Posted on 10/29/2010 8:15:56 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Nasa man expects first prototype of a spaceship that will take us between worlds ‘within a few years’
The US space agency Nasa has announced an intriguing new project called the 'Hundred Year Starship' which aims to send humans on a one-way trip to newly discovered planets across the galaxy.
"The human space programme is now really aimed at settling other worlds," said Pete Worden, director of Nasa'a Ames research laboratory, at a seminar in San Francisco. "Twenty years ago you had to whisper that in dark bars [or] get fired."
The Ames laboratory is responsible for Pioneer 10, the space probe that is currently hurtling through deep space equipped with a golden plaque describing what humans look like and the location of earth.
But while Pioneer 10 is telling the aliens - some say foolishly - where we are, the Hundred Year Starship mission is saying: 'We're coming to get you.' And the aliens have reason to be frightened: while a mere $100,000 in funding is coming from Nasa, $1 million is being provided by the US government's shadowy defence R&D agency Darpa (home to the legendary 'space bomber').
Darpa confirmed to The First Post that the 100 Year Starship project exists. It will begin as a year-long study which will examine the "business model needed to develop and mature a technology portfolio enabling long-distance manned space flight a century from now".
Paul Eremenko, Darpa's coordinator for the project, said: "The 100 Year Starship study is about more than building a spacecraft or any one specific technology."
"We endeavour to excite several generations to commit to the research and development of breakthrough technologies and cross-cutting innovations across a myriad of disciplines to advance the goal of long-distance space travel, but also to benefit mankind."
Darpa also says it hopes that the advancements achieved in the course of the 100 Year Starship project will have "substantial relevance to Department of Defense mission areas".
However, $1.1m isn't nearly enough to fund such an ambitious project as colonising new worlds and the Ames lab is hoping to attract private funding. Worden says: "We hope to inveigle some billionaires to form a Hundred Year Starship fund."
One of those billionaires could be Google co-founder Larry Page, who has already been interrogating Worden about the price of a mission to Mars - the planet that would very likely be the testing ground for more ambitious colonisation missions beyond the solar system.
Google is well known for funding what some might see as eccentric projects, the most recent example being its driverless car. Worden suggests he is very interested in space exploration: "Larry Page asked me a couple weeks ago how much it would cost to send people one way to Mars and I told him $10 billion, and his response was, 'Can you get it down to one or two billion?'" Worden sees the fact that he is arguing over price - and not feasibility - as progress of sorts.
There is no information as yet about the tricky details of generational space travel. After all, this is no five-year mission 'to boldly go where no man has gone before'. This is a one-way trip to almost certain death among the stars.
Certain questions will have to be answered: questions such as, who on earth would want to go, how do you stop the travellers staging a mutiny and turning the ship back round towards earth, or is it a form of child abuse to bring up offspring in such a claustrophobic environment?
However, Worden's answer to the question of how you live on another world is interesting. Rather than resorting to that mainstay of science fiction, terraforming, whereby an alien world is made suitable for organisms from earth, Worden suggests a solution with some root in science fact: using genetic engineering to adapt earth plants and animals - even humans - to live on Mars.
As for actually reaching alien worlds, Worden is very upbeat. "Within a few years we will see the first true prototype of a spaceship that will take us between worlds," he says. By 2030 there will be colonies on the moons of Mars, Phobos or Deimos. From there human colonists can explore the Red Planet remotely with robots.
Just don't tell them about the infamous Curse of Mars. Almost 50 per cent of missions to the Red Planet have failed.
what would really be funny if they ever did build such a thing.... half way into the trip a new ship would probably catch up with the original one that hadn’t even arrived yet :P
This means that at half the speed of light, it is 8.1 years away.
Voyager I travels at 1/18,000th the speed of light. At this rate, a journey to Proxima Centauri would take it 72,000 years.
Thanks for pointing that out.
It SHOULD have been pointed out in post #1 itself, and certainly, no later than post #2. But people seem to batter terms they do not understand, like "universe" when they mean "solar system" or possibly "galaxy."
This galaxy is so large that we can't even see the other side of it. We can't even see into the next spiral arm.
Hell...some astronomers disagree over WHICH spiral arm we are in to begin with!
And every few years, they revise their assessment of the size and shape of our own galaxy. E.g., they only recently declared our Milky Way to be a barred spiral.
The British press throws terms out meaninglessly, without any understanding of what they are saying.
Sauron
That’s the risk of such a long term project. That technology could overcome some of the speed barriers we face. And having waited may prove to be the answer, yet it’s a chicken and egg problem. If you don’t try, you don’t fail, and you don’t learn. So if we find a way to travel to a nearby star that has a habital planet, we must go even if the posibilty exists that future technology may make your first attempt seem juvinile and foolish. Won’t out great grand children look back at us and say “they had it all wrong”. I certainly hope so or we have failed as forefathers.
100 years?? How many years to send this administration into the sun?
From low earth orbit taxi service to galaxy exploration? Yeah...sure.
Or “The Ballad of Beta Two” by Sam Delaney.... similar faith in the ability of a society to function locked up in a can. ;)
Is NASA Covering Up the 100-Year Starship?
Fox News | 10/29/2010 | Fox News
Posted on 10/29/2010 2:27:01 PM PDT by Dallas59
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2617339/posts
One of my favorite movies!!
In 1970, this was supposed to happen by 2000.
With the damage this regime has done in just the last 2 years, we'd be lucky to make it back to the moon by 2100.
This Wikipedia summary may jog your memory. You may be surprised to see when the two parts were originally written.
Crew me up, up and away.
NASA’s way of telling us we are never getting off this rock if NASA has anything to do with it. Next thing you know they will be trying to sell us a bridge in the Oort Cloud.
Where are you going to get to in the galaxy in a hundred years? If you had a spaceship that travels at todays known technological speeds you are going to need to hollow out an astroid, have a reproducing community of travelers with all the accompanying life forms that make life for humans possible, the ability to manufacture fuel from gases and dust collected on the way, and a good set of thrusters to speed you up and eventually speed you down to complete your journey. This group should make it somewhere in about 15 generations if they are lucky. Hopefully they will be able to stay in contact with Earth for much of the time to accelerate technological advances with their ship.
Kaaaahhhhnnnn!
Do you think Jedi Mind Tricks would work on this group?
Definitely! It must be Orphans of the Sky. Heinlein lived from 1907 to 1988, and invented most of the cliches Hollywood uses today (Asimov invented the rest.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.