The giant generation spaceship, using a thermonuclear engine, will be able to reach 10% of the speed of light and transport thousands of people to the planet Proxima Centauri b. It is considered potentially habitable and is located just over four light-years away from us, writes Focus.
The winners of the Project Hyperion competition have created the concept of a massive generation spaceship called Chrysalis. The project envisions that up to 2,400 people can live aboard the ship, but only a portion of them will be able to reach the final destination – the potentially habitable planet Proxima Centauri b, writes Indian Defence Review.
Generation ships are often mentioned in various works of fiction. It is believed that they will allow humans to reach habitable planets. However, given the vast distances, only the descendants of the first inhabitants of such a ship will be able to reach the final destination. That is why these starships are referred to as generation ships.
The concept of the Chrysalis ship was chosen as the winner of the Project Hyperion competition because it best describes both the design of a potential starship and the necessary conditions for thousands of people to live aboard during a long journey.
The planet Proxima Centauri b is located 4.2 light-years away from us, which is approximately 40 trillion kilometers. According to the project, the Chrysalis generation ship, using a thermonuclear engine, will be able to travel at a speed equivalent to 10% of the speed of light and reach the potentially habitable planet in 400 years after launch. According to the project, the Chrysalis ship is expected to be 58 kilometers long and weigh about 2.4 billion tons.
According to the project, initially, 1,000 people will be able to live on the Chrysalis ship, but the maximum capacity of the ship is designed for 2,400 people. Given the duration, only the descendants of the first inhabitants of the ship will reach Proxima Centauri b.
The cylindrical-shaped ship will maintain artificial gravity through rotation, and it will have all the conditions necessary for human habitation, as well as everything needed for colonizing a new planet. According to the authors of the project, Chrysalis is a vast autonomous and fully self-sufficient world. The thermonuclear energy generated by the thermonuclear engine will not only allow for movement in space but will also ensure the functionality of all ship systems.
Inside the ship, several generations of people will live and adapt to existence away from Earth. Public spaces (schools, hospitals, and libraries), farms, gardens, residential houses, warehouses, industrial facilities, waste recycling systems, and entire terrestrial ecosystems, including plants and animals, are to be created on different levels of the generation ship. Artificial intelligence systems will assist people in decision-making and maintain the stability of the ship's operations.
Building such a generation ship on Earth is impossible. According to the project, it can be constructed over several decades in space, specifically at the L1 Lagrange point. This is a stable gravitational zone between the Earth and the Moon. From here, the ship will set off on its long journey to another planet.
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