Generation ship
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A generation ship is a hypothetical type of interstellar ark starship that travels across great distances between stars at a speed much slower than that of light. Since such a ship might take from as little as below a hundred years to tens or even hundreds of thousands of years to reach even nearby stars, the original occupants would either grow old or die during the journey and leave their descendants to continue traveling, depending on the life span of its inhabitants and relativistic effects of time dilation.
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[edit] Obstacles
[edit] Biosphere
Such a ship would have to be almost entirely self-sustaining, providing energy, food, air, and water for everyone on board. It must also have extraordinarily-reliable systems that could be maintained by the ship's inhabitants over long periods of time. Humans might create large, self-sustaining space habitats before sending generation ships to the stars. Each habitat could be effectively isolated from the rest of humanity for a century or more, but remain close enough to Earth for help. This would test whether thousands of humans can survive on their own before sending them beyond the reach of help. Small artificial closed ecosystems, including Biosphere 2, have been built in an attempt to work out the engineering difficulties in such a system, with mixed results.
Some have compared planets with life to generation ships. This idea is usually called "Spaceship Earth."
[edit] Biology and society
Generation ships would also have to solve major biological, social and moral problems,[1] and would also need to deal with complex matters of self-worth and purpose for the various crews involved. As an example, a moral quandary might exist regarding how intermediate generations (those destined to be born, reproduce, and die in transit, without actually seeing tangible results of their efforts) might feel about their forced existence on such a ship.
Estimates of the minimum viable population vary. The results of a 2005 study from Rutgers University theorized that the native population of the Americas are the descendants of only 70 individuals who crossed the land bridge between Asia and North America.[2] Other researchers tend to propose a higher minimum number. Anthropologist Dr. John Moore estimated in 2002 that a population of 150-180 would allow normal reproduction for 60 to 80 generations, equivalent to 2000 years.[3] Careful genetic screening and use of a sperm bank from Earth would also allow a smaller starting base with negligible inbreeding. An initial population of two female humans should be viable as long as human embryos are available. The health of the population depends on the diversity of the gene pool, which in this case would be directly decided by the quantity of preserved embryos.[4]
[edit] In fiction
Generation ships are often found in science fiction stories. The invention is credited to J. D. Bernal in his 1929 novel The World, The Flesh, & The Devil. A common theme is that inhabitants of a generation ship have forgotten they are on a ship at all, and believe their ship to be the entire universe.
Other examples of fictional generation ships include:
- Druuna a comic series by Serpieri
- The Trigun anime and manga
- The Megazone 23 anime trilogy
- Captive Universe, novel by Harry Harrison
- Non-Stop aka Starship, novel by Brian Aldiss
- The Dark Beyond the Stars, novel by Frank M. Robinson
- Orphans of the Sky, novella by Robert A. Heinlein
- Book of the Long Sun, four-novel series by Gene Wolfe
- The Starlost, short-lived 1970s TV series by Harlan Ellison
- The Star Seekers, 1953, one of the Winston Science Fiction books for young adults by Milton Lesser
- The Ballad of Beta-2, novella by Samuel R. Delany
- The Troublemakers by Poul Anderson
- Colony, novel by Rob Grant
- The Rama series of books by Arthur C. Clarke and Gentry Lee
- Kelvan Multi-Generation Ship - from the Andromeda Galaxy in the Star Trek episode "By Any Other Name"
- The Star Trek episode "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"
- The Star Trek: Voyager episode "The Disease"
- All Judgment Fled and The Watch Below, stories by James White
- Mayflower II, a novella by Stephen Baxter
- Mayflower II, Voyage from Yesteryear James P. Hogan
- The Naked God, a novel by Peter F. Hamilton
- Learning the World: A Novel of First Contact by Ken Macleod
- The Exiles Trilogy, a series by Ben Bova
- "Ship of Fools" by Richard Paul Russo
- Nemesis by Isaac Asimov
- Seed of Light by Edmond Cooper
- Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds.
- Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin.
- Le Papillon des Etoiles by Bernard Werber
- Colony Fleet by Susan Matthews
- The 1981 BBC Radio 4 show Earthsearch
- The Dazzle of Day by Molly Gloss
- The novella "Paradises Lost" in The Birthday of the World collection of stories by Ursula K. LeGuin
- The Koros-strohna worldships of the Yuuzhan Vong in the Star Wars Expanded Universe are an organic form of generation ship.
- In the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "E²", the Enterprise becomes a generational ship in an alternate timeline.
- Although generation ships are never actually seen in the computer game Elite by David Braben and Ian Bell, they are discussed in the manual and novella included with the game.
- Bruce Sterling's short story Taklamakan is about a group of Chinese habitats that simulate generation ships in a cave under the Taklamakan Desert.
- The low-budget film Space Mutiny takes place aboard a generation ship known as the Southern Sun.
- The Marathon series of video games were based around a Generational Interstellar vessel called the "Marathon". The vessel itself is known as a "Colony Ship" and was converted from the Martian moon Deimos.
- The Sega Genesis video game Phantasy Star III takes place on a generation ship (although this is not revealed specifically until very late in the game).
- Sid Meier's Civilization II allows for the construction of a generation ship (though the in-game transit time can be brought as low as 12 years, much less than what would be required of a generation ship).
- The 1977 science fiction pop music concept album "The Intergalactic Touring Band" features a storyline based on generation ships.
- In the upcoming MMOG Infinity: The Quest for Earth, The Geodesan people construct a massive generation ship named IOS - 1 (Interstellar Operational Spaceship) to carry 1.1 million Geodesans away from their dying star, Delta.
- The first science fiction role-playing game, Metamorphosis Alpha (1976), is set on a generation ship whose crew was mostly wiped out, leaving the ship adrift and the mutated occupants unaware that their ship is not the entire world.
- Morbus Gravis (1985), a scifi-erotic comic by Italian Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, is located in a very large generation ship that is off the course to its destination, with a decadent civilization that forgot they are in a ship and are affected by an epidemia of "mutation". The ship itself is mutating, as its computer-guide Delta became mad with delusions of grandeur.
- The Eldar of Warhammer 40,000 survived the destruction of their empire by fleeing into the galaxy on massive generation ships called craftworlds.
- Centauri Princess, the prototype of a multi-generational interstellar ark blue-printed during 2004 and featured in A. Ahad's First Ark to Alpha Centauri novel series [5].
- In the 2008 animated movie WALL-E, the Axiom, one of thousands of generation ships called starliners, evacuated all of humanity into space while the Earth was supposed to be cleaned for 5 years.
- The Saga of Seven Suns, a series of space opera novels by Kevin J. Anderson. Eleven massive generation ships depart an overcrowded Earth, seeking new planets to colonize, and wander for hundreds of years before they are rescued by an advanced, benevolent alien race.
- The first book in Elizabeth Bear's Jacob's Ladder Trilogy, Dust, prominently features a damaged generation ship stranded in a dangerously nova-prone binary star system.
- In the Halo video game series, the United Nations Space Command starship fleet includes a classification of generation ship known as Phoenix. One known Phoenix-class ship is the UNSC Spirit of Fire, most prominent during the events of Halo Wars.
- In Allan Dean Foster's Quozl, the Quozl use generation ships to seed the galaxy, believing themselves the only sentient race in the universe.
[edit] References
- ^ Malik, Tariq. "Sex and Society Aboard the First Starships." Space.com, 19 March 2002.
- ^ [1]
- ^ according to http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1936
- ^ [2]
- ^ "A multi-generational voyage to New Earth" http://www.publishedauthors.net/aa_spaceagent/news.html
