Interstellar Ark

xantox writes "There are three strategies to travel 10.5 light-years from Earth to Epsilon Eridani and bring humanity into a new stellar system : 1) Wait for future discovery of Star Trek physics and go there almost instantaneously, 2) Build a relativistic rocket powered by antimatter and go there in 22 years by accelerating constantly at 1g, provided that you master stellar amounts of energy (so, nothing realistic until now), but what about 3): go there by classical means, by building a gigantic Ark of several miles in radius, propulsed by nuclear fusion and featuring artificial gravity, oceans and cities, for a travel of seven centuries — where many generations of men and women would live ? This new speculation uses some actual physics and math to figure out how far are our fantasies of space travel from their actual implementation."

Sounds Familiar...

[martyb]

For an interesting read on what such a ship might be like, take a look at: Rendevous with Rama [wikipedia.org] by Arthur C. Clarke. I read it not long after it came out and thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly acclaimed, too:

• Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1973
• Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1974
• Jupiter Award for Best Novel in 1974

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Re:Why?

[timmarhy]

isn't the answer obvious? we are in search of hot alien pussy!

thats right i'm not giving your stupid question a seriously reply because it doesn't deserve one.

atheism is a disbelief in god, not the disbelief in basic human nature, which is to explore and learn.

your trying to draw conclusions on things billions of years in the future. people thought in the 1950's we would all have flying cars by now and look how close they were, so how close do you think your uneducated predictions will be?

Re:Number 3 bears resemblence to Star Trek, as wel

[_hAZE_]

.. and now I'll reply to my own post with more information.

Per this [memory-alpha.org] nice page:

The idea of a multi-generational ship or "interstellar ark" is an old one that was proposed in an unpublished paper by Robert Goddard in 1918. Goddard's fellow rocket pioneers Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and J. D. Bernal also considered the idea in the 1920s. Olaf Stapledon and Don Wilcox wrote stories about the idea in the 1940s, and Robert Heinlein originated the notion that inhabitants might forget they were on a ship in his book Orphans of the Sky. Nevertheless, considering the energy, ecology, and life support needs such a ship would require, the interstellar ark is a highly unlikely prospect.

Re:7 centuries isn't feasible for humans

[trianglman]

Actually, that is a misconception. Even 500 years ago Latin was all but a dead language. It was only used in Catholic religious ceremonies and by the elite upper class (and then as a snobbish affectation). Most people spoke older versions of the languages we know now.

Re:Humans can handle more than 1 G

[Anonymous Coward]

The nine G figure is unrealistically high

Yes, because jet fighter pilots only have to endure it for a few seconds and even then require special suits to prevent them from passing out.

but there are no reasons to assume you can't have a realitivistic rocket that starts out with six G for a short while

That's still too much for humans to endure for months or even weeks.

and then drops its acceleration off to about two G.

That would be more realistic over a longer period of time though there may be a lot of medical repercussions.

Combine this with some form of suspended animation, which we can already do for mice

This helps a bit but extremely high forces still cause damage, even when people are suspended. On the other hand it solves other problems (travel time is less important, no problem with food, biosphere etc.)

and all of a sudden the relativistic rocket becomes less far out.

What's far out about a relativistic rocket are primarily two things: 1. Massive amounts of fuel are required, we don't even come close to solving that problem yet. 2. Radiation shielding needed to ward off gamma rays resulting from background radiation subject to the relativistic doppler effect and impact of cosmic particle when traveling at relativistic speeds when the ship is in mid-trip (at top speed).

Proper URL

[pedroloco]

Apparently, wikipedia doesn't like trailing slashes at the end of URLs. Try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_of_the_Sky [wikipedia.org].

SciFi

[Efialtis]

Wasn't there a movie some time ago about this very thing?
A group was sent into space with everything they would need to be "self replicating" until they reached the destination...but as time went on, technology got better and later travelers arrived at the destination first...then when the first "ark" of people arrived they found a fully developed civilization that had meen there for at least a hundred years...
Wouldn't it be better to just wait?

Re:We could...

[Marcos Eliziario]

Not sure about it. Most societies throughout our history were not democratic ones, and most of them failed not because of popular unrest, but either because of external threats or because the people in command began to dissent. It was not the slaves that destroyed the roman empire, but the barbarians and the Christians. Dictatorial regimes sometimes are more stable than democracies, just look at China.

Sorry, that is totally untrue

[Flying pig]

What dimwit modded this informative? 500 years ago Copernicus wrote "De revolutionibus" in - er - Latin. Newton's book is called the Principia Mathematica because it, too, was written in Latin (I've read parts of the original and it is wonderfully clearly written.) Why do you think that the formal names of living things are in Latin and Greek, and that we are homo sapiens rather than Wise Man? Because Linnaeus wrote in Latin. Latin was the language of science and international scholarship until at least the nineteenth century. That's why so many of those scientists used Latin forms of their names. This demonstrates that the grandfather post is absolutely right. When a language has a background of useful communication, it is easier to keep using it than to translate into another language. Indeed, it may continue to develop. When we look at the short history of computer languages we see the same thing happening, with people constantly extending languages like FORTRAN rather than replacing them.

In fact the teaching of Latin to children who were expected to go on to professional jobs did not cease to be general (in the UK at least) until the late 20th century. By then it was largely symbolic, but it shows how long these things persist. It was also advantageous in that it made the learning of the Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian) so much easier.

It's also worth noting that Chaucer lived around the 700 years ago mark and it only takes a few weeks for an English educated person with a little Latin to be able to read the Canterbury Tales in the original. I can also read Dante in the original with a little help from a crib, also about 700 years ago.

Re:The most likely scenario

[k31bang]

You don't even have to send embryos - just dna.

I'm sure most of Slashdot can help with half of this.

Epsilon Eridani?!?!

[mrbiggenes]

Looking at the nearest star systems for a decent system to visit or colonize, it is a tough call. There are only 7 star systems within 10 light years of ours. Four of those (Wolf 359 at 7.8 light years, Lalande 21185 at 8.3 light years, Luyten 726-8 A and UV Ceti at 8.7 light years, and Ross 154 at 9.7 light years) are red dwarf flare stares, which produce very little heat and emit frequent (hourly, daily, monthly) extremely high radiation flares that would kill any known living creatures close enough to derive energy or warmth from them. Also, the red light from these stars would not be conducive to photosynthesis for plants as we know them.

One near star system (Sirius A and Sirius B at 8.6 light years) seems a bit more promising. Although the system is fabulously more rich in heavy elements (metals, etc.) than our own star system (or any other in the area), Sirus B went nova a couple hundred million years ago and probably sterilized any nice planetary systems of atmospheres, water, or life (that's an educated guess, but . . .). Also, at 8.6 light years away, it is quite far.

Barnard's Star (at 6 light years) is a red dwarf, but not a flaring one. It's one of the oldest systems in the area, and quite calm. Of course, as a red dwarf it puts out little energy. Still, at the second closest star system it might be a potential place to visit or find rocky planets around.

The last and most promising star system within 10 light years is actually the closest--Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B, and Proxima Centauri at 4.2-4.36 light years. Proxima is a red dwarf, and a flaming/flaring one, but is far away (one-fifth of a light year) from the other two stars and is therefore negligible. The other two are yellow or orange stars, a bit less or a bit more powerful than our Sun, with good light for photosynthesis. Although a dual-star system, planets within 2 AU of either star (about the distance from the Sun to the Asteriod Belt past Mars) would not greatly be affected by the gravity of the other star. Liquid water could exist within about the orbit radius of Venus for the smaller star, or Earth to Mars for the larger star. The system has twice the heavy element content of our own system.

At 4.36 light years, and the closest neighbor we have, why not try going there instead of Epsilon Eridani at 10.5 light years? You'd save well over half the time, whatever method you used to get there! G-forces aside, if you could average 10% the speed of light, it'd take about 50 years one way.