A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel.
The term is mostly found in science fiction, as humans have not yet constructed such
vehicles. While the Voyager and Pioneer probes have traveled into local interstellar space,
they are not generally considered starships because they have not
traveled to other stars and also because they are not vessels. However, exploratory engineering has been
undertaken on several preliminary designs and feasibility studies have been done for starships that could
be built with modern technology or technology thought likely to be
available in the near future.
Research
Artist's conception of British Interplanetary Society's Project Daedalus (1978), a fusion powered interstellar
probe
To travel between stars in a reasonable time using rocket-like
technology requires very high effective exhaust
velocity exhaust jet, and enormous energy to power this, such as
might be provided by fusion power or antimatter.
There are very few scientific studies that investigate the issues in
building a starship. Some examples of this include:
- Project Orion (1958–1965), mostly manned interplanetary spacecraft
- Project Daedalus (1973–1978), unmanned interstellar probe
- Project Longshot (1987–1988), unmanned interstellar probe
- Project Icarus (2009–2014), unmanned interstellar probe
- Hundred-Year Starship (2011), manned interstellar craft
- See interstellar probes, interstellar travel
The Bussard ramjet is an idea to use nuclear
fusion of interstellar gas to
provide propulsion.
Other ideas involve going more slowly and building a generation ship, or trying to exceed the speed of light in
some way, such as creating and maintaining a wormhole.
Examined in an October 1973 issue of Analog, the Enzmann Starship proposed using a
12,000 ton ball of frozen deuterium
to power thermonuclear powered pulse propulsion units.[1]
Twice as long as the Empire State Building and assembled in-orbit, the
spacecraft was part of a larger project preceded by interstellar probes and telescopic
observation of target star systems.[1][2]
The NASA Breakthrough Propulsion
Physics Program (1996–2002), was a professional scientific study
examining advanced spacecraft propulsion systems.
Spacecraft
| Probes Balok's cube • Friendship 1 • Kataan probe • Voyager 6 | Shuttles Alice • Copernicus • Delta Flyer • Delta Flyer II • Galileo |
| Space Stations Deep Space 9 • Empok Nor • Deep Space Station K-7 • Earth Spacedock • MIDAS array • Particle Fountain Project Starbases | |
| Starships Named Enterprise: Enterprise NX-01 • USS Enterprise NCC-1701 and -A, -B, -C, -D, -E, -J By name: USS Constellation NCC-1017 • USS Defiant NX-74205 • USS Excelsior NCC-2000 • USS Voyager By group: Cardassian • Dominion • Earth • Federation • Ferengi • Klingon • Romulan • Unnamed • Vulcan | |
| Other Ares IV • Apollo 11 • Bajoran interceptor • Enterprise (OV-101) • Orbital 1 | |
Theoretical types
A common literary device is to posit a faster-than-light propulsion system (such as warp drive) or travel through hyperspace, although some starships may be outfitted for centuries-long journeys of slower-than-light travel. Other designs posit a way to boost the ship to near-lightspeed, allowing relatively "quick" travel (i.e. decades, not centuries) to nearer stars. This results in a general categorization of the kinds of starships:- Sleeper, which put their passengers into stasis during a long trip.
- Generation, where the destination will be reached by descendants of the original passengers.
- Relativistic, 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).
- Faster-than-light, which can move between places very quickly (transcending current understanding of physics or using interdimensional 'shortcuts').
Other technology
See also
- Bioship
- Space travel
- Mother ship
- Space battleship
- Spacecraft
- Unidentified flying object (UFO)
1. Wikipedia
2. Star Trek
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