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An artist's rendering of a conceptual design of a starship
(Ralph McNutt of Johns Hopkins University, Advanced Physics Lab/Courtesy of the Tau Zero Foundation)
Talking about building an interstellar space ship makes you
sound like a sci-fi fan who’s lost touch with the real world. Unless
you’re Mae Jemison, a
former astronaut — the first African-American woman in space. Then you
might legitimately wonder, “How in the hell do you get to another star
system?”
Jemison actually needs to answer that question; she’s the head of 100 Year Starship, an organization the home page of which boldly commands, “Let’s make human interstellar travel capabilities a reality within the next hundred years.”
“That time frame is reasonable, why?” she asks rhetorically. “If you said ten years — 'Nah, we know that’s not long enough.’ If you said 500 years, people would say, ‘I can kick back for another two to three hundred years because I don’t have to worry about it.’ One hundred years is close enough."
The problem: space is big, and our current rocket technology isn’t cutting it. “If you’re travelling with technology we can already conceive, like say the Voyager spacecraft, it’s going to take about 80,000 years to travel a distance to our nearest neighboring star," says Marc Millis, the head of the Tau Zero Foundation. “And it is going 0.00006 times the speed of light.” Nuclear-powered spacecraft might go much faster, and have their proponents, but are politically and environmentally dangerous: no one wants to risk a nuclear meltdown during liftoff.
The heads of yet another interstellar organization, Starship Century, think they are on the right track. James Benford is president of a company that does microwave research; his identical twin brother Gregory is an astrophysicist at the University of California, Irvine. The Benfords make a strong case for a technology right out of a science fiction novel. The technology is the beam sail, and the book is Rocheworld, written by Robert Forward in 1982. “[It’s] a very solid scientific concept for a starship,” James says.
A beam sail is like a regular sail — “envision it as a giant umbrella, maybe 100 meters across,” says Gregory — pushed with microwave beams, instead of wind, to extremely high speeds. Beam sails are still in the experimental phase, and far more tests will be necessary on Earth and in space before we know if they can propel an object across the galaxy. Even Jemison admits that the hundred-year estimate is kind of a tease — it’s more about figuring out the physics than building the Enterprise.
But Gregory Benford likes to remind us of how greatly we underestimate the pace of change. “Thomas Jefferson said in 1812 that it will take 1,000 years for the republic to reach the Pacific. He never envisioned that 57 years later, a train would run all the way to San Francisco.”
Jemison actually needs to answer that question; she’s the head of 100 Year Starship, an organization the home page of which boldly commands, “Let’s make human interstellar travel capabilities a reality within the next hundred years.”
“That time frame is reasonable, why?” she asks rhetorically. “If you said ten years — 'Nah, we know that’s not long enough.’ If you said 500 years, people would say, ‘I can kick back for another two to three hundred years because I don’t have to worry about it.’ One hundred years is close enough."
The problem: space is big, and our current rocket technology isn’t cutting it. “If you’re travelling with technology we can already conceive, like say the Voyager spacecraft, it’s going to take about 80,000 years to travel a distance to our nearest neighboring star," says Marc Millis, the head of the Tau Zero Foundation. “And it is going 0.00006 times the speed of light.” Nuclear-powered spacecraft might go much faster, and have their proponents, but are politically and environmentally dangerous: no one wants to risk a nuclear meltdown during liftoff.
The heads of yet another interstellar organization, Starship Century, think they are on the right track. James Benford is president of a company that does microwave research; his identical twin brother Gregory is an astrophysicist at the University of California, Irvine. The Benfords make a strong case for a technology right out of a science fiction novel. The technology is the beam sail, and the book is Rocheworld, written by Robert Forward in 1982. “[It’s] a very solid scientific concept for a starship,” James says.
A beam sail is like a regular sail — “envision it as a giant umbrella, maybe 100 meters across,” says Gregory — pushed with microwave beams, instead of wind, to extremely high speeds. Beam sails are still in the experimental phase, and far more tests will be necessary on Earth and in space before we know if they can propel an object across the galaxy. Even Jemison admits that the hundred-year estimate is kind of a tease — it’s more about figuring out the physics than building the Enterprise.
But Gregory Benford likes to remind us of how greatly we underestimate the pace of change. “Thomas Jefferson said in 1812 that it will take 1,000 years for the republic to reach the Pacific. He never envisioned that 57 years later, a train would run all the way to San Francisco.”
Slideshow: Starship Designs
Space Express
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Comments [2]
The technology to get to Alpha
Centauri has existed since shortly after the end of World War II. The
size of the ship and a place to launch it are more problematic than the
basic drive. We're simply not desperate enough yet.
I submit that Project Orion presented the world with nuclear pulse propulsion. Pournelle and Niven explored its use within the Sol system in "Footfall."
I submit that Project Orion presented the world with nuclear pulse propulsion. Pournelle and Niven explored its use within the Sol system in "Footfall."
Jul. 19 2014 03:07 PM
Score: 0/0
Score: 0/0
I have been wondering for a while
if anyone is going to look at balloon and parachute technology when
thinking about travel in space. Mostly what we see is structures
(spaceships) made of metal, with designs based on the compressive
strength of metal. But in space gravity isn't the controlling force that
it is on earth. What is important is relative air pressure. In other
words there is an almost complete vacuum in space and us human beings
require an atmospheric pressure of around 15 lbs. per square inch. The
obvious way to construct a space ship is as a balloon. With the air
pressure inside, the skin of this balloon would become quite rigid,
though it would still retain a level of flexibility that rigid metal
doesn't have. The structure would also be extremely light and could be
packed into a very small space for taking off and landing on planets.
There is no reason to think that habitats in space need to be cramped when large structures can simply be inflated. The interiors could be divided into chambers with fabric walls. These walls could also serve as structural elements to control the balloon's outer shape.
I notice that in the illustration, Beam Sails are imagined as flat, rigid surfaces, sort of like sheets of plywood; but there is no reason an inflatable structure couldn't be shaped so as to also act as a sail. Imagine a huge parachute shaped structures made of fabric with an inflated "hem" (like the hem of a skirt) for habitat at the trailing edge. If Beam Sails function in ways similar to the way wind sails work on boats, a flexible, curved surface would add an element of efficiency and control that flat surfaces lack.
Jul. 19 2014 08:02 AM
There is no reason to think that habitats in space need to be cramped when large structures can simply be inflated. The interiors could be divided into chambers with fabric walls. These walls could also serve as structural elements to control the balloon's outer shape.
I notice that in the illustration, Beam Sails are imagined as flat, rigid surfaces, sort of like sheets of plywood; but there is no reason an inflatable structure couldn't be shaped so as to also act as a sail. Imagine a huge parachute shaped structures made of fabric with an inflated "hem" (like the hem of a skirt) for habitat at the trailing edge. If Beam Sails function in ways similar to the way wind sails work on boats, a flexible, curved surface would add an element of efficiency and control that flat surfaces lack.
Score: 0/0
