Generational spaceship

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A generational spaceship is a concept for an interstellar space flight in which the bridging of long distances takes several generations of travelers. Another name for this concept is space ark (as a reference to Noah's ark ).

History of ideas

The idea of ​​the generational spaceship goes back to the considerations of the physicist John Desmond Bernal in 1929 and has been known as a recurring motif in science fiction literature, especially space opera , since the 1940s . In the 1970s, NASA incorporated the idea into future studies. The long distances and long travel times of interstellar flight are to be mastered by a spaceship on which a group of people can live and reproduce for several generations.

Many science fiction authors concentrate on the development of social conditions on board such ships over very long periods of time, in contrast to other types of space operas , which are primarily designed as adventure novels .

The idea of ​​generational spaceships arose from the problem that a spaceship can only reach the closest star systems with the current technical conditions after centuries or millennia. Not only science fiction writers, but also scientists have speculated about the possibility of generational spaceships. It was proposed that the Bernal sphere , designed by the US physicist John Desmond Bernal as early as 1929, also be used for interstellar space flights. In 1952, the physicist LR Shepherd proposed excavating an asteroid and using it as a space ark equipped with a nuclear drive, while other proposals describe variants of the O'Neill cylinders .

In order to populate hypothetical distant planets that are ready for settlement, a well-trained, mixed group of settlers is required. A population of over 98 is often spoken of in order to avoid genetic impoverishment ( inbreeding in humans ).

There are many problems when one thinks of the implementation of generational spaceships. Artificial gravity , energy , fuel and food must be procured regeneratively over several centuries. The entire system must also remain functional over a long period of time or, alternatively, be maintained by the crew at regular intervals. Other problems lie in human psychology.

Nobody can foresee how such a civilization will develop socially and to what extent disturbances can arise. The question of motivation for such a trip must also be questioned. Should the earth become uninhabitable, Mars would be closer as the vanishing point for a select few. A trip with a generational spaceship is therefore more conceivable as a volunteer project for idealists.

Literary history

The Canadian SF author Laurence Manning was probably the first to take up the subject in his story The Living Galaxy in 1934 . For the first time large became famous for the design of the ship generation in the two 1941 published short stories Universe and Common Sense of Robert A. Heinlein , which he in 1963 with the novel The Long Journey (English Orphans of the Sky ) summarized. Heinlein describes life on board such a generation ship, which has been rudderlessly drifting through space since a failed mutiny. The descendants of the original crew now only live in a small habitable area of ​​the ship that they believe to be the entire universe.

This concept, in which the crew of the generational spaceship forgot that the colonization of a planet is the goal of the journey, and the spaceship itself is the world, is also taken up by many other authors. Examples of this are the story Welt ohne Horizont, written by Wolfgang Jeschke in 1957, and the novel Die Unendliche Reise by Brian Wilson Aldiss from 1958. In the Star Trek episode For the World Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky (1968) . the lost planet ) and the short-lived TV series the Star Lost (1973) was preparing the issue also for television. In the animated film Wall-e (2008) the action takes place partly in a generational spaceship.

literature

Secondary literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patrick Moore , David Hardy: Secret of the Stars: Science Fiction in the Mirror of Science . Moewig, Rastatt 1979, ISBN 3-8118-0177-5 , pp. 58-59 .
  2. ^ Space Settlements: A Design Study
  3. ^ A b Hans Joachim Alpers et al. (Ed.): Lexicon of Science Fiction Literature . tape 1 . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-453-01063-9 , p. 61-63 .
  4. ^ LR Shepherd: Interstellar Flight . In: J. British Interplanetary Soc. tape July 11 , 1952, p. 149-167 (cited in Space Settlements: A Design Study , Chapter 1: The Colonization of Space ).
  5. ↑ See Hans-Arthur Marsiske: Heimat Weltall. Where should space travel lead? Suhrkamp, ​​2005, p. 125 ff.
  6. ↑ F. Marin, C. Beluffi: Computing the minimal crew for a multi-generational space travel towards Proxima Centauri b. In: Cornell University. 2018, accessed on January 21, 2020 .