Starship - Research

Research

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. 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.

The NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program (1996–2002), was a professional scientific study examining advanced spacecraft propulsion systems.