

100 Year Starship Initiative - japaget
http://100yss.org/about

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jnazario
i love this project, it has had me transfixed for some time now. in my head i
created a whole story around it. imagine either being on board the ship when
it leaves and travels across part of the galaxy, or when it returns. you have
the equivalent of a ford model t showing up at your doorstep. i also try and
use what knowledge i have of sea faring explorers for insight into how this
might go. the time scale and the constraints are just so far beyond anything
we've ever done, however, so it has no real historical precedent.

this project is so immense, it requires so much thinking: air, food and water
prodiction and recycling, population genetics and management (both biological
as well as sociological), materials management, energy production, navigation,
communications back to earth, etc. you can't just stop and fix something, you
have to actually manage it while you fly.

in my night time thinking about this you'd have designs tested in multi-year
experiments first under the sea (no new air, sun light, etc), then a small
(10-12 year) mission to mars or something, and then finally you launch for the
stars. where do you go? frankly, 100 years isn't very much to explore too far
beyond the solar system and the next one (as i understand it you'd wind up in
the middle of nowhere if you made a straight trajectory out of our solar
system). so what do you find and where would you go?

then think about being on that craft. what if you're a kid who was whisked
away by exploring parents, would you resent them for taking you away from
everything you knew forever? imagine being the last person alive who could
recall earth. imagine the governments that would form on the ship and how they
would manage things, i imagine euthanasia would become realistic sine your
resources are so visibly constrained. imagine how that would fly when you came
back to earth.

i find this whole thing fascinating, it's such rich fodder for the
imagination. i love it.

