Starship
A starship, starcraft, or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between planetary systems.[1] The term is mostly found in science fiction. Reference to a "star-ship" appears as early as 1882 in Oahspe: A New Bible.[2]
While
In April 2016, scientists announced
Research
To travel between stars in a reasonable time using
There are very few scientific studies that investigate the issues in building a starship. Some examples of this include:
- Project Orion (1958–1965), mostly crewed interplanetary spacecraft
- Project Daedalus (1973–1978), uncrewed interstellar probe
- Project Longshot (1987–1988), uncrewed interstellar probe
- Project Icarus(2009–2014), uncrewed interstellar probe
- Hundred-Year Starship(2011), crewed interstellar craft
The
Examined in an October 1973 issue of
The NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program (1996–2002) was a professional scientific study examining advanced spacecraft propulsion systems.
Fictional types
A common science-fiction device is to posit a
- Sleeper: Starships that place their occupants into Cryostasis or Temporal Stasis during a long trip. This includes cryonics-based systems that freeze passengers for the duration of the journey. This is a common trope in science fiction, with some notable examples including "To Sleep in a Sea of Stars" by Christopher Paolini and Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward"
- Generation: Ships in which the destination would be reached by descendants of the original passengers. These ships would necessarily be self-sustaining and self-maintaining for possibly thousands of years. Notable examples of this in fiction are the Godspeed in Beth Revis' "Across the Universe" (and subsequent sequels), as well as the Vanguard from Robert A. Heinlein's "Orphans of the Sky"
- Relativistic: Ships that function by taking advantage of time dilation at close-to-light-speeds, so long trips will seem much shorter (but still take the same amount of time for outside observers).
- Frame Shift: Ships that take advantage of the fact that certain dimensions are less "folded" than others, to allow shorter travel by shifting one's frame of reference into a higher, more flat dimension to cut down on travel time. Generally this results in speeds close to (but importantly, not greater than) Light speed.
- wormholes). According to the theory of relativity, faster-than-light travel is impossible.
Theoretical possibilities
The
Fictional examples
There are widely known vessels in various science fiction franchises. The most prominent cultural use and one of the earliest common uses of the term starship was in Star Trek: The Original Series.
Individual ships(This list is not exhaustive.)
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Groups of ships
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See also
- Bioship – Type of fictional spacecraft or starship made of biological elements
- Intergalactic travel – Hypothetical travel between galaxies
- IXS Enterprise – Conceptual interstellar ship
- Mother ship – Large vehicle that leads, serves, or carries other smaller vehicles
- Project Icarus (interstellar) – 2009 project to update design of Project Daedalus
- Project Longshot – Design for a 400 tonne nuclear pulse propelled uncrewed spacecraft to reach and orbit Alpha Centauri
- 100 Year Starship – Grant project to work toward achieving interstellar travel
- Spaceflight – Flight into or through outer space
- Space travel in science fiction – Fictional methods, e.g. antigravity, hyperdrive
- Starship Technologies – Company developing small self-driving robotic delivery vehicles
- Unidentified flying object – Unusual phenomenon in the sky that is not readily identifiable
- Airbus A350 XWB– Family of long-range, wide-body jet airliners
References
- ^ Erik Sofge (20 September 2012). "What Would a Actually Look Like?". Popularmechanics. Archived from the original on 13 July 2001. Retrieved 9 April 2016.
- ^ "Oahspe - Index". gailallen.com. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-11-30.; "Oahspe - Book of Divinity: Chapter XVI". gailallen.com. Archived from the original on 2015-12-08. Retrieved 2015-11-30.
- ^ "Voyager 1 Has Date with a Star in 40,000 Years". Space.com. 13 September 2013. Archived from the original on 2015-07-24. Retrieved 2015-07-24.
- ^ Gilster, Paul (12 April 2016). "Breakthrough Starshot: Mission to Alpha Centauri". Centauri Dreams. Archived from the original on 15 April 2016. Retrieved 14 April 2016.
- New York Times. Archivedfrom the original on 12 April 2016. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
- ^ Stone, Maddie (12 April 2016). "Stephen Hawking and a Russian Billionaire Want to Build an Interstellar Starship". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on 13 April 2016. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
- ^ Staff (12 April 2016). "Breakthrough Starshot". Breakthrough Initiatives. Archived from the original on 12 April 2016. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
- S2CID 4797900. (Letter to the Editor)
- S2CID 4797900.
External links
- "How to facilitate construction of a fleet of starships" (PDF). Indymedia Australia. Independent Media Center. June 20, 2014. Archived(PDF) from the original on August 10, 2020. Retrieved November 14, 2020.
- Starship Dimensions (to-scale size comparisons)
- Starship Size Comparison Chart 1 (Dan Carlson, 13 July 2003)
- Starship Size Comparison Chart 2 (Dan Carlson, 30 October 2003)
- Starship Names (a Sci-Fi wiki article, outside Wikipedia)