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starship-design: New Starship Classes
Hello Lee,
Thank you for your answer.
I was surprised about your introdcution of a new ship called Pahtfinder.
It's a good idea, but I strongly disagree with your proposed crew of 10
- 20 specialists.
First of all, even a relatively small ship would still need decades for
a two-way mission to a neighbouring star system. And no matter how
thoroughly you plan a mission, there is always the risk of unexpected
events. And for a small crew, a loss of five members in an accident
might deal a severe blow to the whole mission. But for a ship the size
of the Explorer class, with a crew around 700, such a loss could be far
easier compensated by the rest, because a large crew offers a much
better and more stable social base from which to operate.
The second objection is just an innocent question: What should
Pathfinder do? Just monitor an alien star system? A robot probe could do
the same job - and much, much cheaper. Especially if you consider that
most of our neighbouring stars won't show any signs of life, I think
it's wiser to send unmanned probes first. Imagine the following
headline:
"Exploration crews failed to find life in the 20 nearest star systems -
NASA Directors thrown in jail for wasting 100,000,000,000,000 Dollars"
To send an Explorer class ship would only be justified if something very
special is found by one of the Pathfinders:
1. A terrestrial planet or moon with a Gaia-style biosphere and possibly
MILLIONS of alien species,
2. A lifeless, but still Earth-like world suitable for colonization and
eventual terraforming, and thus worth further investigation,
3. Something really strange, e.g. an alien artifact, left behind by an
exploration crew in the distant past, which couldn't be recovered by the
Pathfinder probe.
For your proposed sequence of ships (Pathfinder -> Explorer -> Caravan),
I think it would be helpful to view them in the historical context in
which they are most likely to happen.
1. A small and relatively fast interstellar probe (WITHOUT any human
crew!!) could be launched within our own lifetime (well, at least
mine...). If they are designed for a one-way mission and equipped with
high-resolution cameras and powerful senders, multiple star
systems could be screaned simultanously. So we will have plenty of data
to imagine what is "out yonder". If there is sufficient public demand,
this could be achieved by a combined international effort.
2. If one of the three conditions mentioned above is met, we can start
preparing an Explorer mission. Because an Explorer Starship will
inevitably be a giant vessel costing almost unimaginable sums of money,
we need a large, planetary-scale economy (called "Type I" by
Kardashev). That means we need a world government, ore mines on several
asteroids and one or two cities on Mars and dozens of interplanetary
ships cruising around - in other words, a situation unlikely to be
reached before the next 200 years.
And even then we must take greatest care that the mission will be
successful even under the worst circumstances. To understand what I
mean, let's consider the example of a powerful nation engaged in a
high-tech war. Even if they succeed in blowing their enemies into
oblivion, they will suffer dearly - not from physical destruction, but
from the loss of a far too large portion of their national whealth. Even
a small but sophisticated anti-aircraft missile costs more than most
people can spend within 10 years, only to be shot once and never seen
again...In war, you literally throw your money out of all windows.
Now return to our Explorer craft. If such a vast ship is build, it means
an immense strain even for a powerful civilization. We construct and
launch it in the good hope it will return something useful...All right,
if it does indeed. But then, if contact to the ship is broken and never
again resumed, if the ship is lost in interstellar space, all the money
invested will be gone - for nothing. Such a loss of resources may crush
even a global economy.
So we should be careful not to undertake such a massive project too
early.
(That's also the reason why I am HIGHLY sceptical about your mission
plan - I hardly believe that an Explorer Starship can be launched as
early as 2050)
3. Now to your Caravan colony ship. If you plan a different class for
colonization, that implies it will be several times larger than
Explorer. But to make things worse, for a really effective
colonization task (well, setting up a city of 1 million inhabitants and
all the supporting infrastructure) you need more than one ship - I
think, four of them is still a conservative guess. Then again, the
inevitable question arises: Who in Heaven's Name can afford PAYING
it???
For interstellar colonization, we need more than a global economy - we
need a stable, Solar System wide community, with several billion people
living and working outside Earth: on Mars, the Asteroids, Ganymed, etc.
In other words, we need an economic basis approaching
something like a stellar civilization (Type II in Kardashev's model). To
be honest, this will take at least one or two MILLENNIA to achieve.
But then, a very simple question arises: Why bother with a class of
ships which will only be launched in an era as distant as the Roman
Empire??????
Don't you agree that engineers of the 4th Millennium will have much more
sophisticated technologies from which to build a starship?
--------------------------------------------------
I hope my arguments don't cause any disillusionment for anyone. But as
far as starship design is concerned, I think it is important to stick to
the ground and don't make steps too fast. From the first time I found
your LIT-pages I was fascinated by your concepts because they are
reasonable - they don't move too far into the realm of Science Fiction.
But if you plan interstellar colonization before have gathered any
experience with interstellar travel at all - Well, you will inevitably
run into problems...
Your idea of different ship classes is a good one - but I think it is
really wiser to send unmanned, small and relatively cheap Pathfinder
probes first and let them do the remote sensing. Parallel to this we
could refine the design of the Explorer class, which could be send out
once an alien world raises our special curiosity.
It would also be helpful if someone could give a very rough overview of
the costs of both Pathfinder/Explorer ships - so that we have a vague
sense for the sheer dimension of this task and know how many Sponsors to
ask....
So long
Christoph Kulmann
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