P RINCIPIUM I N I T I A T I V E F O R S T U D I E S The Newsletter of the Initiative for Interstellar Studies™ Issue 11 | November 2015 n STOP PRESS: Starship Engineer course n Guest Introduction: Photometric SETI n News: Project Dragonfly, i4is at SDSO, Axiom, Starship Congress n Project Dragonfly Competition n Interstellar implications of the New Horizons probe n Starship Congress 2015 n TVIW 2014: i4is SF design workshop n TVIW 2014: Field Report n What we did at Eastercon n Film Review: The Martian www.I4IS.org Scientia ad sidera Knowledge to the Stars
Transcript
PRINCIPIUMIN
ITIA
TI V
EF O R
S T U D I E S
The Newsletter of the Initiative for Interstellar Studies™
Issue 11 | November 2015
n STOP PRESS: Starship Engineer course
n Guest Introduction: Photometric SETI
n News: Project Dragonfly, i4is at SDSO, Axiom, Starship Congress
n Project Dragonfly Competition
n Interstellar implications of the New Horizons probe
n Starship Congress 2015
n TVIW 2014: i4is SF design workshop
n TVIW 2014: Field Report
n What we did at Eastercon
n Film Review: The Martian
www.I4IS.org
Scientia ad sideraKnowledge to the Stars
Principium | Issue 11 | November 2015 Page 2
Starship Engineer course at BISLondon, 24-25 November 2015
The first running of our Starship Engineer course is happening at the British Interplanetary Society in London,
November, 24-25 November 2015,09.15 through 17.00 hrs.
More details in the advertisement towards the end of this issue.
Not much time to sign up for this eye-opening opportunity!
STOP PRESS!
Principium | Issue 11 | November 2015 Page 3
In In this edition we start with aStop Press announcing the firstrunning of our Starship Engineer
course at the British InterplanetarySociety in London, 24-25 November 2015.More details in the advertisement towardsthe end of this issue. This issue ofPrincipium arrives as Rob Swinney andKelvin Long are polishing their coursematerial. Sign up now!
Our guest introduction is by Robert GKennedy III, PE. Robert is best known inthe interstellar community as co-founderand organiser of the Tennessee ValleyInterstellar Workshops. Here he applieshis wide understanding of the relevantphysics and engineering to suggest a novelapproach to the search for extraterrestrialintelligence (SETI). In this issue we alsopresent Robert's report of the i4is SFdesign workshop from the 2014 TennesseeValley Interstellar Workshop (TVIW).Robert also contributes a trip report aboutTVIW 2014 overall - capturing thecombination of serious thinking andconvivial enthusiasm of these events.
Our News this time includes details of our Project Dragonfly video, a recentmeeting of the core team of i4is and the announcement of a new i4ispublication, Axiom.
We have a detailed account of theProject Dragonfly competition andworkshop by Dan Fries with an addendumon the way forward for the project byMartin Langer. We will be coveringProject Dragonfly in yet more detail inlater editions.
Our friends Icarus Interstellar heldtheir big Starship Congress and"Hackathon" in Philadelphia last monthand one of the TVIW team, Ken Roy, wasthere and gives us a personal view in hispiece "Surviving the InterstellarHackathon in the City of Brotherly Love".It sounds like he had a great time!
One of the keynotes at the Congresswas delivered by Dr Ralph McNutt and hetalked about the New Horizons probe toPluto and the Kuiper Belt - and how wemight build interstellar precursormissions. Dr McNutt has kindly given us
access to his recent thinking on this andRob Swinney has written a report for thisissue, Pluto and Beyond: Next Steps to theStars after Voyagers and New Horizons.
As always, we maintain our strong linkswith the dreamers of Science Fiction. We were at this year’s UK nationalEastercon. Some of our doings there arecaptured in an account by John Davies andRob Swinney.
There have been a number ofrelatively technically realistic films set inspace in recent years and the latest isThe Martian, directed by Ridley Scottand based on Andy Weir's novel. Notinterstellar but another inspiration toour species to get out there! We have areview by John Davies.
We have to disappoint readers whowere expecting a meditation on theinterstellar implications of the Rosettacomet probe and its Philae lander. We'll do our best to bring it to you in theNew Year.
You may notice that our layout hasmade a great leap forward to last year -having welcomed back Adrian Mann inthis role. He's a massively talented artistand practitioner of digital visual media.Not least he is responsible for many ofReaction Engines videos; take a look attheir website. If, like me, you are thrilledat the idea of a take-off and ascent to orbitof their Skylon spaceplane then you willappreciate what Adrian can do.
Our front cover feature is the Daedalusstarship of the British InterplanetarySociety (BIS) as imagined by AdrianMann. His imagining is based on thedetailed design developed in the 1970s bythe team led by Alan Bond and TonyMartin. Daedalus remains the mostdetailed design yet produced for astarship. It is the starting point for theIcarus project of Icarus Interstellar andthe BIS, a new starship design based onfusion principles. We might appropriatelyhave featured Daedalus on the cover ofour first issue but it is so well known thatwe have left it to this, our eleventh issue.We hope to feature a detailed Icarusdesign well before our 20th issue!
And for the back cover we have theGlobular Cluster Omega Centauri (NGC5139) as imaged by the EuropeanSouthern Observatory (details athttp://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0844a/).At about 16,000 light years distance, it's atough target for any of our relatively nearterm starships. But what impressed us,apart from the sheer beauty of the image,is that there is some suspicion that one ofour nearest neighbours, Kapteyn's Star,may have originated in NGC 5139.Kapteyn's Star is about 12 light years awayand has at least two exoplanets.
As always, give us your views on bothform and content.
Guest Introduction: A Modest Proposal for Photometric SETI Robert G Kennedy III, PE
Background1 : For good historicaland technological reasons, the SETI(Search for ExtraterrestrialIntelligence) community's roots arein radio astronomy (RA).
After all, the Big Bang was discoveredat radio frequencies (RF, but technicallymicrowaves (MW)), and people beganconstructing radios not too long after theybuilt telegraphs and telephone networks.Also, one of the very first applications ofcomputers was to perform what we wouldnow call signal processing (SP) on RFsignals during WW22.
Thanks to numerous RF transmissionwindows in the atmosphere, it is far easierto build and use ground-based detectors toobserve the sky at RF, than it is at say,ultraviolet (UV), optical, or infrared (IR)frequencies. So there has been some pathdependence in the SETI field. However,as a greater fraction of humanity'sexponentially increasing data traffic goesby optical fiber or by low-power short-range encrypted wireless comms almostindistinguishable from noise, the world is“going black” from a SETI perspective.Furthermore, teasing out extraterrestrialRF signals from RF noise appears to be ablack hole for spare computing power. SoTerra's unusual brightness at RF may turnout to be a very-short lived “blip” on ahistorical timescale, not to mentiongeologic and cosmologic timescales. Howthen to find evidence that “We Are NotAlone?” Rather than exclusively focusingon RF, what other signatures could welook for? Well, as the late Rod Serling3used to say, “presented here for yourconsideration” is a proposal to take aphotometric approach to SETI. (nihil subsole novum: this is not an original idea.Approximately two centuries ago, themathematician Carl Friedrich Gaussspeculated about using giant mirrors andwhat we would today call terrestrialgeoengineering to send optical signals atinterplanetary range.4). If we decide to dothis, what technical capability would weneed? At what time could we first expect
to spot a civilization like ours (spacefaringterrestrial tool-users5) at interstellarranges using optical astronomy? If welimit ourselves to basic photometrywithout new-fangled SP techniques, thenwe are measuring two simple physicalphenomena that can be adequatelyresolved at interstellar range: opticalpower, i.e. luminosity, and time.
Dr Sara Seager's “Search for Earth 2.0”keynote address(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOvB71mHyNA ) at the last Tennessee ValleyInterstellar Workshop (TVIW) in OakRidge, Tennessee in November 2014presented the progress in findingextrasolar planets, and one new approach(direct observation using diffractivesunshades). The technical progress in justthe last generation is remarkable.Virtually all of these methods are indirectand optical, including:
• radial velocimetry (Doppler wobbles inspectra pioneered by Queloz/Mayor/Marcy/Butler in the late 1980s);
• photometry (variations in brightness byeclipses and transits a la Kepler, plussubtler techniques);
• direct spectral detection during stellartransits of non-equilibrium gases likeoxygen and methane as proxies forbiological activity.
(Direct imaging, i.e. spatiallyresolving extrasolar planets directly, is beyond our terrestrial capabilities now,but see Seager's talk for what the futuremay hold.)
Every year, the lower mass limit ofdetectability goes down. It seems that ifan Earth-like world exists within areasonable range, then we should find itwithin the next generation, say 30 years.Later on at TVIW 2014, the “C-for-Commo” working track came to the
conclusion that interpretation of anextraterrestrial signal would be a hopelesstask without interacting in realtime withthe particular somatic embodiment of theintelligence that created the signal. (Thisalso was the conclusion of a SETIconference taking place at the same timeon the other side of the North Americancontinent, unbeknownst to the organizersof TVIW.6) While the mere detection ofan unambiguously artificial signal wouldbe a major world-historical event by itself,understanding means crewed interstellarmissions, a very tall order that is at leastcenturies off7.
There are two broad classes ofcandidate stars to look for.8
The first class would host societies thathave mastered space-based solar power(SBSP), perhaps for geoengineeringpurposes, on up through Kardashev Type I(defined as using all the available power oftheir home world). On Earth, about thesame amount of sunlight falls on the litface in one hour (~600 exajoules) as theentire human race uses in one year (8766hours), a 4-order-of-magnitude ratio. In a2006 paper, Sandia Labs showed that solarpower has by far the most headroom forgrowth of any energy resource that weknow about9. A fission economy based onbreeding plutonium from 238U, or 233Ufrom thorium is the only other existingenergy solution of that scale, yet it is still adistant second. Per unit area, solar poweris 3-4 orders of magnitude greater thanthe third potential source, geothermalpower. Presently the primary power of thehuman race (all sources, oil, coal, gas,nuclear hydro, wind, sun, waves, evenburning poop) is equivalent to ~20thermal terawatts (TW), of which 2 TW isround-the-clock electric generatingcapacity. Therefore, our energyconsumption could grow 4 orders ofmagnitude, to 160,000 TW, before weexhausted all the solar power available tous terrestrially.
The second class is a solar-system-widecivilization evolving toward a Kardashev
Type II status, defined as using all theavailable power of their home star. SolSystem's Type II would be ~2 billion timesas powerful as the Terra's Type I. Bydefinition, a civilization like this could bedetected at the same range as Sol itself.(Or even greater, depending on the rarityof 300K IR objects 2 AU in diameter.)However, since Freeman Dyson dealt withthis subject well enough 55 years ago10, weneed not explore it further here.
Geoengineering and Luminosity.In a recent paper in JBIS11, we proposed
using a school of radiation-levitatedsunshades in non-Keplerian orbits insidethe Sun-Earth L1 point to counteractclimate change while generating cleanpower from space to pay for the scheme.Being roughly the size of Texas inaggregate area (1 million km2), the schoolof sails would stop one-quarter of 1% ofsunlight falling on Earth, enough to offsetglobal warming with artificial cooling.Think of it as a Mirrored MaunderMinimum like the one five centuries ago.Putting a photovoltaic layer on the sunnyside would generate a useful by-product:10 TW of electric power, beamed to theglobal grid via a 2-link maser (microwavelasers emitting coherent MW radiation),enough to satisfy total planetary demandfor electricity by 2050. Most of the 400TW of sunlight hitting the sunny side ofthe sail would be reflected off it. Assumefor example that the reflected light-conesubtends a degree of arc. Since Sol's diskis only half a degree wide from the sail'spoint of view at L1, then most (3/4) of thereflected photons go past Sol’s limb intodeep space—in essence, a lighthousebeacon that rotates exactly in synch withthe forever hidden Earth. The intrinsicluminosity of the reflected image is 400TW absolute. The duration of the lightpulse would be directly proportional to thecone’s angle; the amplitude would vary asthe inverse square of the cone’s angle;particular numbers for both would dependon the specific geometry. In this case, a 1-degree searchlight would sweep throughits own width in a day, since there areabout the same number of degrees in acircle as days in a year (Earth’s orbitalperiod). The apparent brightening at theSun-Earth L3 point on the far side of theSun in this case would be about +20%, or+300 W/m-2. Any extrasolar observer, faraway but at a fixed location also alignedwith the ecliptic plane, would glimpsesome increase in Sol's apparentluminosity12. Unlike a planetary transit of
the sort that the Kepler mission looks for,there would be no correspondingoccultation a half-period later (ie thesecondary eclipse) visible from the outsidesince the L1 point is always interior to theEarth. The absence of that dimmingmight itself be considered notable.
Geoengineering, Geology, and Time. Luna, queen of the skies, is actually a
rather dull object, with an albedo of only0.07. (Charcoal is 0.04.) At full, it onlylooks so bright because its face is fullyilluminated by the Sun against the deepblack of space. With clouds, icecaps, lightdeserts and the glint of sun off the worldocean, Terra is quite a bit brighter, with analbedo of ~0.3. However, three times inthe past billion years our planet's albedohas approached 0.9 when the world frozeover, most recently 650 megayears. Themagnitude of this change in optical powerwas on the order of 100,000 TW in alldirections, but these “Snowball Earths”took millions of years to happen, persistedfor 10s of millions, and took moremegayears to unhappen.
Though hominids have walked theEarth for several million years, andurbanized civilization has existed for 6,000or so, virtually all of the gross physical,chemical and ecological changes on thesurface of our world due to Homo sapienshappened in the last two centuries, andmuch of that in just the last couple ofbillion seconds. Hence the neologism“Anthropocene” popularized by PaulCrutzen in climate science13. So compared to geologic transitions, theseanthropogenic changes in albedo arelightning fast.
Thus, instead of random isotropicchanges in albedo every few hundredmegayears, this brief 400 TW flash fromthe sail school at L1 would occur exactlyonce every year, concentrated in theecliptic and as regular in amplitude andfrequency as a metronome. Over a longenough observing campaign, say severaldozen observations in a billion seconds,this anisotropic optical pulsar could beconstrued as a signal of artificial origin. Ifthe traffic analyst was (fantastically) luckyenough to be watching at the right time,this artefact would emerge frombackground noise in about a century.
We are not presently able to spatiallyseparate such a source from its host star,but we don’t have to; the variation of
luminosity on a temporal axis is goodenough. Since the Copernican Principle(which amounts to “everywhere is, prettymuch, like everywhere else!”) cuts both ways,this is the sort of optical signal to look for.
Independent Confirmation at MW/RF.Science knows of natural masers. The
brightest one in our galaxy is the 6.7 GHz(45 mm wavelength) methanol maser inW49. Sol itself emits essentially noradiation longer than 1000 microns.Therefore a regular pulse ofmonochromatic 60 GHz µwave radiation(5 mm wavelength), also perfectlysynchronized to that 1-year period of theoptical fluctuation, but exactly 180degrees out of phase, should stand outbrightly. Thus the leakage or side-lobesfrom the multi-deka-terawatt maser beamfrom solar sails at L1 could provideindependent confirmation of intelligentactivity to that extraterrestrial observer.
Luminosity, Time, and SBSP for Sol System.Once techniques for SBSP have been
worked out, perhaps to solve an urgentcrisis of climate change withgeoengineering, space-based industry willhave been given its needful kick in thepants. After this, we see no reason thatenterprising Earthlings would discontinuebuilding these useful devices, which can beused for propulsion or power. The nextlogical places to put large numbers of sailswould be the Earth-Moon L4 and L5points, followed by the Sun-Earth L4 andL5 points. Mirrors at Luna's L4/L5 pointswill have the same basic annualperiodicity as Earth's orbit round the Sun,with a monthly cycle superposed on thatbasic rhythm. The maximum spatialseparation of mirrors at Luna's L4 and L5points, ~800,000 km, is about that of Sol'sdiameter itself, which would make themmuch more visible, perhaps enough to beresolvable spatially with micro-arcsecondinstruments just coming online.
Shiny objects at the Sun-Earth L4/L5points would by definition be separatedfrom each other 400 times as much, or 1astronomical unit (AU), but stillpermanently in synch with the homeworld. One AU separation is enough to beresolved spatially at interstellar rangeswith milli-arcsecond instruments.
As society back home grows wealthydue to the value created by their
Principium | Issue 11 | November 2015 Page 6
machines, the sheer optical powermanipulated and reflected by their sailsalso grows. If present trends continueuninterrupted, and given that humanity'srecent appetite for electricity doublesapproximately every generation, or anorder of magnitude about every century,then people should achieve Type I statusin less than a millennium. Not only wouldthis be 3-5 orders of magnitude fasterthan albedo changes of geologic origin, theanisotropic light reflected into space by aType I civilization would be of somewhatgreater magnitude than any naturally-occurring isotropic albedo fluctuation onEarth. If this power level as measured atthe point-of-use were ultimately andentirely generated by space-based solarsails mostly in the ecliptic, then we canpredict that something on the order of amillion terawatts of optical power in theby-then numerous searchlights sweepingthe universe. This would be on the orderof parts-per-thousand of Sol’s apparentluminosity in the ecliptic, a precision thathas been available to optical science fordecades now14, and radio science for acentury.
So, in sum, in order for us to opticallydetect a civilization just embarking on itspath to Type I status, we would needinstruments possibly of part-per-billionprecision, staring at targets long enoughto capture events of 10s of kilosecondsduration repeating at 10s of megasecondintervals, over observing campaigns ofperhaps a billion seconds. Because of thelong stares and long campaigns, we'd needa lot of assets in space. That would takedecades and cost a lot of money.
In order to optically detect a civilizationthat has fully arrived at Type I status, wewould only need instruments with perhapspart-per-thousand precision, staring attargets long enough to capture events ofvarying duration but with periods on theorder of a million seconds, over observingcampaigns of less than a billion seconds.Because the latter is so much easier tospot than the former, and we alreadypossess the necessary resolution, we mightbe able to find the fingerprints of a Type Icivilization simply by data mining thearchives from missions such as Kepler andits successors, using crowdsourcing likethat pioneered by SETI@home in the RFregion, or, in the visible region, like thatwhich IOTA (International OccultationTiming Association) and the Kepler
mission (“Planet Hunters” network)already do. Though it won’t be asperfectly synchronized as in the beginningfor geoengineering, still there will beanomalies, patterns, rhythm, andstructure in the data to be teased out bythose observers who didn’t get the subtlermessage the first time.
About the author: Robert Kennedy PE is aSenior Systems Engineer VI who doesgreen energy (mostly solar andgeothermal) at what he laughingly callshis “day job”. He is the co-author (withKen Roy) of many papers about “DysonDots” and “Shell Worlds”, and is also oneof the co-founders of the Tennessee ValleyInterstellar Workshop.
1. I allude to the cracking of the GermanEnigma system (ULTRA) by theBritish at Bletchley Park, and theJapanese JN-25 naval codes byAmerican cryptanalysts (MAGIC).
2. Host of an early Space Race-era American television show,The Twilight Zone.
3. While I personally think that lifeevolved from the inside out, startingwith chemosynthesis, and that iceworlds are a great place to look forother life, I think that is anothersubject for another day.
4. “Communicating Across the Cosmos:Summary of a Workshop on InterstellarMessage Design”,http://www.seti.org/weeky-lecture/communicating-across-cosmos-summary-workshop-interstellar-message-design , accessed 11 Oct2015.
5. Being pedantic, one could say there's athird class, the Kardashev IIIcivilization defined as using all theavailable power of the galaxy, which isanother twelve orders of magnitudebeyond the Type II. But Type III is sofar beyond our humble selves, that Idoubt we would even recognize it if itexisted.
6. Jeff Tsao, et al, "Solar FAQs" WorkingDraft Version, Sandia NationalLaboratories, 20 Apr 2006,http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf, accessed 19 Sep 2015.
7. F.J. Dyson, “Search for Artificial StellarSources of Infrared Radiation”, Science,131 (3414), pp.1667–1668, 3 June 1960
8. R.G. Kennedy, K.I. Roy, E. Hughes,and D.E. Fields, “Dyson Dots &geoengineering: the Killer App Ad Astra”,JBIS, vol.66, no.10-11, Oct-Nov' 13.
9. Even a billionth (-90 dB) should bedetectable, if not now, soon. If thatsounds tiny to the reader, be advisedthat the human race is getting verygood at measuring very smallproportions. Modern atomictimekeeping (the heart of satnav),laser measurement, analyticalchemistry, and certain forms of radioscience all operate at -90 dB precisionor better.
10. W. Steffen, P. Crutzen, J.R. McNeill,“The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?”, Ambio 36, no.8, pp.614-621, 2007
11. The Kepler spacecraft measuresphotic fluctuations of less than 1% on abaseline of ~100 million seconds.
Local Example of Simultaneous Stellar Transits by Natural and Artificial Objects. Venustransiting Sol (left). Passenger jet from Salt Lake City (SLC) transiting Sol and Venus(right). Image acquired in Salt Lake City at 0430 UTC 06 June 2012. Shot bagged2030 Mountain Time 05 Jun 2012 @ Salt Lake City Museum by Bruce Hugo per loudtipoff by Robert Kennedy & Eric Hughes.
As you will see from the YouTube playlist,it's in five parts. Here they are -
• Part 1:Welcome address: Andreas Hein,Chair | WARR ISF, Technical Universityof Munich Presentation & Q&A
• Part 2:University of California, SantaBarbara Presentation & Q&A
• Part 3: Cairo University Presentation& Q&A
• Part 4: CranSEDS (CranfieldUniversity, Skolkovo Institute of Science & Technology, Paul SabatierUniversity) Presentation & Q&A | Final Review Panel retires /Informal discussions
• Part 5: Prize ceremony | The Future of Project Dragonfly: Andreas Hein
Our good friend Rick Garcia capturedthe event in quality video and sound.He'll be adding more to a later cut butthe whole show is there now. Take a look!
We have a full account of the event inthis issue, “The i4is Project DragonflyCompetition”, by Dan Fries. And MartinLanger adds a summary of the wayforward for this project, “ProjectDragonfly – The road goes on…”. Expect Dragonfly to continue to featurestrongly in Principiums (or is thatPrincipia?) to come.
i4is in Cheltenham The weekend of 2-4 October 2015 saw
the first formal Annual General Meeting(AGM) of i4is and one of our regularProgress and Planning meetings. KelvinLong and Rob Swinney are the directorsof our UK-registered not-for profitcompany but our own board is a littlelarger and appointed 5 new members atthe AGM (Jeremy Clark, Robert KennedyIII, Andreas Hein, Richard Osborne andProfessor Rachel Armstrong). Several ofour most active members are simply that,ordinary members. So five of us in person,Kelvin, Rob, Gill Norman, Terry Reganand John Davies were at Gill's place inCheltenham for the weekend and AndreasHein joined us by Skype from Paris. Weplotted our direction for the next fewmonths but then took a very pleasantevening off over dinner. Terry brought hisDaedalus model along - he tells me it'snearly finished but I can't see anythingmissing - judge for yourself!
Some of us stayed up till the smallhours and others enjoyed a walk up thelocal hill on Sunday. We said farewell aftera visit to the local aviation museum, theJet Age museum. If you are in theCheltenham / Gloucester area don't missthe brilliant exhibits (sitting in the Vulcancockpit was my high point!).
i4is at the SDSO Rob Swinney and Terry Regan were at
the Scottish Dark Sky Observatory(SDSO) in August representing both i4isand the British Interplanetary Society.Rob told a packed meeting about theprospects of real interstellar flight in thenear future and Terry talked about hisspacecraft models. He builds 'fromscratch', no kits, to create some of thehistorical explorers such as Pioneer,Voyager and Cassini and his own modelcreation of Daedalus, the BIS starshipdesign. The attendees were amazed at hismodels and enjoyed hearing some of thetrials and tribulations of building themfrom scratch using various household andother everyday items (from wine glassesto Christmas decorations).
This new publication of theInitiative for Interstellar Studies isa technical academic educational
journal. It will be published three timesper year and will explore ideas,assumptions and paradigms of existingknowledge including papers which explainour current understanding of topics ininterstellar studies or offer new insightsor new ways of looking at a problem orknown solutions. Not new ideas or newtechnologies (there are other journals forthis including the Journal of the BritishInterplanetary Society). Of you would liketo submit a paper to this new journal cando so by emailing us at our regularcontact address [email protected]. Axiom is aprint journal, obtainable via -
All profits raised go directly towardsthe activities of our organisation. The firstissue contains three papers -
• The ‘Invention’ of the Starship andRevisiting Tsiolkovsky - Kelvin F. Long
• Two-Stage vs. Single-Stage: A Performance Comparison - Adam Crowl
• Exponential Growth for AnotherThousand Years - Stephen Ashworth
2016 i4is Calendar
The Initiative for InterstellarStudies began on 12th September2012 and we have therefore passedour third anniversary.
To celebrate this we have recentlyreleased an i4is 2016 calendar containingimages from our various activities. Allprofits raised go directly towards our not-for-profit organisation and help fund ourcontinued efforts. You can purchase a copyhere:
A perfect seasonal gift for yourinterstellar-struck friends and relations!
A Record Monolith?
For the 2014 Worldcon (Loncon3) inLondon we built a 4m tall monolith. Ourbuilders, Terry Regan and Paul Campbell,built it to the exact 1:4:9 dimensions ofthe object in 2001: A Space Odyssey and itwas a quite an attraction at the con. It hasrecently been suggested that it may be thelargest in existence.
So do we have a world record? If you thinkso or you know of another contender thenplease me know [email protected].
London Review of Books "Lets all go to Mars"I note that John Lanchester, author of
“Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyoneand No One Can Pay” and several novelshas been discussing Elon Musk'sambitions in the London Review of Books.Here's a quote -
Good to see the London literaryintelligentsia getting on board!
Principium back issuesThis is the 11th edition of
Principium. If you missed any of ourissues 1-10 or have recently joined ourmailing list, you can catch up on theback issues at i4is.org/publications.
The Monolith
As for human spaceflight, I thinkit’s an inherently progressive activity,not so much in its practicalconsequences but in the way it changesour species' frame of reference. The modern ecology movement was ineffect created by the image of the wholeearth, vulnerable and isolatedand full of life, sent back byApollo 8.
Presented by Ralph L McNutt, Jr(The John Hopkins UniversityApplied Physics Laboratory, USA)
Reported by Rob Swinney
Keynote speech at the Starship Congress 2015Interstellar Hackathon, 4th of September, 2015
For those not able to attend thisyear’s Interstellar Hackathon atDrexel University Bossone
Research Centre in Philadelphia,YouTube came to the rescue and we wereable to watch many of the presentationslive via a web cam. Unfortunately for acouple of the key speaker’s presentationsthe technological gremlins prevented thelive broadcast and we wait with batedbreath for the official edited versiontaken by the main TV camera to appear.This happened to Dr Ralph McNutt'spresentation but for this report he verykindly forwarded the presentation andhis related paper submitted for theInternational Astronautical Congress.Hopefully here we will be able to give afair interpretation of the presentationfor the reader. Without actually havingseen it!
Dr Ralph McNutt is one of the co-investigators at the John HopkinsUniversity Applied Physics Laboratoryworking on the famous New Horizonsmission to Pluto and beyond. This year wewere treated to this actual encounter on14 July, the first to a new planet (okay, icedwarf planet) for many decades andfortunately, with the fly past on automatic,there were no gremlins on this occasion.During his talk he would give the latest onthe fly past but it is what may lie beyondPluto and New Horizons, and finding out,which provided the main content.
Unlike the devotees of interstellartravel research organisations, like IcarusInterstellar who hosted the hackathon and
our own i4is, Dr McNutt started bymaking it clear that his talk would not beabout actual interstellar travel. Or, indeed,another popular dream, colonisation. But it would be about ‘The New Frontier’ indeep space exploration: the interstellarmedium (ISM) itself. This would bebeyond the interaction zone between theISM and the Sun’s heliosphere farexceeding the orbit of Pluto.
He illustrates that the out-flowingsolar plasma contained within theheliosphere encounters the ISM at somepoint in the direction of the Sun's travelfirst and forms a shock transition and abroader boundary shell around our star,similar to that now observed arounddistant stars. This had been debated asearly as the 1970s and even in 1971 itwas known that the final Pioneer probeswould leave the solar system and be ableto obtain data from the interactionregion (if they survived that long).
Within a few years there were specificproposals for a mission beyond the planetsdriven by science and later still manymore detailed proposals followed fromNASA studies and US National AcademyStudies to explore these remote regions.
Speaking of events more recent, DrMcNutt described two workshops atCaltech, known as the Keck Institute ofSpace Studies (KISS) workshops, whichculminated in a final report in July 2015.
At the workshops, some 32 participantsdiscussed the science drivers and enablingtechnologies for the exploration of theISM which were led by the three teamleaders, Edward C Stone, Leon Alkalaiand Lou Friedman. The goal of theworkshops was to consider the capabilitypush, such as being able to reach the ISMin 10 to 15 years rather than 36 as in thecase of Voyager 1 and 2, and the sciencepull of identifying the compelling sciencegoals for exploring the ISM between 100and 300 AU (and other interesting stuffalong the way).
The questions were many and variedbut the key result of the two KISS
Pluto and Beyond: Next Steps to the
Stars after Voyagers and New Horizons
New Horizons journey from the Earth to Pluto, and beyond.
Principium | Issue 11 | November 2015 Page 10
workshops was that there was compellingscience on the way to the ISM, at the ISMand from the ISM.
There were five major goals presentedon the way; Zodiacal/Cosmic backgroundscience, solar wind science, parallaxscience, radio science and astrometry.Within 50 AU the science of thetermination shock, heliopause, bow shock,bow wave, organics and dust composition.There was the science of the pristine ISM
beyond 200 AU; the interstellar magneticfield, cosmic ray science, interstellarwinds, primordial black holes, WIMPS,organics and dust composition. Evenfurther at greater than 550 AU there wasmore radio science, the solar lens focusand exoplanets and KBO detection.Finally there was the KBO science itselfbetween about 30 to 50 AU with fast flybysor impactors to the largest trans-Neptunian objects.
It would have been at this point that DrMcNutt must have reflected on the factthat the New Horizons programme inreality had ‘just begun’ by illustratingsome of the latest images received fromthe space probe flypast of Pluto. From theflypast the downlink phase would take 16months to download all of the data fromthe event including the data giving everincreasing resolution. The journey wasnot over for New Horizons as it was nowtargeted for an additional flyby of a small
NASA Studies National Academy Studies
Outlook for Space, 1976 Physics through the 1990's - Panel on Gravitation, Cosmology,and Cosmic Rays (D. T. Wilkinson, chair), 1986 NRC report
An implementation plan for solar system space physics, S. M.Krimigis, chair, 1985
Solar and Space Physics Task Group Report (F. Scarf,chair),1988 NRC study Space Science in the 21st Century - Im-peratives for the Decade 1995-2015
Space Physics Strategy-Implementation Study: The NASASpace Physics Program for 1995-2010
Astronomy and Astrophysics Task Group Report (B. Burke,chair), 1988 NRC study Space Science in the 21st Century -Imperatives for the Decade 1995-2015
Sun-Earth Connection Technology Roadmap, 1997 The Decade of Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics (JohnN. Bahcall, chair)
Space Science Strategic Plan, The Space Science Enterprise,2000
The Committee on Cosmic Ray Physics of the NRC Board onPhysics and Astronomy (T. K. Gaisser, chair), 1995 report Op-portunities in Cosmic Ray Physics
Sun-Earth Connection Roadmaps, 1997, 2000, 2003 A Science Strategy for Space Physics, Space Studies Board,NRC, National Academy Press, 1995 (M. Negebauer, chair)
NASA 2003 Strategic Plan The Sun to the Earth - and Beyond: A Decadal Research Strat-egy in Solar and Space Physics, 2003
The New Science of the Sun - Solar System: RecommendedRoadmap for Science and Technology 2005 - 2035, 2006
Exploration of the Outer Heliosphere and the Local InterstellarMedium, 2004
Heliophysics: THE SOLAR AND SPACE PHYSICS OF A NEWERA; Recommended Roadmap for Science and Technology2009–2030, May 2009
Priorities in Space Science Enabled by Nuclear Power andPropulsion, 2006
Principium | Issue 11 | November 2015 Page 11
KBO in January 2019. It was also possibleto reflect on how it all looked just easy -after New Horizons had phoned home!
At this point in the presentation therewas a switch to considering what wastitled The Interstellar Probe (although,keep calm, recall that this title describes aprobe to go to the nearest ISM not AlphaCentauri). It illustrates a series ofpotential instrument payloads, resourcesand different science goals for such apotential probe.
Consideration was then given tophysical limits starting with the distanceachievable and minimising transit timesby maximising speeds. It is clear thatthere is significant history in this field bylooking at previous missions that might beconsidered prototypes, e.g. Pioneer 10 andNew Horizons. Whichever choice youmight make for Interstellar Probe,whether ballistic or assisted, a key factor isthe initial kick, the launch energy that canbe given to your space probe.
A notional model of an InterstellarProbe shows a high gain antenna forcommunications, radio isotope powersupplies for electrical power, a boom formagnetometer and antennas clearlydemonstrating earlier heritage.Nevertheless earlier proposed missionsthat never got off the drawing board hadconsidered Nuclear Electric Propulsionsuch as the Thousand Astronomical Unit(TAU) mission by Nock in 1987 whichwould have been an order of magnitudebigger in mass. Other alternativessuggested a return back to smaller designssuch as the NASA Interstellar ProbeScience and Technology Definition Teamwhich stood up in 1999 and suggested asolar sail for propulsion including a nearSun encounter. This option suggested 200AU would be achievable in 15 years with apayload requirement similar to that ofPioneer 10. These and other alternativein-space propulsion approaches continueto need significant development.
With the development proposed for theSpace Launch System (SLS), which fallsback into the more traditional approach,the Block 1B version could be enabling.With increasing difficulty coupled toincreasing performance, four notionalapproaches were considered:
1) High energy launch (known as high C3 launch)
2) Add Jupiter gravity assist
3) Add powered Jupiter gravity assist
4) Use a Jupiter (and other gravityassists) to enable an Oberthmanoeuvre close to the Sun
These potential approaches wereturned into a one reference mission withgoals (for a spacecraft that would fit on anSLS Block 1B launch):
1) Reaching approximately 200 AU inapproximately 20 years from launch
2) Travelling at high solar system escapevelocity approximately 13 AU/year.Further than 500 AU in 50 years(option 4 above). (Compare toVoyager 1 at approximately 3.5AU/year and New Horizons atapproximately 2.5 AU/year.)
3) Survivability: design for 20 years; goodto last for 50 years
4) Cost approximately $1 billion or less excluding launch vehicle andphase E cost
The remainder of the presentation wasgiven over to a Mission Design overviewand an investigation of the various optionsto achieve the mission. Although solarsails and nuclear electric propulsionoffered advantages, the requireddevelopments to achieve thesetechnologies remained problematic.Whereas using the SLS option with asingle solid rocket motor 'perihelion kickstage' and another bi-propellant 'deepspace manoeuvre' for extra Delta V priorto the perihelion burn would permit alower launch energy for a reasonableprobe mass. Although there were stillsome issues, this particular design onlyrequired limited technologicaldevelopment in various enablingtechnologies (thermal protection,instruments and power for example).
Some of these developments wouldprove to be enablers for many otherarchitectures such as high energy stageaffordable launch vehicles, with lowspecific mass power supply, reliable andsensitive deep space communications andother mission operations and data analysisperformance.
Nevertheless, in comparing the optionsit would still be challenging to meet theinitial goal of 15 years to 200 AU withthese notional versions of the SLS. But within the achievable science ourheliosphere is still the key to 'The BiggerPicture' of the Sun and Earth's place in the universe.
In the presentation it is clear that theInterstellar Probe is a high scientificpriority which can be achieved. 2026 is atechnically implementable launch date.As a finale there is a confident comment,“We can do this; it is just a question of howand when.”
It is clear that much effort has been putinto this work and study similar to theefforts that were expended in the 70s, 80s,and 90s to give us the Pioneers, Voyagersand New Horizons. The input from manyothers is recognised by Dr McNuttalthough there were too many to mention.
In presenting 'Pluto and Beyond: NextSteps to the Stars after Voyagers andNew Horizons' Dr Ralph McNutt kindlyinspired and enthused a new generation of students, professionals andenthusiasts alike at the StarshipCongress Interstellar Hackathon.
I4is would like to thank him for his contribution and also IcarusInterstellar and Drexel University forcreating the opportunity.
About the author: Rob Swinney isDeputy Director of i4is.
About the presenter:Dr Ralph LMcNutt Jr, is the chief scientist in theSpace Department at the Johns HopkinsUniversity Applied Physics Laboratory,which he joined in 1992. In addition toother major roles Dr McNutt is a co-investigator on NASA's New Horizonsmission. He has been involved in a rangeof space physics research projects andmission studies, including studies of theinterstellar probe missions for the future.
Principium | Issue 11 | November 2015 Page 12
Kenneth I Roy, PE
Not only did I survive the “IcarusHackathon” (more properly called,the Icarus Starship Congress of
2015) held on 4-5 September 2015(“Labor Day” holiday weekend in theUSA) on the Drexel University campus inPhiladelphia, I actually had a good time.
The event hotel was 4-5 blocks from theevent auditorium but the weather wasnice so that wasn't a problem. Theorganizers held a reception the eveningbefore in a small conference room on theDrexel Campus (it was hard to find!).They had several trays of sandwiches anda few bottles of Coke. There were about20 people there and about half of themwere Drexel students. Icarus has achapter on the university, thus theconnection. I met some interesting peopleand enjoyed the conversations and I gotenough food to call it dinner.
On Friday, 4 September, the Congressformally convened. It was somewhatdisorganized with about 50 people inattendance, 10 to 15 of them beingstudents. Coffee was from Starbucks inthose little coffee containers. The eventwas held in a large lecture hall with fixedseating and small tables. No food wasprovided so lunch was “on your own” butthe university had a lot of food trucks andnice restaurants around.
Dr Rachel Armstrong gave a good talkon Prototyping Starships. Rachel is adynamic and fun speaker. John Bucknellgave a nice talk on Nuclear Thermo TurboRockets that offers a 20% payload fractionto LEO with a 1000-MW(t) reactor. If thereactor power goes up to 5000-MW(t), themass fraction goes up to 35%. Theconcept looks interesting but may have afew problems with contamination in theatmosphere. John is a good speaker.
About 3:00 pm, the event movedupstairs to a large room with many roundtables. That was the "Hackathon" part. Anumber of topics were proposed andseveral people proposed additional topics,one per table. Folks were allowed to self-select which table they wanted to go to.They were allowed to continue as long asthey liked but most (or all) broke upbefore 7:00 pm. It was actually fun. Ichose a table whose topic was “why do wewant to go into space and why do we wantto go interstellar?” This table includedfour students, a couple of older folks and
one active-duty US Air Force majorgeneral. The people who go to thesethings are fairly passionate about thesubject and the resulting conversation wasgood. The group from our table plans towrite this up and submit somewhere. I'mnot sure what the other groups were doingor plan to do.
I met a lot of interesting people andhad a number of stimulatingconversations. The mix of attendeesvaried from college students to seniorretired engineers and scientists. Theevent was small enough that it waspossible to talk to just about everybody.Finding dinner companions was easy andmany people I talked to seemed delightedto have a chance to share their ideas withother folks who shared a common interest.I don't know that anybody was therebecause their company paid for theconference. Everybody I talked to wasthere on their own dime because theywanted to be there. Several students, afew professionals, and one writer from thewest coast had flown out to this event.
The second day was much like the firstwith some disorganization and late coffee,some good papers, many not so good, afew not given and a 3:00 Hackathon thatactually started at 4:00 but was still fun.There was no formal summation, closingceremony, or send-off.
A couple of final comments - MikeMongo did an amazing job with the
Kickstarter program and pulled in lots ofmoney and attention. There were anumber of good papers, several less so,and several that were advertised but notdelivered - without explanation.
That evening I found a great BBQplace (of course) and went out with a lot ofthe event people and had a great time. Ienjoyed myself immensely and hope tostay in contact with some interestingpeople. Our group continues to work viaemail after the event and everyone seemsexcited about it.
PS. By the way, flying is no fun anymore.
About the author: Ken Roy PE, is a professionalengineer, the inventor of the Shell World andDyson Dot concepts, and one of the founders anddirectors of the Tennessee Valley InterstellarWorkshop, Inc and serves on the Board of [email protected]
Surviving the Interstellar Hackathonin the City of Brotherly Love
The "why do we want to go" group, Ken is on the left at the back
The i4is team always enjoy meetingscience fiction (SF) people, bothenthusiasts and practitioners - and
there is a powerful overlap between thesetwo in the SF world. The imagination inSF gives our big brother, the BritishInterplanetary Society (BIS), its motto"from imagination to reality", most of usare readers of SF and a few of us havewritten some SF ourselves.
Last year we were at the massiveWorldcon, Loncon3, which took over alarge part of the Excel centre in London'sDocklands. This Easter we were at themore modest annual UK nationalconvention the 2015 Eastercon, titledDysprosium.
Again we were alongside BIS in theexhibits space. Sadly we didn't have theheadroom for our 2001 monolith. Fourmetres is a "big ask" for a hotel lobby andwe would have to have had it lurking atthe back of one of the big presentations -so it remained in storage.
We gave two presentations; the firstwas by John Davies explaining theTsiolkovsky rocket equation and how it ispossible to use a simple spreadsheet todeliver the same result from Newton'sSecond Law (F=MA). John developed thisas part of the i4is educational programmefor UK schools. By avoiding using calculuswe can reach almost all secondary schoolstudents. At the Eastercon, John extendedthis concept to help a largely adultaudience gain a greater understanding ofthe requirements of rocket propulsion,both for themselves and for schools. This
seems to have worked - given the toughquestions received from the audience!Given the day and hour, 10 on a Sundaymorning, the audience were strikinglynumerous and very wide awake.
The second was by i4is directors KelvinF Long and Rob Swinney and gave apresentation on Reverse Imagineeringsome SF starships. Rob discussedrequirements and some formal studiesand Kelvin brought the ideas together,
discussing specific SF starships, such asClarke’s Quantum Drive in ‘Songs ofDistant Earth’ and the Sail Ship in Niven’s‘The Mote in God’s Eye’. A packed audienceon the last evening of the Con and a great reception.
Thanks to Alistair Scott and SteveSalmon of BIS for their supportalongside at the BIS table and to John's“other half”, Lindsay Wakeman, for herhelp on our own table.
We'll be there for the annual Novacon inNovember 2015 in the UK city ofNottingham so if you are at the Con lookout for our table and Kelvin's presentation.
What we did at Eastercon
Kelvin points the way to the Sombrero Galaxy
Lindsay talks to Gerry Webb of BIS and CST (www.commercialspace.co.uk)
Building spacecraftspecifically to leave our solarsystem and reach out to otherstars is a feat yet to beaccomplished.
There are many ideas, some of whichinclude the construction of massivegeneration ships carrying tens of
thousands of human beings. Suchendeavours would require unprecedentedco-operation between individuals,organizations and nations as well as accessto resources on a scale that seems almostabsurd when looking at the pure numbers.Another approach is to use currentadvances in technologies aiming atminimizing the size of devices. While thisis not suitable for a manned mission, itwould enable robotic pre-cursor missionsin interstellar exploration. Another issuefrom a human perspective is travel time.The star system closest to us is AlphaCentauri at 4.3 light years. Usingconventional technologies like chemical orelectrical propulsion, it would take morethan a human lifetime to reach thisdestination. However, there is a conceptderived from solar sails that would allowus to achieve velocities of several percentof the speed of light with near-termtechnologies; simply termed a laser sail.Project Dragonfly aims at combiningminiaturized spacecraft with a laser sail
propulsion system to arrive at aninterstellar probe concept realizablewithin the next few decades.
To collect ideas, develop a feasibletechnology roadmap and spread the ideaof such spacecraft the i4is decided toorganize a student design competition andin August 2014, international universityteams were invited to participate in thiscompetition. To prepare the studentteams, they were given an initial set ofspecific problems, regarding interstellarexploration and laser sail spacecraft, toprepare them for the independent designof an entire mission and provide themwith the framework of a proper systemsengineering approach. The teams whowere able to complete this initial taskwere then confronted with the missionrequirements. These are depicted inFigure 2 in a graphical fashion and weregiven as –
1. Design an unmanned interstellarmission that is capable of deliveringuseful scientific data about the AlphaCentauri System, associatedplanetary bodies, solar environmentand the ISM.
2. The spacecraft will use current ornear-future technology.
3. The Alpha Centauri system shall bereached within a century of its launch.
4. The spacecraft propulsion foracceleration must be mainly light sail-based.
5. The mission shall maximiseencounter time at the destination.
6. The laser beam power shall notexceed 100 gigawatts
7. The laser infrastructure shall bebased on existing concepts for solarpower satellites
The 100 GW beam powerrequirement constrains the design spaceconsiderably. For example, it constrainsthe mass of the spacecraft to tens of tonsand is very challenging to generate, butnot impossible. The 100 year timeconstraint sets a minimum averagespeed of 4.3% of the speed of light.Thus, the spacecraft mass, its sailparameters and the duration ofacceleration/deceleration are left asvariables. It was the teams’responsibility to navigate within thegiven design space and make meaningfuldecisions through trade-offs and carefulanalysis. Two intermediate deliverablesensured that we could keep track of theteams’ progress and give feedback andassistance when needed. We hoped thatthe staged process would maximize thestudents’ learning experience.
Moreover, it was our desire to increasepublic attention to the students’ hardwork, an interstellar exploration topic andreward the participating teams which leadto the organisation of a Kickstartercampaign, aimed at financing thestudent’s travel expenses and bolsteringthe awards. After some initial research we
Sailing to unknown shores:
The i4is Project Dragonfly Competition
Figure 1: Dragonfly style probe with sailattached, as illustrated by Seth Prichard
Figure 2: Graphical depiction of the Dragonfly design competition requirements
decided to go with a 30 day campaign anda funding goal of $10,000. Through therelentless efforts of the Dragonfly teamand the entire i4is network we managedto exceed that goal, not only enabling usto support the student teams but alsoproving that i4is has the capabilities toobtain funding for their technologyprogrammes from unconventional sourcessuch as crowdfunding, allowing us to moveforward more quickly.
Out of the initial six, four internationalteams were able to surmount all hurdles,submit a final design report and attendthe Dragonfly workshop in London:
• Technical University of Munich
• University of Cairo
• University of California Santa Barbara
• CranSEDS, consisting of students of Cranfield University, UK, the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Russia, and the Université Paul Sabatier, France
The reports were reviewed by a panelof external and internal experts and on 3July 2015 the teams were invited topresent their design at the final workshopin London at the BIS headquarters. Themain purpose of the workshop was tomimic a typical design review in the spacesector. Thus, the teams had to give apresentation covering all vital aspects oftheir design and then answer questionsfrom the audience and review panel.
Of course, the Dragonfly missionincludes all typical challenges particularto space mission architectures. That is,restricted payload mass, reliable powersupply, lifetime of the mission,communication and controls. However,due to the unique propulsion concept andmission goal, there were some twists. A100 year lifetime, for example, is unusualin the space sector, especially without anydirect maintenance. Moreover, velocitiesof a few percent of the speed of light leadto a new problem, even in interstellarspace, and especially in dust clouds or
within our solar system. This adds therisk of high velocity impacts with dust andeven smaller particles leading to abrasionof the probe/sail material and eventualfailure.
Once the probe arrives at the targetstar, how is it going to have enough timeto make meaningful measurements flyingat around 5% of the speed of light?Remember that requirement to maximiseencounter time at the destination theprobe must be decelerated. Conventionalchemical or electrical propulsion systemswould require huge amounts of extramass and there is no experience withstoring any type of fuel over such a longperiod of time. Commanding the probe iseven less feasible than current long rangeprobes like New Horizons at Pluto. Thecommand loop delay at arrival is 8.6 years.Thus, command of the probe from Earthis completely impractical. And how is theprobe going to find Earth and send apowerful enough signal in the rightdirection at this distance? In addition,there have been problems sustainingmission support over 10 or 20 years. Whatis the project management and financingfor an endeavour like this going to looklike? Are there innovative mission designsto make this more feasible? And the 100Gigawatt laser that has to be stationedsomewhere in the vicinity of Earth with adirect line of sight to the probe. Thestudent teams faced all of these extremelydifficult questions and many more incoming up with ideas to turn ProjectDragonfly into a reality. This is ScienceFiction made into reality by this newgeneration’s bright and adventurousminds.
To give you a brief impression of theamount of thought and diligence thatwent into solving these problems, here area few examples of what the teams came
Principium | Issue 11 | November 2015 Page 15
Figure 4: A Magsail as shown in the left two illustrations consists of a superconducting hoop through which a current is flowing. Thiscurrent will induce a strong magnetic field which results in an opposing force when exposed to a stream of charged particles comingfrom, eg, a star ahead. On the right, a more sophisticated/optimized Magsail design by the Cairo University team is shown.
Figure 3: Technology trade-offs are a vital tool in determining optimal solutions for acertain problem. This particular one regards the laser sail material and was conductedby the CranSEDS team.
Principium | Issue 11 | November 2015 Page 16
up with. The Technical University ofMunich would accelerate their spacecraftup to a distance of 2.2 light years fromEarth at a final velocity of 9% of the speedof light and place the laser infrastructureon the Moon to compensate for thereactive forces of the powerful laser beam(we have to remember here that photonscarry momentum and thus a laser issubjected to Newton’s third law).Deceleration is enabled by a stagedmagnetic/electric sail. A magnetic sail isvery efficient at high velocities but getsincreasingly inefficient at lower velocities.On the other hand an electric sail iscapable of decelerating at lower velocities.Their overall spacecraft design is amonolithic approach, resulting in a 14 tspacecraft.
That a single, heavy spacecraft is notthe only way was shown by the team fromthe University of California SantaBarbara. They designed a "wafer-based"design. The spacecraft is imprinted onto achip with all spacecraft subsystemsintegrated into it which allows not onlyminiaturization but also the launch ofseveral 100 or 1,000 small spacecraft toincrease the chance that at least one ofthem succeeds. The sail would consist of adielectric material with an extremely highreflectivity, in order to withstand theenormous power density of the Gigawattlaser. The latter is based on a “phased
laser array” (DE-STAR)15 concept alsodeveloped by the same student group,utilizing many lasers working parallelrather than a single gigantic laser.
The Cairo University Team developed aspacecraft that separates into two sub-probes upon arrival in the target starsystem. One probe will collect data fromProxima Centauri, the other data fromthe Alpha Centauri A and B system.Moreover, the team presented aninnovative approach for attitude controlduring the acceleration phase by changingthe shape of the sail.
The CranSEDS Team suggested aninteresting way to reduce the overall costand difficulty of keeping a 100 year spaceprogramme running: a total of threespacecraft are launched at 33 yearintervals. Thus, each subsequentspacecraft acts as a communication relaystation for its predecessors andtechnological advances that have occurredin the meantime can be exploited.
Results of the CompetitionThe review panel ranked the teams
based on the reports, the presentationsand the Q&A sessions. The final rankingthus became:
1. Technical University of Munich
2. CranSEDS
3. UCSB
4. Cairo University
All teams presented excellentlyresearched and well thought out ideas,which was reflected in the small point-wisedifferences between the four places. Thefirst prize, which went to the team of theTechnical University of Munich, includesone of the Alpha Centauri Prizes whichi4is awards to contributions advancing thefield of interstellar travel. All of the teamsare currently in the process of polishingthe work they have done so far and aim topublish it at conferences and in scientificjournals, increasing the return forthemselves and the interstellarcommunity.
Without a doubt, it can be said theDragonfly project has already been a greatlearning experience for i4is, thanks to thestudent teams and every single supporterof the Kickstarter campaign who madethis possible. Currently, the Dragonflytechnology roadmap and strategicpartnerships are being developed. We willkeep you up to date. Together, we will goto the stars and expand humanities finalfrontier.
References:http://www.centauri-
dreams.org/?p=33615
About the author: Dan Fries is currently pursuinga PhD in Aerospace Engineering, dealing withsupersonic combustion and turbulence, at theGeorgia Institute of Technology. He is interestedin advanced forms of propulsion, spaceutilization/exploration and systems engineering.
Figure 6: The laser sail spacecraft as imagined by the team from the Technical Universityof Munich
Figure 5: A spaced based solar power infrastructure as illustrated on the left could be used to power Gigawatt lasers in space as wellas to supply Earth with energy. To achieve the required output the UCSB team envisage an array structure as on the right.
15. Lubin, P, Hughes, G B J, Bible, J,Johansson Hummelgård, I, “DirectedEnergy for Planetary Defense and exploRation- Applications to Relativistic Propulsion andInterstellar Communications” edited by Gerald Cleaver - Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (JBIS) (in press 2015)
Principium | Issue 11 | November 2015 Page 17
Project Dragonfly – The road goes on….A note on the way forward by Martin
Langer.Although the success of ourKickstarter campaign and the workshopin London still amazes and inspires us,the time has come to move on andcontinue work on Dragonfly. Themomentum, the spirit and the creativityis still high and the students involved arestill pushing the limits. In the StarshipCongress 2015 held 4-5 Sept 2015 atDrexel University, Lukas Schrenk ofTeam Munich presented their winningdesign of the laser sail propelled probe.Such presentations, combined withdiscussion and feedback is a crucial partfor our ambitious mission, since we areconstantly at the edge of technicalfeasibility. Therefore, as a plannedphase of the student competition, thestudent teams are now summarizing andcondensing their designs into paperswith help from the Dragonfly TechnicalCommittee. It is intended to submitthese reports to peer reviewed journalsor conferences later this year. TheKickstarter Campaign is still ongoing,since all the pledgers around the world(thank you by the way!) more thandeserve their rewards in time andregular updates have to be maintained.Furthermore, a "lessons learned"document was created out of thecampaign, which will help futureprojects within i4is.
Now, how do we continue thetechnological development of a projectlike Dragonfly? To tackle this questionthe technical committee created apreliminary technical roadmap, sortingout different technologies and goals,with respect to near-term and futurefeasibility. Even the near term optionsoffer many opportunities to advance
towards our long time goal of sending alaser propelled spacecraft to a nearbystar. In our first trade-offs a “minimalISM” appeared as the best candidate fora starting point. Many things need todone for such a mission – and a lot ofresearch carried out. But there arepieces of the puzzle already out there:miniaturized technology available fromspace applications (ie CubeSats andSmallSats), research on high power lasersystems and widely availablecommercial-of-the shelf electronicsolutions for space; Rideshares intospace are carried out on a regular basisand ongoing research on low-energytrajectories may offer opportunities forus to go out there, to reach the edge ofour solar system. Right now we are just
Starship Congress at Drexel University
in the beginning - looking for partners to co-operate and experts to commenton our ideas. But we see the futurerising and we feel there is a real chanceto launch a minimum ISM in theupcoming decade.
About the author: Martin Langer is currentlypursuing a PhD at the Institute ofAstronautics at the Technical University ofMunich (TUM). His research interests coverthe reliability of Small Satellites and theinfluence of high energy radiation on satellitecomponents. He is the current project managerof MOVE-II, a single unit CubeSat, due to belaunched in 2017 and was also member ofFirst-MOVE, the first satellite of TUM,launched in 2013.
The Cairo Team The Cranseds Team
The UCSB Team The TUM Team
Principium | Issue 11 | November 2015 Page 18
A report from i4is’s “D-for-Design” track at the Third Tennessee Valley InterstellarWorkshop in Oak Ridge,Tennessee, on 09-12 November 2014.
When TVIW’s ProgramCommittee settled on aninterdisciplinary suite of
workshop tracks (see next article)covering interstellar communication,exploration, and travel, these tracks were:“A-for-Aero/Astro” to identifyopportunities in the physical sciences, “B-for-Bio” in the life sciences,“C-for-Commo” in the social sciences,while “D-for-Design” as a pureengineering romp, we knew just who toask to run that last one.
We were aware of i4is’s plans to launchThe Journal of Spacecraft Archaeology.“Spacecraft archaeology” means reverse-engineering the conceptual starshipsimagined by classic science fiction authorsinto as-credible-as-possible pre-conceptdesign solutions, using known physics andengineering. (This process had previouslybeen demonstrated by reverse-engineeringthe Enzmann Starship, which waspublished in JBIS: “The Enzmann
Starship: History and EngineeringAppraisal”, JBIS, 65, pp 185-199, 2012, ACrowl, K F Long, R Obousy.) So, after theparticipants in the “D” track were briefedby Rob Swinney and Andreas Hein oncertain classic ships of science fiction,building on prior reading, they were splitinto small teams (one per ship) and taskedto work out the physics and anengineering description of their operation.A half-dozen examples were considered(list was compiled by Kelvin Long):
• Laser sail system in Larry Niven’s ‘The Mote in Gods Eye’.
• Bussard ramjet from Poul Anderson’s ‘Tau Zero’.
• Archeron nuclear-electric drive from Clarke’s ‘Earthlight’.
• Sunjammer Solar photon sail from Clarke’s ‘The Wind from the Sun’.
• Antimatter drive from Ben Bova’ ‘Queen of Angels’.
• Rama from Clarke’s ‘Rendezvous with Rama’.
Participants also had to come up withthe mission profile, a performance tablewith focus on the propulsion, vehicleconfiguration and layout, and a sketch ifthey had time. The philosophy was toremain as close to the intention of theauthor’s ideas as possible. When thefictional elements clearly conflicted withreality or at least plausibility, then theparticipants had to make a designdecision. Summary results of this friendlydesign competition were then reported outto the full audience at TVIW.
It is clear that this process can berepeated and many Starship ideas fromthe Science Fiction literature could bebought to life. “From imagination toreality”, indeed.
About the author: Robert Kennedy PE is a SeniorSystems Engineer VI who does green energy(mostly solar and geothermal) at what helaughingly calls his “day job”. He is the co-author (with Ken Roy) of many papers about“Dyson Dots” and “Shell Worlds”, and is also oneof the co-founders of the Tennessee ValleyInterstellar Workshop and a director of i4is.
TVIW 2014:
i4is SF design workshop
People from Icarus Interstellar who were at TVIW-2014: L to R: Andy Presby, LucasSchrenk, Michel Lamontagne, Jim Benford, Rob Swinney, Andreas Hein, RobertFreeland, Buck Field
Andreas Hein (L on dais) and Rob Swinney (R on dais) running the “D-for-Design” trackat TVIW-2104.
Principium | Issue 11 | November 2015 Page 19
Field report from TVIW 2014
The ancient Greeks defined“symposium” as a “drinkingparty” during which eventswere celebrated, literary andphilosophical works recited, orideas discussed.
The Roman equivalent wasconvivium. As quite a fewmembers of i4is who have enjoyed
TVIW’s “Southern hospitality” alreadyknow, our symposia have elements of both:they are certainly convivial, and they doinvolve some drinking. (Search, forexample, the text string “Alpha CentauriSunrise”.) We believe monkey sociabilityis essential for quality collaboration, so theSunday Night Reception has become oneof the hallmarks of the TVIW. The thirdsymposium which returned to its roots inOak Ridge, Tennessee, on 09-12November 2014 was no different. (Early on in the planning, we delayed theopening from the first week of Novemberto the second, in order to synchronizeTVIW 2104 with the premiere of themovie Interstellar.)
As in 2011, the Reception took place inBarbara Jackson’s and Robert Kennedy’sliving room. It was co-sponsored by ToniWeisskopf’s Baen Books (www.baen.com)and Robert’s Russian-American tradingcompany, Ultimax Group Inc(www.ultimax.com). The date ishistorically noteworthy, for it was 25 yearsalmost on the dot after the Fall of the Wallat 2245 Central European Time (1645Eastern) on 09 November 1989. It wasalso in Robert’s living room that all the
authors of “Dyson Dots” (see JBIS, vol.66,no 10-11, Oct-Nov 2013) finally got tomeet J T Early who first came up with theidea of sunshades at L1, also 25 yearsbefore, in the pages of JBIS? It is alsointeresting that Dr Early retired just overthe mountains in Kitty Hawk, NorthCarolina, where powered flight was firstdemonstrated by the Wright Brothers in1903. Present as well was Dr MichaelMinovitch, the American mathematicianand the discoverer of the first numericalsolution (aka "gravity-assist trajectory") tothe famous unsolved Three-Body Problemin celestial mechanics, the discovery thatmade possible all of NASA’s high energydeep-space multiplanetary missions, suchas the Voyagers and the Pioneers. Over 70other scientists, engineers, spaceenthusiasts, artists, writers, editors,publishers, and academics gathered forthis symposium, which was again held inthe Double Tree Hotel in Oak Ridge as itwas in 2011. Mostly they came from theAmerican Southeast, in keeping with theWorkshop’s name, but there was talentfrom the private-, public-, and military-sectors from as far away as Germany, theUnited Kingdom, and California. Onething all these participants had incommon was thirst, because a number ofthem had spent all day in two paidSeminars put on by the Workshop, onTerraforming and Space Propulsionrespectively. (Despite the fine traditionswe are creating, we also innovate. Thisyear the paid Seminars were one such.What we now call “Working Tracks” wasanother, a fuller expression by EricHughes of the Hackers-Conference-inspired “Birds of a Feather sessions” fromTVIW 2013.)
It has been observed by many that “onething you don’t get a lot of at TVIW and that’sfree time”. It’s true. We try to design areasonable schedule every year, and everyyear we fail. Sigh.
The basic two-day program consisted ofa single-track of 19 plenary sessions, all ofwhich were taped by our president andtalented videographer John Preston:(https://www.tviw.us/tviw-2014-videos).On Monday morning, we kicked off with an inspiring keynote lecture by Dr Sara Seager of MIT on “The Search forEarth 2.0”.
Interleaved with that were four parallelworkshop tracks that provided “qualitytime” for participants to dive into systems
engineering for world ships, life sciences,SETI & communications, and designconcepts for interstellar travel. Why doesTVIW have these funny “workshoptracks”? Because TVIW serves as both acolloquium to present papers of interest tocolleagues, and as a workshop to getthings done. Interstellar is no smallsubject we are dealing with; so what canwe practically contribute? People saycreativity can’t be forced, but theconditions to foster creativity certainly canbe—so our explicit intention was toengineer the conditions to nurture thosethings that need doing and promoteprogress in our field. In regard tointerstellar studies in general and SETI inparticular, there have been three trulyseminal conferences in history, all of themhighly interdisciplinary: the 1961 meetingat Green Bank organized by Frank Drakehimself, the 1971 “CETI” conference atByurakan Observatory in old SovietArmenia jointly organized by theAmerican and Soviet Academies ofScience, and 1983’s “InterstellarMigration” workshop at Los Alamos. Thelatter two generated quite remarkableproceedings, one edited by Carl Sagan(Communication with ExtraterrestrialIntelligence, 1973), the other by Finney &Jones (Interstellar Migration and theHuman Experience, 1985). One salientquote from decades ago has beeninspirational to us at the TVIW: “the formof the discussions was… an initial presentationof a subtopic by a discussion leader and then an
Dr. Sara Seager, MIT “The Search forEarth 2.0”
The pioneering generation was there to inspire the new generations. Left, Michael Minovitch, the discovererof gravity-assist trajectories. Right, Santosha Havercamp, child ofone of this TVIW 2014’s essay winners,Noah Havercamp.
often lively and vigorous range of comments,criticism, and free association” (Sagan, 1973).This gave us the rationale for ourworkshop-track approach to interstellarcommunication, exploration, and travel.“A-for-Aero/Astro” was to identifyopportunities in the physical sciences, “B-for-Bio” in the life sciences,“C-for-Commo” in the social sciences,while “D-for-Design” was just a pureengineering romp (see Robert's reportabove in this issue).
A buffet dinner, provided by one of oursponsors, Digital Oilfield Solutions, washeld on Monday night around the pool ofthe Doubletree Hotel. After another dayof plenaries and parallel tracks onTuesday, the respective leaders from eachof the four tracks enthusiastically reportedout their results to a rather boisterousaudience. Track A’s 4-by-8-foot illustrationpanel had so many colored strings on itthat Andy Presby quipped, “one morethread and that thing will achievesentience”. (Track A became a story onthe Baen website, Track B’s and Track C’sintellectual products ended up gettingpublished by JBIS, and Track D—whichwas Kelvin Long’s brainchild to beginwith—will be a whole day workshop byitself put on by BIS this comingNovember.) The formal program wrappedup with a bang: a talk by Les Johnsondescribing his proposed small solar sailmission that could slingshot around theSun and be flung out of the Solar Systementirely, getting to 94 AU out in just a fewyears. This is a completely credibleconcept to Go Interstellar with modestfunds in short order. Though exhaustedby this point, this reporter/organizer canonly describe the mood at this point asjoyous. (We may add “ending with abang” as yet another signature event ofthe TVIW.)
Formal programming concludedTuesday night with a panel of sciencefiction writers giving a discussion for ourPublic Outreach (another signatureevent), in conjunction with a space/sciencebook sale (including tomes penned bysome of our participants) orchestrated byone of our sponsors, Barnes & Noble.That night, our fellow participant JimBeall got his very first commercial writinggig with Baen Books at TVIW-2014 (aswell as a first-time JBIS contributor!), as adirect result of being there. Jim hadwritten detailed notes during Track “A”,but then took them in a completelyunexpected direction. While discussingthe potential of this approach with LesJohnson at the close of the Tuesday NightPublic Outreach Event, Toni Weisskopfleaned around the microphone and hiredJim on the spot. This is what shepublished:www.baen.com/our_worldship_broke.asp .
We began Wednesday with what hasbecome yet another hallmark of theTVIW, the Big Techno Tour. This year, wewere conducted all over the Oak RidgeNational Laboratory(www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZUE030yMVk), including the Manhattan-Project-eraGraphite Reactor and its 1940s controlroom (old Big Science), the SpallationNeutron Source (multi-billion-dollar newBig Science), and the Supercomputingfacility, wherein supernovae aremodelled, among other things. ThePublic Relations Committee feltvalidated when the tour guide camedown the front stairs of the SNS andsaid, “Are you from that meeting we’ve beenhearing about on national public radio?”
Wednesday afternoon followed with agroup viewing of the film "Interstellar".The mood after this stunning film can bestbe described as cathartic. Afterward, we
closed the TVIW at what’s called “theDead Dog Session” (not a “session” at all)in the “Consuite” (another thing we’veborrowed from local science-fiction-conventions), at which those hardy soulswho had survived so far consumed all theremaining beverages and victuals. Thenwe toddled off to do major face plants,because this is why TVIW is a sesquiennialaffair: more frequent than that would killthe volunteers.
Remember the admissions process forTVIW-2016 has now opened:https://www.tviw.us/event/tviw-2016/participate. Don’t forget to keepchecking our website: www.tviw.us fornews, and hope to see all y’all inChattanooga in 2016.
About the author: Robert Kennedy PE is a SeniorSystems Engineer VI who does green energy(mostly solar and geothermal) at what helaughingly calls his “day job”. He is the co-author (with Ken Roy) of many papers about“Dyson Dots” and “Shell Worlds”, and is also oneof the co-founders of the Tennessee ValleyInterstellar Workshop and a director of i4is.
After the distant thrills of"Interstellar" we review a filmwith its feet very much on theground. In this case theintrinsically hostile but in theend, surprisingly benignsurface of the only planetwhich some of us may reachwithin the lifetime of your,admittedly elderly, reviewer.
Director: Ridley Scott
Script: Drew Goddard, based on the novel byAndy Weir
Running time: 141 minutes
Starring: Matt Damon (stranded astronautWatney), Jessica Chastain (commander astronautLewis), Kristen Wiig (NASA PR Montrose), JeffDaniels (NASA Director Sanders), Michael Peña(pilot astronaut Martinez), Kate Mara(SysAdmin astronaut Johanssen), Sean Bean(Flight Director Henderson), Sebastian Stan(Medic astronaut Beck), Aksel Hennie (Germanchemist astronaut Vogel), Chiwetel Ejiofor(Mission Director Kapoor)
The premiseMatt Damon, as engineer and botanist
astronaut Mark Watney, is stranded onMars. How can he survive? Can he getback? But this is no "Robinsonade". Thisis an adventure displaying the Right Stuff,as exemplified by Yeager, Glenn (and therest of the Mercury Seven), Armstrong -oh, and an obscure fellow named Gagarin.
Alternatively, this is the fairy tale storyof how an unpublished author, usingtechnology invented very recently, self-published his carefully researched tale andgot Hollywood (and perhaps its greatestSF director) to make it into the filmreleased this year.
Is it right?I'm not going to attempt to evaluate
the plausibility of the story from theastronautical engineering point of view.I'm not an astronautical engineer anymore, the issues aren't in the area I usedto know and the web will be alive withopinions, well-founded to wonky, formonths, if not years to come. Several ofmy i4is colleagues will have their muchmore authoritative opinions too!
But let's get that storm on Mars out ofthe way. Mars does have storms with highwind-speeds and lots of dust flying aroundbut the atmospheric pressure is so lowthat the chance of the ascent vehicle being
blown over is essentially zero (and the duststorms are talcum powder!). This is a plothole in the book and its author freelyadmits that he needed a dramatic way tostrand his astronaut on Mars and bent thefacts to achieve this. So we suspend ourengineering judgement if we like the story- which I do!
The castMore good news, the casting is near
perfect. Damon can play the everymanadventurer better than any current star(just look at the Bourne films). JessicaChastain can play just about anyone and isjust right for a mid-21st century missioncommander. Chiwetel Ejiofor is anotheractor who can play virtually any part anddoes just the right combination of gung hoand gravitas I imagine for a missiondirector. Again, my more knowledgeablecolleagues may correct me here but itworks for the story. The lesser parts areall top professionals playing professionalsin the space business very well. I'll cometo a couple of quibbles later.
Does it work?The overall tone of the film is almost
light-hearted despite the perils. Thisworks because the bantering style is howhumans can handle persistent perilwithout losing sanity - and the 12Acertificate widens the audience. Watney'ssurvival on potatoes grown using his own
Principium | Issue 11 | November 2015 Page 23
(and his crewmates) excrement is bothplausible and bizarre. The light and shadeof tension and humour have carried oververy successfully from book to film.
There are moments however,particularly for the central character,where deeper despair would have beenmore realistic. The skin-of-the-teethsolutions he had to come up with wereoften glossed over - a judgment about howscary you want to make it. And it'sdifficult to see how to show the scientificand technical detail without it becoming aphysics and chemistry lesson (a possibleproblem with the book?).
Now some quibbles –I mentioned the jokes. They are one of
the best features of both book and film.They contrast lightness to peril and addhumanity to technology. Sadly, one of thebest in the book should perhaps have beenleft out of the film, given the casting.Mission Director Kapoor is asked, at aparticularly tense moment, "Do youbelieve in God?" "Yes, lots of them, I'm aHindu". Making the mission director anethnic African with an Indian parentallows him to retain his name, Kapoor, andreligious background but deflates thejokes. Asked "Do you believe in God?" hehas to respond with an explanation of hismixed ancestry instead of that instantwitty response.
In the last major action sequence, thecrew on the Hermes carry out their EVAwithout so much as a safety line or acarabiner in sight. NASA apparently gavethe film a lot of support but this lookedlike rashness bordering on "roller skatingin a buffalo herd"!
And in the same sequence, wouldWatney really have climbed up to theMars Ascent Vehicle nosecone and hungout there waving about like Tiny Clanger?I was almost expecting to hear a swaneewhistle conversation.
OK, enough quibbles, but that last kidsTV alien reminds me of some UK TVMartians who really did live on potatoes.Instant mash in this case. Have a look onYouTube for the Smash Martians!
See it!It's the best space adventure since
Gravity - and it looks a lot more plausibleto me. But it is not Ridley Scott's best bysome distance. You don't walk out of thecinema in a visual and emotional haze.
But will he ever surpass Blade Runner,Alien and Gladiator? And who else can dothis better? Ridley Scott's second best isstill better than most others greatestwork.
It's a hymn to engineering, bothplanned and "seat-of the pants". TheHermes craft is a beautiful descendant ofthe Jupiter ship in 2001 and Watney is theengineer as hero in its best form sinceApollo 13.
We now know there is running wateroccasionally on Mars, so maybe Andy Weirwouldn't need that too-strong wind tomenace the ascent vehicle - a briny floodwould do. Which is intriguing given therumour that NASA may have held backthe news about the running water untilthe film was released.
About the author: John I Davies is a SeniorResearcher with i4is and editor of Principium.He is a retired software engineer and telecomsconsultant. He started in the space business butwas distracted by computer communications.
What’s in Principium 12In the next issue of Principium our
Guest Introduction will be from ouri4is colleague, Gillian Norman. Gillwill give us her personal perspective onthe why and the how of InterstellarStudies.
We will feature some musings fromJohn Davies on "Transcendence goingInterstellar", a recent CentauriDreams paper by Andreas Hein, andwe aim to give you an account of theother keynote from the recent StarshipCongress, “Prototyping Starships” byProfessor Rachel Armstrong.
The Initiative for Interstellar Studies (I4IS), in collaboration with the British Interplanetary Society,
Tuesday 24th and Wednesday 25th November, 2015.
To be held in the conference room at the BIS HQ, London SW8 1SZ
This new and innovative educational product is being launched by the Initiative for Interstel-lar Studies (a not-for-profit organisation incorporated in the UK) in collaboration with theBritish Interplanetary Society (a registered Charity).
We aim to help raise the educational levels of participants so that they can use some of thetools to start assessing deep space exploration concepts and even designing interstellar vessels.Two one day courses have been arranged, and you can either attend one or both, each will bedifferent and important in their own way.
Tuesday 24th November:
Starship EngineerThis course aims to give you a basic grounding in interstellar studies. We go from consideringthe essential requirements to giving you an overview of different spacecraft systems. We thentake you on a journey through several actual starship design studies, and show you how to cal-culate and evolve an interstellar machine. We will give a broad set of examples from the litera-ture, but focus on two specific case studies, that of fusion propulsion and laser-sail propulsion,as plausible ways by which we may someday reach the distant stars.
Wednesday 25th November:
Science Fiction StarshipsThe works of science fiction literature have produced many fascinating starship concepts, but howrealistic are they? In this one day course we will examine texts such as laser-sails in “The Mote inGod’s Eye” (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle), Torch Ships in “Time for the Stars” (Robert Hein-lein), Quantum Ramjets in “The Songs of Distant Earth” (Arthur C Clarke) and other inspirationalexamples of interstellar vessels. This course will teach you how to evaluate these ideas from theimagination and how to perform a physics and engineering assessment of their feasibility.
Education Requirements: The courses are open to everyone and anyone is welcome to attend, but to participate in the designworkshops it is recommended that you have some familiarity with basic mathematics and algebra.
Principal Lecturers: Kelvin F. Long is a physicist and aerospace engineer, Chief Editor Journal of the British Inter-planetary Society, author of the book “Deep Space Propulsion: A Roadmap to the Stars” and isthe Executive Director i4is.
Rob Swinney is a former RAF Squadron Leader aerosystems engineer and is a Deputy Director of i4is. He, and Long, have both been involved in the creation and running of the onlytwo modern starship design projects, Project Icarus (fusion) and Project Dragonfly (laser-sails).
Pricing:Normal rate: £59 per day or £99 for the two days.
Discounted rate: £49 per day or £79 for the two days; includes students and senior citizens. Lunch and coffee will be provided on the day for all attendees.
To join any of the events contact the booking team at: [email protected] or visitwww.i4is.org for more details.
“Starships inour Lifetime”www.i4is.org
Join us and you too can become a Starship Engineer
Front cover: “Daedalus Staging”, art byAdrian Mann www.bisbos.com.
Back cover: The Globular Cluster OmegaCentauri NGC 5139 - European SouthernObservatory Credit: ESOwww.eso.org/public/images/eso0844a/ IN
ITIA
TI V
EF O R
S T U D I E S
www.I4IS.org
We'd love to hear from you, our readers,about your thoughts on Principium, theInitiative or interstellar flight in general.
Come along to Facebook,Twitter(@I4Interstellar) or LinkedIn to join inthe conversation
Editor: John I Davies Deputy Editor : Kelvin F LongLayout: Adrian Mann
Mission StatementThe mission of the Initiative for
The Initiative For Interstellar Studies is apending institute, incorporated in the UK May2014 as a not-for-profit company limited byguarantee (number:09062458)
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