Engineers have designed a spacecraft that could take up to 2,400 people on a one-way trip to Alpha Centauri, the star system closest to our own. The craft, called Chrysalis, could make the 25 trillion mile (40 trillion kilometer) journey in around 400 years, the engineers say in their project brief, meaning many of its potential passengers would only know life on the craft.

Chrysalis is designed to house several generations of people until it enters the star system, where it could shuttle them to the surface of the planet Proxima Centuri b — an Earth-size exoplanet that is thought to be potentially habitable.

This plan is purely hypothetical, as some of the required technology, like commercial nuclear fusion reactors, don’t yet exist. However, hypothetical projects like this one can still add to our existing knowledge base and help engineers improve upcoming designs.

Their presentation on Canva

  • threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    in reality it should be build to be maintenable without any external support so it must be simple, don’t require high tech to function

    A generational ship is still a spaceship though, which requires a pretty high level of tech. You can’t build a spaceship out of sticks and stones.

    I suspect generational ships will have to be like small cities, with fairly advanced and extensive manufacturing capabilities.