Project Daedalus Starship

The world's first engineering study of an unmanned spaceship to explore one of the nearer stars was made by a technical group of the British Interplanetary Society between 1973-77. The target selected for the exercise was Barnard's Star, nearly 6 light years distant from Earth. The contributors recognised that the work, based on the technology extrapolated to the beginning of the 21st Century, could represent only a first approximation to the solution of starflight.

The results showed it would be a formidable task requiring a massive craft that would dwarf the Saturn V moon rocket, the largest space vehicle yet flown by man. Daedalus, as conceived, would weigh some 54,000 tonnes, nearly 20 times the weight of the Saturn V, carrying nearly 500 tonnes of fully automated payload. Because of the enormous time lag involved in radio communications between the Earth and the ship, a semi-intelligent computer would have to control the entire ship and work out all actions necessary for the exploration phase of the mission.

The result was a two stage, nuclear fusion powered vehicle, unmanned and under autonomous operation due to the distances involved, accelerated to 16% of the speed of light, and armed with a variety of probes, sensors, robotic wardens and intelligent decision making computers. Although the journey could take as long as 40 years, a flyby at such speeds would be over in 70 hours.

Although the study was conducted during the 1970's, it's still referred to today, even in NASA, as a baseline study. Any future mission to the stars probably won't look anything like Daedalus, but it gives a good idea of the complexity and scale of task, and the length of time it would take to get to even the closest stars.

No estimate of the cost of such an enterprise could be made, but it would be way beyond the capacity of an individual nation, and would probably need a period of world stability unlike any we have seen to date. (Source: www.bisbos.com)

Credits: British Interplanetary Society & Adrian Mann

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• starship
• spaceship
• interstellar
• Project Daedalus
• Space
• spaceflight
• astronautics
• spacefaring
• interstellar flight

[OrionIICosmos1999]

@Atymeson It the same guy as MrOrionII1999 who replied in support of you, and I sent you a PM on a concept that I have been designing dubbed "Project Orion II". I was supporting what you said in response to 2packisrockin's FTL straw man fallacy. I have two videos on realistic starship models that I made out of Sculpey. I PMed you with a video about Project Orion II.

[shkotay]

@MisterHeizenberg I would probably be programmed to avoid obstacles in the way, but at 16% the speed of light any collision would be catastrophic for sure. You are going almost 30,000 miles per second.

[krazykhrisya]

@krazykhrisya Anyone**

[krazykhrisya]

nyone interested in Daedalus, check out Project Icarus! Project Icarus is essentially a revisit to Daedalus, and is happening right now! "Project Icarus - Flying closer to another star"

[krazykhrisya]

@2pacisrockin a) This isn't NASA. b) You cannot create a spacecraft that can go faster than light (based on what we know now), unless there is a huge leap in the study of Warp Drive or an actual Worm Hole is discovered, then replicated artificially. The Daedalus is an extremely advanced design, some of the technologies that went into it aren't even invented yet.

[MisterHeizenberg]

How would such a spacecraft, traveling 16% the speed of light, be able to to survive a direct collision from rocks and ice clusters on it's way to the star?

[MarsFKA]

Excellent animation. Just a minor nit-pick, if you will permit it: by the time of second-stage separation, the first stage propellant tanks would have gone - the original specs called for them to be jettisoned two at a time, on opposite sides, as they were emptied.

[Grant691]

@2pacisrockin I think FTL speed is acheived in a way we don't even remotely know about yet.

[jushayward]

One day. Fantastic stuff. Anyway with the Shuttle in the bin, at last, we can start doing some real space flight. A robotic probe within the next 200 hundred years?

[twk373]

@MrOrionII1999

It won't exceed c? That's a relief.