with Mark Zuckerberg, aims to send a swarm of probes to the nearest star at about 20% the speed of light. The project Breakthrough Watch aims to identify and characterize Earth-sized, rocky planets around Alpha Centauri and other stars within 20 light years of Earth. Breakthrough plans to send a mission to Saturn's moon Enceladus, in search for life in its warm ocean, and in 2018 signed a partnership agreement with NASA for the project.

Alpha Centauri Star system

Alpha Centauri is the closest star system and closest planetary system to the Solar System at 4.37 light-years from the Sun. It is a triple star system, consisting of three stars: α Centauri A, α Centauri B, and α Centauri C.

In November 2018, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that SpaceX was renaming the second stage and spaceship of the Big Falcon Rocket, a fully reusable launch vehicle and spacecraft system, to Starship. [9] Though the spacecraft will not possess any reasonable interstellar capability, Musk defended the name by claiming that "later versions will." [10]

SpaceX American aerospace company

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., doing business as SpaceX, is a private US aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars. SpaceX has developed the Falcon launch vehicle family and the Dragon spacecraft family.

Elon Musk American industrialist and investor

Elon Reeve Musk is a technology entrepreneur, investor, and engineer. He holds South African, Canadian, and U.S. citizenship and is the founder, CEO, and lead designer of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; co-founder and CEO of Neuralink; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder and co-chairman of OpenAI; and co-founder of PayPal. In December 2016, he was ranked 21st on the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People. He has a net worth of $22.3 billion and is listed by Forbes as the 40th-richest person in the world.

Research

Artist's conception of British Interplanetary Society's Project Daedalus (1978), a fusion powered interstellar probe Daedalusschip1.png
Artist's conception of British Interplanetary Society's Project Daedalus (1978), a fusion powered interstellar probe

To travel between stars in a reasonable time using rocket-like technology requires very high effective exhaust velocity jet, and enormous energy to power this, such as might be provided by fusion power or antimatter.

Rocket

A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle that obtains thrust from a rocket engine. Rocket engine exhaust is formed entirely from propellant carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction and push rockets forward simply by expelling their exhaust in the opposite direction at high speed, and can therefore work in the vacuum of space.

Fusion power type of electricity generation

Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices designed to harness this energy are known as fusion reactors.

Antimatter Material composed of the antiparticles of the corresponding particles of ordinary matter

In modern physics, antimatter is defined as a material composed of the antiparticles of the corresponding particles of ordinary matter. Minuscule numbers of antiparticles are generated daily at particle accelerators – total production has been only a few nanograms – and in natural processes like cosmic ray collisions and some types of radioactive decay, but only a tiny fraction of these have successfully been bound together in experiments to form anti-atoms. No macroscopic amount of antimatter has ever been assembled due to the extreme cost and difficulty of production and handling.

There are very few scientific studies that investigate the issues in building a starship. Some examples of this include:

The Bussard ramjet is an idea to use nuclear fusion of interstellar gas to provide propulsion.

Examined in an October 1973 issue of Analog , the Enzmann Starship proposed using a 12,000 ton ball of frozen deuterium to power thermonuclear powered pulse propulsion units. Twice as long as the Empire State Building and assembled in-orbit, the proposed spacecraft would be part of a larger project preceded by interstellar probes and telescopic observation of target star systems.

The NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program (1996–2002), was a professional scientific study examining advanced spacecraft propulsion systems.

Theoretical types

A common literary device is to posit a faster-than-light propulsion system (such as warp drive) or travel through hyperspace, although some starships may be outfitted for centuries-long journeys of slower-than-light travel. Other designs posit a way to boost the ship to near-lightspeed, allowing relatively "quick" travel (i.e. decades, not centuries) to nearer stars. This results in a general categorization of the kinds of starships:

Fictional elements

Certain common elements are found in most fiction that discusses starships.

Slower-than-light

Fiction that discusses slower-than-light starships is relatively rare, since the time scales are so long. Instead of describing the interaction with the outside world, those fictions tend to focus on setting the whole story within the world of the (often very large) starship during its long travels. Sometimes the starship is a world, in perception or reality.

Faster-than-light

Travel at velocities greater than the speed of light is impossible according to the known laws of physics, although apparent FTL is not excluded by general relativity. The Alcubierre drive provides a theoretical way of achieving FTL, although it requires negative mass, which has not yet been discovered. Nevertheless, Harold G. White at NASA has designed the White–Juday warp-field interferometer to detect a microscopic instance of a warping of space-time according to the Alcubierre drive.

Fictional examples

The following is a listing of some of the most widely known vessels in various science fiction franchises. The most prominent cultural use and one of the earliest common uses of the term starship was in Star Trek: The Original Series .

Individual ships

This list is not exhaustive.

Groups of ships

See also

Related Research Articles

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Voyager 2 is a space probe launched by NASA on August 20, 1977, to study the outer planets. Part of the Voyager program, it was launched 16 days before its twin, Voyager 1, on a trajectory that took longer to reach Jupiter and Saturn but enabled further encounters with Uranus and Neptune. It is the only spacecraft to have visited either of these two ice giant planets.

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An interstellar ark is a conceptual space vehicle designed for interstellar travel. Interstellar arks may be the most economically feasible method of traveling such distances. The ark has also been proposed as a potential habitat to preserve civilization and knowledge in the event of a global catastrophe.

Project Daedalus study conducted by the British Interplanetary Society

Project Daedalus was a study conducted between 1973 and 1978 by the British Interplanetary Society to design a plausible unmanned interstellar spacecraft. Intended mainly as a scientific probe, the design criteria specified that the spacecraft had to use existing or near-future technology and had to be able to reach its destination within a human lifetime. Alan Bond led a team of scientists and engineers who proposed using a fusion rocket to reach Barnard's Star 5.9 light years away. The trip was estimated to take 50 years, but the design was required to be flexible enough that it could be sent to any other target star.

Project Longshot

Project Longshot was a conceptual interstellar spacecraft design. It would have been an unmanned probe, intended to fly to and enter orbit around Alpha Centauri B powered by nuclear pulse propulsion.

Interstellar probe spaceprobe that can travel out of the Solar System

An interstellar probe is a space probe that has left—or is expected to leave—the Solar System and enter interstellar space, which is typically defined as the region beyond the heliopause. It also refers to probes capable of reaching other star systems.

Deep space exploration

Deep space exploration is the branch of astronomy, astronautics and space technology that is involved with exploring the distant regions of outer space. However, there is little consensus on the meaning of "distant" regions. In some contexts, it is used to refer to interstellar space. The International Telecommunication Union defines "deep space" to start at a distance of 2 million km from the Earth's surface. NASA's Deep Space Network has variously used criteria of 16,000 to 32,000 km from Earth. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft.

Project Icarus is a theoretical engineering design study aimed at designing a credible, mainly nuclear fusion-based, unmanned interstellar space probe. Project Icarus was an initiative of members of the British Interplanetary Society and the Tau Zero Foundation (TZF) started in 2009. It is now managed by the members as a separate division of the umbrella organization of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization Icarus Interstellar. It was motivated by the British Interplanetary Society's Project Daedalus, a similar study that was conducted between 1973 and 1978.

The 100 Year Starship (100YSS) is a joint U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant project to a private entity. The goal of the study is to create a business plan that can foster the research and technology needed for interstellar travel within 100 years.

Enzmann starship project for a fusion-powered starship

The Enzmann starship is a concept for a manned interstellar spacecraft proposed in 1964 by Dr. Robert Enzmann. A three million ton ball of frozen deuterium would fuel nuclear fusion rocket engines contained in a cylindrical section behind that ball with the crew quarters. The craft would be about 2,000 feet (600 m) long overall.

Icarus Interstellar is an international organization dedicated to technical achievements enabling interstellar travel. Research is performed by volunteer citizen scientists with a wide swath of backgrounds, ranging from NASA and ESA aerospace engineers to professional scientists, university professors, students, science fiction writers, artists, thinkers and enthusiasts.

The Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) was founded in 2012 by Kelvin F Long and Robert Swinney. It is a UK-registered not-for-profit company, whose objectives are education and research into the challenges of Interstellar Travel. Several of its principals were involved in the 100 Year Starship winning team originated by NASA and DARPA.

IXS <i>Enterprise</i>

IXS Enterprise is a conceptual interstellar superluminal spacecraft designed by NASA scientist Dr. Harold G. White, revealed at SpaceVision 2008, designed for the goal of achieving warp travel. The conceptual spacecraft would make use of a modified version of the Alcubierre drive. Dr. White is currently running the White–Juday warp-field interferometer experiment in order to develop a proof of concept for Alcubierre-style warp travel, if possible. The Alcubierre drive uses exotic matter to travel faster than light.

Interstellar Probe (1999)

Interstellar Probe is the name of a 1999 space probe concept by NASA intended to travel out 200 AU in 15 years. This 1999 study by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is noted for its circular 400 meters diameter, solar sail as a propulsion method combined with a 0.25 AU flyby of the Sun to achieve higher solar light pressure, after which the sail is jettisoned at 5 AU distance from the Sun.

Project Dragonfly is the first conceptual design study that assesses the feasibility of a laser-propelled interstellar probe, conducted by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies. Contrary to past unmanned interstellar mission studies such as Project Daedalus and Project Icarus the focus is particularly on a small spacecraft. The project was founded in 2013 by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is). A subsequent design competition was launched in 2014. The objective was to design a spacecraft that is capable of reaching Alpha Centauri within 100 years using existing or near-term technologies and a beam power below 100 GW. Four teams presented their designs at the final workshop at the British Interplanetary Society in London in July 2015. The teams consisted of students from Cairo University, Cranfield University, the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Paul Sabatier University, Technical University of Munich, and University of California, Santa Barbara. The team of the Technical University of Munich won the competition. The design of the University of California, San Diego has subsequently evolved into the design for Breakthrough Starshot of the Breakthrough Initiatives. Results of the competition have subsequently been published in peer-reviewed journals. The competition has been accompanied by a Kickstarter campaign that was supported by notable space artists such as David A. Hardy.

Project Starlight is a research project of the University of California, Santa Barbara to develop a fleet of laser beam-propelled spacecraft and sending them to a star neighboring the Solar System, potentially Alpha Centauri. The project aims to send organisms on board the spacecraft.

References

  1. ↑ Erik Sofge (20 September 2012). "What Would a Actually Look Like?". Popularmechanics. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
  2. ↑ "Oahspe - Index". gailallen.com.
  3. ↑ "Oahspe - Book of Divinity: Chapter XVI". gailallen.com.
  4. ↑ "Voyager 1 Has Date with a Star in 40,000 Years". Space.com.
  5. ↑ Gilster, Paul (12 April 2016). "Breakthrough Starshot: Mission to Alpha Centauri". Centauri Dreams. Retrieved 14 April 2016.
  6. ↑ Overbye, Dennis (12 April 2016). "A Visionary Project Aims for Alpha Centauri, a Star 4.37 Light-Years Away". New York Times . Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  7. ↑ Stone, Maddie (12 April 2016). "Stephen Hawking and a Russian Billionaire Want to Build an Interstellar Starship". Gizmodo . Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  8. ↑ Staff (12 April 2016). "Breakthrough Starshot". Breakthrough Initiatives . Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  9. ↑ Elon Musk [@elonmusk] (November 19, 2018). "Renaming BFR to Starship" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  10. ↑ Elon Musk [@elonmusk] (November 19, 2018). "Later versions will" (Tweet). Archived from the original on November 21, 2018 – via Twitter.
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