Interstellar Travel: Propulsion, Life Support, Communications, and the Long Journey addresses the technical challenges that must be overcome to make such journeys possible. Leading experts in the fields of space propulsion, power, communication, navigation, crew selection, safety and health provide detailed information about state-of-the-art technologies and approaches for each challenge, along with possible methods based on real science and engineering. This book offers in-depth, up-to-date and realistic technical and scientific considerations in the pursuit of interstellar travel and will be an essential reference for scientists, engineers, researchers and academics working on, or interested in, space development and space technologies. With a renewed interest in space exploration and development evidenced by the rise of the commercial space sector and various governments now planning to send humans back to the moon and to Mars, there is also growing interest in taking the next steps beyond the solar system and to the ultimate destination – planets circling other stars. With the rapid growth in the number of known exoplanets, people are now asking how we might make journeys to visit them.
1. Introduction - p. xvii 2. Chapter 1 Propulsion options - p. 1 3. Chapter 2 Electrical power options for interstellar spacecraft - p. 47 4. Chapter 3 Crew health—Psychological, biological, and medical issues and the need for a systems approach - p. 81 5. Chapter 4 Interstellar life support - p. 115 6. Chapter 5 Timing relationships and resulting communications challenges in relativistic travel - p. 151 7. Abstract - p. 151 8. Acknowledgments - p. 152 9. 1 Travelers’ clocks in relativistic travel - p. 152 10. 2 Spacecraft trajectories - p. 155 11. 3 Relativistic effects on spacecraft trajectories - p. 157 12. 4 Communication with a spacecraft - p. 159 13. 5 Analysis - p. 178 14. 6 Canonical mission trajectory - p. 184 15. 7 Conclusions - p. 185 16. Appendix A Nomenclature - p. 186 17. Appendix B Analytical results for indefinite acceleration - p. 186 18. References - p. 189 19. Chapter 6 Prospects for human hibernation - p. 191 20. Chapter 7 Ship governance and culture - p. 209 21. Chapter 8 Spare parts and additive manufacturing - p. 231 22. Chapter 9 Optimal crew size at both departure and arrival - p. 243 23. Chapter 10 Artificial intelligence: Useful crewman, terrible master, benign leader, or the actual payload, and do we get to choose? - p. 263 24. Chapter 11 Maintaining communication with Earth during an interstellar flyby mission - p. 283 25. Appendix General relativistic faster-than-light propulsion for interstellar flight - p. 321 26. 1 Introduction - p. 321 27. 2 General relativistic FTL propulsion—These are the “space warps” - p. 331 28. 3 The two classes of FTL space warps: Traversable wormholes and warp drives - p. 338 29. 4 The curvature invariants for Lorentzian traversable wormholes and warp drives - p. 349 30. 5 The allowable sources of matter for constructing FTL spacetimes - p. 359 31. 6 The energetics of FTL propulsion - p. 386 32. 7 Construction of traversable wormholes and warp drives - p. 396 33. 8 The problems of navigation, guidance, control, and stability in FTL propulsion concepts - p. 398 34. 9 Conclusion - p. 403 35. Acknowledgments - p. 406 36. References - p. 406 37. Further reading - p. 413 38. Index - p. 415
Interstellar Travel: Propulsion, Life Support, Communications, and the Long Journey addresses the technical challenges that must be overcome to make such journeys possible. Leading experts in the fields of space propulsion, power, communication, navigation, crew selection, safety and health provide detailed information about state-of-the-art technologies and approaches for each challenge, along with possible methods based on real science and engineering. This book offers in-depth, up-to-date and realistic technical and scientific considerations in the pursuit of interstellar travel and will be an essential reference for scientists, engineers, researchers and academics working on, or interested in, space development and space technologies. With a renewed interest in space exploration and development evidenced by the rise of the commercial space sector and various governments now planning to send humans back to the moon and to Mars, there is also growing interest in taking the next steps beyond the solar system and to the ultimate destination – planets circling other stars. With the rapid growth in the number of known exoplanets, people are now asking how we might make journeys to visit them.
1. Introduction - p. xvii 2. Chapter 1 Propulsion options - p. 1 3. Chapter 2 Electrical power options for interstellar spacecraft - p. 47 4. Chapter 3 Crew health—Psychological, biological, and medical issues and the need for a systems approach - p. 81 5. Chapter 4 Interstellar life support - p. 115 6. Chapter 5 Timing relationships and resulting communications challenges in relativistic travel - p. 151 7. Abstract - p. 151 8. Acknowledgments - p. 152 9. 1 Travelers’ clocks in relativistic travel - p. 152 10. 2 Spacecraft trajectories - p. 155 11. 3 Relativistic effects on spacecraft trajectories - p. 157 12. 4 Communication with a spacecraft - p. 159 13. 5 Analysis - p. 178 14. 6 Canonical mission trajectory - p. 184 15. 7 Conclusions - p. 185 16. Appendix A Nomenclature - p. 186 17. Appendix B Analytical results for indefinite acceleration - p. 186 18. References - p. 189 19. Chapter 6 Prospects for human hibernation - p. 191 20. Chapter 7 Ship governance and culture - p. 209 21. Chapter 8 Spare parts and additive manufacturing - p. 231 22. Chapter 9 Optimal crew size at both departure and arrival - p. 243 23. Chapter 10 Artificial intelligence: Useful crewman, terrible master, benign leader, or the actual payload, and do we get to choose? - p. 263 24. Chapter 11 Maintaining communication with Earth during an interstellar flyby mission - p. 283 25. Appendix General relativistic faster-than-light propulsion for interstellar flight - p. 321 26. 1 Introduction - p. 321 27. 2 General relativistic FTL propulsion—These are the “space warps” - p. 331 28. 3 The two classes of FTL space warps: Traversable wormholes and warp drives - p. 338 29. 4 The curvature invariants for Lorentzian traversable wormholes and warp drives - p. 349 30. 5 The allowable sources of matter for constructing FTL spacetimes - p. 359 31. 6 The energetics of FTL propulsion - p. 386 32. 7 Construction of traversable wormholes and warp drives - p. 396 33. 8 The problems of navigation, guidance, control, and stability in FTL propulsion concepts - p. 398 34. 9 Conclusion - p. 403 35. Acknowledgments - p. 406 36. References - p. 406 37. Further reading - p. 413 38. Index - p. 415
