PRINCIPIUMIN

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S T U D I E S

The Newsletter of the Initiative for Interstellar Studies™

News from the Initiative

Advances

Community News

Son of Daedalus

Building Daedalus

Book Review

www.I4IS.orgScientia ad sidera

Knowledge to the Stars

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 2

Dear readers,

It gives me great pleasure to welcomethe latest issue of Principium, at a timewhen I4IS is now an incorporatedcompany in the United Kingdom. TheInitiative for Interstellar Studies wasincorporated in May and our team arenow busy moving the organisation ontothe next phase of development. As a partof our incorporation activities, our teamspent a considerable amount of timewriting our very own Articles ofAssociation, designed to ensuresustainment and growth of theorganisation in the months and yearsahead. We are very excited about the next steps.

I4IS is structured around several corecommittees. This includes the EducationalAcademy Committee, chaired by DeputyDirector Rob Swinney, which has thepurpose of fostering educational abilitiesto conduct research relating to a broad setof subjects pertaining to interstellarstudies, associated sciences and the arts.We also have a Technical ResearchCommittee, chaired by Deputy DirectorAndreas Hein, for the purpose ofconducting innovative theoretical andexperimental research and developmentacross the broad spectrum of issuesrelating to the starship. Our EnterpriseCommittee, chaired by myself, has thepurpose of encouraging entrepreneurshipand business innovation initiatives relatedto our goals. We also have a Sustainabilityand Development Committee, chaired bythe notable Dr Rachel Armstrong, whichhas the purpose of seeking space-basedtechnological solutions to solvingproblems on Earth and in space, human-made or environmental, and improvingthe human condition and harmonisingcultural relations. In our quest for thestars, we do not intend to ignore theproblems here on Earth. Suffice it to say,

all of our committees are already engagedin activities and external collaborations.Our Board of Directors is guided by theinput from our Advisory Committee,chaired by Professor Gregory Matloff andDeputy Chairman Professor Chris Welch.

Timed with our incorporation we alsohave a brand new web site, which you canview at www.I4IS.org and we haveextensive plans to develop this further. Itis no understatement to say that our teamis busy, with involvement in many eventsthis year, including the World ScienceFiction Convention in London and theTennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop inOakridge. We also have half a dozenMemorandums of Understandingexecuted with outstanding institutionsthat we will be announcing soon and wewill be focusing our efforts on buildingthose relationships as our priority formutual benefit. Finally, I4IS is open forthe world to get involved with. If you likewhat you see and what we are trying toaccomplish, then please contact us and wewill find a role for you. The stars are avision that concerns us all. Let us jointlyfind a way, to see what is out there.

Kelvin F Long

Executive Director, The Initiative for Interstellar Studies

A letter from Kelvin F. Long

Kelvin F. Long with newest memberAmelia Scarlett

managing our social media. In addition,I4IS director Andreas Hein has steppedup to be the Initiative’s new DeputyDirector, alongside fellow deputy RobSwinney and Executive Director Kelvin FLong. He replaces George Abbey Jr, whohas stepped down from the deputyposition but will remain a director.

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 3

New initiatives

Announcing the Initiative forInterstellar StudiesI4IS is back – bigger and better than everbefore! The organisation has beenrebranded into the Initiative forInterstellar Studies, sporting a newwebsite, new team members and a brandnew motto: ‘building starships within ourlifetime’. Now fully incorporated as alimited company in the United Kingdom,I4IS is ready to begin laying the societal,technological and cultural foundations forthe path towards the stars.

Key to the rebranding effort has been thesterling work of Frank Da Silva, MarkRaimondeau and their team at DMT LAB(www.dmtlab.co/), who have built I4IS’stunning new website that is found at the

same web address as the previous site,i4is.org. On the website you will find allthe latest news from I4IS on our blog,The Starship Log, the Interstellar Indexthat archives all starship-relatedarticles, publications and papers, backissues of back issues of Principium,details of the Alpha Centauri prize, a‘donate’ button and our brand newpublication, Voices, a 39-page volumethat is devised to give everybody in theinterstellar community a voice with theopportunity to contribute a shortchapter on the theme of the challengesand opportunities that the interstellarcommunity face in 2014 and the yearsahead. Eighteen authors contributed tothe first volume including numerousI4IS members plus Icarus Interstellar’sRichard Obousy (interviewed in thisissue of Principium), James and GregoryBenford, Buck Field of The StarshipVlog, Paul Gilster of Centauri Dreamsand the inventor of the gravity assistmanoeuvre, Michael Minovitch.

I4IS is also proud to announce some newfaces to the Initiative’s roster of‘visioneers’ (to quote a term fromPrinceton historian of science W PatrickMcCray). Joining us are Gillian Norman,who is co-managing I4IS’ programme atthe upcoming World Science Fictionconvention in London (see the article inthis issue) and Karen Hart, who will be

The new I4IS homepage.

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Voices is a new publication that presentsa wide variety of voices from theinterstellar community speaking on acommon theme.

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 4

New relationshipsAn important facet of I4IS’ involvement inthe interstellar community is itsrelationship with other organisations. Tothat end we have signed memorandums ofunderstanding, with the promise to worktogether, with a number of diverseorganisations that we will be announcingsoon. The first of those is with theInternational Space University, who haveshown unwavering support to ourAcademy. Already I4IS’ relationship withthe International Space University hasborne fruit, with four students completingMasters projects in interstellar topics,supervised by I4IS Academy members, in2013. I4IS also received letters of supportfor its incorporation with CompaniesHouse from Sci-Fi London, DMTLAB andCommercial Space Technologies Ltd.

Going forward I4IS has plenty of projectsin the work that following incorporationwill now really come to fruition. Our bigevent this year is our exhibition and talkprogramme at Loncon 3, which is theWorld Science Fiction convention that thisyear is being held between 14–18 Augustat London’s ExCel centre in the capital’sDocklands. I4IS will have a presence therefor the whole four days of the convention,including a talk session on the afternoonof Sunday 17 August featuring I4ISmembers and some big names from theworld of science fiction – you can read thedetails in full in John Davies’ article onthis page.

We also have the release of the long-awaited Beyond the Boundary book, the I4ISsmartphone app, musical albums withinterstellar themes from Alex Storer (seethe advertisement this issue), moreawards of the Alpha Centauri Prize andmore news about Project Dragonfly, I4IS’flagship laser-sail mission. This is just thetip of the iceberg and there will be moreexciting announcements later this year.

I4IS is ready to begin laying thesocietal, technological and culturalfoundations for the path towards the stars

The Interstellar Space atLondon’s greatest sciencefiction convention

The world of science fiction is coming toLondon this August and the Initiative forInterstellar Studies will be there in forceto beat the drum for interstellar travelamongst science fiction aficionados. Wewill also be joined by some of the biggestnames in sf literature, among them ourspecial guest, award-winning authorAlastair Reynolds.

The World Science Fiction convention isan annual event held in a different cityin a different country every year and thisAugust it is the turn of London. Theconvention, known as Worldcon forshort, will be held at the ExCeL centrein the heart of London’s Docklands with9,000 fans, including around 2,000 fromthe United States, expected to flock tothe capital for four days of sciencefiction between 14–18 August. Theconvention culminates with theprestigious Hugo Awards for the year’sbest sf.

So why will I4IS be there? The Initiativefor Interstellar Studies is inspired notonly by hard engineering and science,but also by the visionaries of sciencefiction. At Worldcon we will be aiming toreach out to both fans and professionalsworking in sf film, television, gamingand publishing.

ExCeL (Exhibition Centre London) will be the venue for August’s World Science Fiction Convention.

John Davies announces the Loncon 3I4IS film competition at Sci-Fi London in May.

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 5

I4IS will have a half dayconference session at Worldcon during theafternoon of Sunday 17 August, withpresentations from our own experts andfeaturing one of the most distinguishedcurrent writers of interstellar fiction,Alastair Reynolds, as our keynote speaker.Reynolds is a former European SpaceAgency astronomer and the author ofeleven novels, mostly space opera, with hislatest trilogy, Poseidon’s Children, depictinga future human society taking its firststeps into a wider cosmos.

In addition to Alastair Reynolds, KelvinF Long will be discussing the starshipspresented in the work of Arthur CClarke, Richard Osborne will examinescience fiction starships as realengineering, Rachel Armstrong will lookat ‘living starships’ and Keith Cooperwill explore the motivations behind thenew interstellar movement and howscience fiction can help drive thosemotivations. The conference will endwith a panel discussion featuring morebig names from science fiction.

Throughout the duration of theconvention I4IS will be exhibiting in aneight metre by eight metre space thatwe are calling ‘The Interstellar Space’,where visitors will be able to meet theI4IS team and learn about what we do.

I4IS is inspired not only by sciencebut also by the visionaries of sciencefiction and at Loncon 3 we will beaiming to reach out to bothfans and professionalsworking in sf media.

Terry Regan’s excellent Cassini Huygens model will be on display at Worldcon

We will also have artwork on displayfrom our talented space and sciencefiction artists, Terry Regan will beexhibiting his impressive scratchbuiltmodels of the Voyager spacecraft and theBritish Interplanetary Society’sDaedalus starship (see elsewhere thisissue for more details), and we will beshowing films on a four-metre highmonolith, including clips from wellknown science fiction as well as speciallycommissioned work and films entered inour Worldcon I4IS film competition. Welaunched our competition at the Sci-FiLondon awards on 1 May this year.There is still time to enter and you canfind out how at www.i4isloncon3.co.uk.

Appearing at Worldcon will be thelargest outreach activity that I4IS hasdelivered so far, and our programmethere is being expertly managed by JohnDavies (jid@flying-boat.co.uk) andGillian Norman (bargill33@yahoo.co.uk).If you would like to get involved or wantto find out more information, be sure tocontact them.

You can register for the WorldCon atwww.loncon3.org and follow us onTwitter at @i4istellar and #i4isloncon3.

Our Loncon 3 blog can be found atwww.i4isloncon3.co.uk.

Alastair Reynolds, author of On TheSteel Breeze and Chasm City.

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 6

Human hibernation takes a step forwardSuspended animation is ready to take a giant leap forward in medical theatres thanks to arevolutionary new technique in trauma care. However, the science is still light years awayfrom providing suspended animation for long-duration spaceflight.

Aform of artificial hibernation,suspended animation has longbeen the dream of science fiction

stories as a way of dealing with voyagesthat could last many years. Yet it has alsobeen the dream of medical science, as away of shutting down the body whileconducting life-threatening emergencyoperations. Now scientists at theUniversity of Pittsburgh have developeda method of essentially putting thehuman body on pause while surgeonswork to repair it, as reported by FrankSwain in an article for Mosaic(http://mosaicscience.com/story/big-sleep).

Modern cardiac units now routinelycool the body down to 20–25 degrees, oreven 15 degrees Celsius where the heartstops (body temperature is normally 37degrees Celsius) to perform emergencysurgery. This works to slow themetabolism by around five percent forevery degree your body cools, reducing therate at which oxygen is needed to beconsumed, slowing the biological processesof the body, giving surgeons much neededtime to work.

‘Emergency preservation andresuscitation’, as the technique is called,

takes the cooling process to its ultimateextreme, where blood is drained from thebody and replaced with an ice-cold salinefluid that rapidly cools the patient to thepoint that brain activity, heart beats andbreathing all stop and body tissues do notget the chance to deteriorate. Successfultests of the method have been conductedon animals such as pigs, with a 90 percentsuccess rate, while in 2005 the Pittsburghscientists led by Professor Sam Tishermanwere able to revive dogs that had enteredthis form of hibernation for three hours.Tisherman does not dare put a humanbeing under the process for more than an

hour at the moment, and the situationwould have to be critical, with a less thanseven percent chance of survival, for theprocedure to be implemented. To date, ithas not been used on a human being.

Freezing someone for an hour andresuscitating is one thing, but to freeze ahuman being for months, years, decadesor centuries is a completely different ballgame. The alternative is that the crewremain awake for decades onboard acramped starship, or else we have tobuild enormous worldships, wheregenerations of people will live out theirentire lives as part of the journey.Suspended animation will allow theoriginal crew to make the journeywithout aging. If suspended animationdoes become a routine procedure foremergency cases in hospitals, then thetechnology and the knowledge of whathappens to the human body under thoseconditions will increase and we will gaina better insight into whether long termhibernation is possible, or whether itreally is just a science fiction dream.

An artist’s impression of a worldship. If suspended animation could become a reality,would worldships ever be built? Artwork by Adrian Mann.

ADVANCES

Are we on the brink of being able to put people into suspended animation, as in thefilm 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 7

Interstellar fever to hitTennessee for a third time

The Tennessee Valley InterstellarWorkshop (TVIW) team has beenbusy these last few months with

their establishment as a non-profitcorporation in the US State of Tennessee,as well as planning for the third TVIW tobe held over 9–12 November 2014 in OakRidge, Tennessee, the release of theircollege student essay contest and theJanuary 2014 meeting of their InterimStudy Group (ISG).

TVIW is an opportunity for relaxedsharing of ideas in directions that willstimulate and encourage interstellarexploration, including propulsion,communications and research. Attendeesare encouraged to not only present

intellectual concepts but to develop theseconcepts to suggest projects, collaborationand active research and mission planning.It should be a time for engagingdiscussions, thought-provoking ideas andboundless optimism contemplating afuture that may one day be within thereach of humanity. The TVIW scientificcommittee invites the presentation oforiginal papers and workshops that followthe theme of the conference as applied tointerstellar concepts: ‘Long-TermThinking – Present-Day Action.’

The full call for papers, workshops andparticipation may soon be found on theTVIW website (www.TVIW.us). Thedeadline for entries is 1 October 2014 andstudents wishing to enter can do so athttp://www.tviw.us/essay-contest.shtml.Participants who do not wish to present apaper or facilitate a workshop will also beconsidered and are requested to submit ashort biography describing theirinvolvement in the field of developinginterstellar concepts, includinginterstellar-related space science andtechnology, and space advocacy.Submissions relating to the humanities,art and social sciences to interstellarexploration are also encouraged. Going tothe stars will involve and engage mostaspects of human society and innovationand all fields that may contribute are ofinterest. All participants (includingpresenters) are encouraged to bring a

freestanding poster describing theirinterstellar work, suitable for exhibition.The conference will kick-off on Sunday 9November with two seminar sessions, (atadditional cost). Ken Roy, P.E. will teach acourse on Terraforming 101 in themorning session and Les Johnson will offera Space Propulsion 101 course in theafternoon.

Meanwhile, the TVIW ISG held itsJanuary 2014 meeting in a Department ofEnergy Manhattan Project-era armouredbunker. The ISG product, to be rolled outat our fall meeting, will be submitted forjournal publication.

Finally, TVIW has offered collegestudents in the Tennessee Valley anopportunity to win a scholarship to theThird TVIW. Most of the accreditedinstitutions with science and technologyprogrammes of study within the OakRidge and Huntsville, Alabama corridorwere notified of the contest, which is basedaround the essay topic ‘Why shouldhumanity go to the stars?’ The deadlinefor entries was 15 May 2014 and thewinner will be selected by 1 July 2014 so ifyou have entered, then good luck! Thescholarship award will include workshopfees, room at the conference hotel, boardand a travel stipend ($550 total value).

Les Johnson

Practitioners gathered during the second Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop in 2013.

Community News

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 8

Paradigm Hack at TVIW Three

One of the discussion groups thatwill be active at TVIW will be the‘Paradigm Hack’, to address new

solutions to the scientific challenges ofgetting humans from one star system toanother alive. The Paradigm Hack is thebrainchild of Buck Field, of the popularStarship Video Log, and initially the group will collaborate online andcandidates for the steering committee arecurrently being actively sought. Here Fielddescribes his motivation behind launchingthis project:

“The aforementioned risks and problemsassociated with interstellar flight oftencompound each other in both severity andcomplexity, and we have high confidencethat unexpected challenges await that willrequire some new physics to solve. Acentury after Einstein, official, top-levelstrategic assessments of fundamentalphysics such as 2001’s Quantum UniverseCommittee reported the need for arevolution, ‘as dramatic as any in history’(http://www.interactions.org/pdf/Quantum_Universe.pdf). The combined power ofthe best minds, most advancedmathematics and by far the most accurateinstrumentation ever conceived hadproven inadequate for the task. The needfor revolutionary physics is now shared bythe scientific community, the interstellarengineers and the dreamers. Fundamentalquantities in the standard model and long-standing paradoxes are well understoodtoday within specialist maths, physics andengineering disciplines. In each, commonbelief is expressed that because futurerevolutionary models are currentlyunknown, they are unknowable. Such expressions are bad science, an extraordinary-sounding claimdemanding extraordinary evidence.

“While physicists are properly regarded asthe most reliable experts relating tophysics, how can their statements aboutfuture physics be judged unreliable? Thereason is that they have drifted from thetechnical area to the topic of knowabilityof a future state. Therefore, the claim isnot about physics per se, but rather it is aclaim about epistemology and change overtime. The experts in epistemology arephilosophers, academically far removedfrom physicists, but this is not the onlydefect. Revolutions in science (includingphysics) are similarly not within thepurview of specialist experts in thosesciences; instead, these are studied byhistorians of scientific revolutions. Weneed a framework or approach that willbring the right resources together forsuccessfully delivering a future revolution.

“Revolutions in physics occur at a specifictime, place and within an evolving culturalenvironment. The specialist discipline

concerned with successful delivery ofunique results is project management(PM). If successfully solving theinterstellar problem by developing faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion is our goal,project management is the approach weshould use. It provides a frameworkconcerned only with success, the primaryANSI and ISO standards are disciplineneutral and, like all other specialistsciences, its performance is unmatched,occasional failures notwithstanding.

“Applying PM best practices to the FTLgoal suggests very different approachesthan those currently in fashion. Forexample, it suggests historians andphilosophers of science should be vitalparticipants in planning the research.Only they can provide information aboutthe kinds of inputs that were key to pastrevolutions and offer recommendations onwhat resources today are most similar andpotentially valuable for this kind ofcognitive transformation. PM expertsshould participate alongside interstellarenthusiasts, and so on.

“Developing an inexpensive prototyperesearch effort of this type will enablethis first-of-its-kind team to learn how tobuild bridges across disciplines, planningand conducting trans-disciplinaryresearch that has new potential to assistthe interstellar community as well as thefields of history and philosophy ofscience, physics, project managementand mathematics.”

If you are interested in taking part andwould like further details, contact theParadigm Hack Project Administrator atbuck.field@fieldoperative.com.

Revolutionary physics will be needed if itis possible to traverse the light speedbarrier. Image: NASA.

The Paradigm Hack administrator, Buck Field. For his Starship video logs, visithttp://www.youtube.com/user/StarshipVlog

The big bang is just one aspect of the mysteries of science that will need breakthroughphysics to explain. Image: NASA.

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 9

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THE LIGHT DREAMSP R E S E N T S

beyond the boundaryA N E W I N T E R S T E L L A R A L B U M

available now from thelightdreams.bandcamp.com

Beyond the Boundary is a musical voyage beyond the stars, specially composed by Alex Storer for the Initiative for Interstellar Studies™.

Powerful orchestral sounds are fused with layers of classic synths to form a distinctive interstellar soundscape. From the ambient choral sounds of the opening track through to the charged crescendo of the finalé, Beyond the Boundary is a starbound tour de force – belt up and enjoy the ride!

The full album download comes with a 12-page digital booklet featuring a specially-written introduction by Keith Cooper and artwork by Adrian Mann, Alex Storer and David A. Hardy.

BEYOND THE BOUNDARY

MUSIC FOR THE INITIATIVE FOR INTERSTELLAR STUDIES™

THE LIGHT DREAMS

“...A welcoming 41 minutes journey of exploring space that I’ll gladly venture through.”

– happyrage.org

“...Recommended for its blend of musical ambience with symphonic sensibilities that make repeated listens a pleasure.”

– TheInstrumentalCritic

www.i4is.org www.thelightdream.net

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 10

We talk to Richard Obousy, oneof the leading lights of IcarusInterstellar, about his vision for the future of the interstellarcommunity and how Icarusplans to make starships a reality.

Icarus Interstellar was born out ofthe British Interplanetary Society’sProject Icarus. What is thedifference between the two?Project Icarus is the successor to the

immensely successful Project Daedalus inthe 1970s (see issue one of Principium). It was initiated as a joint programmebetween the British Interplanetary Societyand the Tau Zero Foundation (by Kelvin F.Long and myself), chiefly as a spacecraft-design exercise to evolve or re-examineDaedalus but with the additional 30-plusyears of knowledge that we have gatheredsince then. It is very specific in its terms ofreference that it has to be a fusion-basedstarship and has to use ‘credibletechnology’ in order to reach the targetplanetary system in 100 years. So it is aspecific project with specific goals, specificenergy and power generation.

Icarus Interstellar, on the other hand, isa non-profit foundation devoted tointerstellar flight and so there are keydifferences there. It is far more panoramic[than Project Icarus] and it is basically anumbrella for people to gather and

undertake a number of R&D programmesof which Project Icarus is just one. We alsohave research programmes for worldships,for example, which would be multi-generational crewed vessels whereasProject Icarus is unmanned. We have alsogot a research programme looking at warpdrives and wormholes and vacuum energy,we have got a beamed energy/propulsionproject going on, a project calledPersephone which is a living worldship, weare looking at nuclear fission-basedpropulsion systems and more, all of whichis just the research side of things. Inaddition to that we have a very activepublic outreach committee that is reallyfocused on getting the word out there andeducating people.

That is an impressive list of projectsfor what is essentially a volunteertask force.It is remarkable that we can still do all

that as volunteers.

It is really a testament to howpassionate people are about interstellarresearch. However, I’m not convinced thatis something that can last into perpetuity,so I think it is very important that weembrace an entrepreneurial mindsetbehind what we are doing. I have alwaysthought that if watching a bunch of guysgoing around and around in a circle anddriving very fast can generate billions andbillions of dollars – i.e. people paying towatch NASCAR – then surely we can dosomething to make interstellar flightexciting to the broad masses. Soultimately what we would like to do isbecome a very well-funded organisation sothat we can ultimately pay for thebrightest and the best, hopefully underone roof.

What is the biggest challenge when selling the interstellar idea to the public?The biggest challenge is to convey our

unique value proposition and why weshould, as a species, invest time andmoney and resources into something thatdoesn’t have an immediate return oninvestment. We need to be very explicitand articulate how, in the grand scheme ofthings, we really don’t put much moneyinto space exploration. In America peoplespend more on products for their dogseach year than what goes into NASA,

which is the most well-fundedspace agency on the planet. If you look atthe amount of money that has been spentin space since the birth of the space era,which is about $750 billion and includesthe Hubble Space Telescope, theInternational Space Station, the Russianspace station Mir and the Apollo Moonlandings, and then you compare that tothe trillion dollars we gave to the banksvirtually overnight to bail them out oftheir own mistakes, it is more than thesum total given to space exploration sinceits birth.

So I think the challenge is reallyconveying that we’re really not spendingthat much money, and that spaceexploration has immense benefits toEarthly-life; you don’t spend all the moneyon hardware and boom it is in space andgone, a lot of the money is invested inpeople, in research and technologydevelopment, so I think what we reallyneed is a really broad campaign ofeducators conveying that message in a waythat is exciting and refreshing for peopleand really approaching it from a twenty-first century perspective, utilising all thetechnology at our disposal to convey theexcitement of space exploration.

Getting people’s attention is onething, but keeping it will rely onhow well the community canconvince them that there is afeasible plan to interstellar travel.Do you have a roadmap in mind?We are actively working on a roadmap

and that is one of the things we want topin down in 2014. In terms of whether Ithink it is feasible, I absolutely do think itis feasible and that is a consequence of me

Beyond DaedalusSociety overestimates what it can

accomplish on a short timescale, butdrastically underestimates what it cando on longer timescales of 30,50, or 100 years

Dr Richard Obousy, a Director of Icarus Interstellar.

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 11

being a blatant optimist. I am very awareof the profound progress that civilisation iscapable of in science and technology andmy mantra – and I’m not the first to saythis – is that we overestimate what we canaccomplish on a short timescale, butdrastically underestimate what we can doon longer timescales of 30, 50, or 100years. I think if you look at the progressionof technology and science over the past100 years it is profound and I would thinkunimaginable to people a century ago. Anice example of that is the flight of theKitty Hawk, a flimsy contraption, in 1903,but just forty-odd years later we havetransatlantic jet liners transportingpassengers across the ocean, then in 1957Sputnik 1 and a few years after that manin space, then after that man on the Moonand now we have an orbiting space stationthat is permanently crewed. If you justpicture that progression, you can see thatit is just a profound reflection of what weare capable of on longer timescales.

Last year you held the StarshipCongress in Houston. Did the eventmeet your expectations?It was very successful. I got a lot of

feedback from a lot of people who havebeen involved in the field for a long timeand who had nothing but glowingfeedback. Dr Michael Minovitch, who wasthe inventor of gravity assists and wasnominated for the Nobel Prize, looked mein the eye and just very, very genuinelysaid to me that he’d been going toconferences since the 1960s and StarshipCongress was the best conference he hadever attended.

What really distinguished it? Well, firstof all, it was very well organised. I wasprivileged to work with some stunninglyaccomplished people who were verydevoted to realising the goal of Starship

Congress, so everything went verysmoothly. I think the quality of the papersaccepted was very good and that wasthanks to the committee that was taskedwith reviewing the papers. What was alsounique was this whole ‘congress’ angle,where there was a session that lasted for90 minutes each day with the leaders ofthe various interstellar organisationsarticulating their viewpoints on a range ofsalient topics, with relevance tointerstellar flight, where we are going andhow we are going to get there. By beingable to bring all those thought-leaderstogether under one roof and give them alla platform it really helped crystallise inthe attendee’s minds who theseorganisations are and who the people whoare a major component in driving themforward are. It put a really importanthuman face on interstellar flight and the

field of interstellar research.

The progression of the three days of theevent, following the theme of steadilyadvancing into the future, helped toground the conference in reality. Day onewas about things that people are workingon now that we can accomplish in the next20 years. As we went to day two, we moveddeeper into the future with things likefusion propulsion and antimatterpropulsion. Then on day three there wasthe real deep future stuff like warp drivesand wormholes and mega-engineeringprojects. By following that overall theme ithelped us to make the Starship Congressthe success that it was.

Of course such a big event costsmoney and you raised that via

Kickstarter, proving that there is away to generate funding in theinterstellar community.The Kickstarter campaign was hugely

important to us being able to pull offStarship Congress because we had somegreat invited keynote speakers and ofcourse if you are going to invite a keynotespeaker you really need to cover theirexpenses and travel and it would havebeen very hard, if not impossible, for us toraise that kind of money without aKickstarter campaign. Once we were ableto confirm that we had these greatspeakers I think that just helped snowballinterest in the Congress. Unless I ammistaken it was the first supportedcampaign on Kickstarter related to thefield of interstellar flight so we are thrilledon how that played out. To think that agroup of dedicated people can put theiridea on the internet and get it funded bypeople they’ve never met is great.Crowd-sourcing is fantastic and I think itis important that the interstellarcommunity embrace entrepreneurshipand all of the tools that are available tous and just come to the realisation thatthere are people out there who want to

Icarus Interstellar is really atestament to how passionate people areabout interstellar research

The Icarus team at the Starship Congress (left to right): Dr Richard Obousy, thecurrent Icarus Interstellar President Dr Andreas Tziolas, Chief Editor of DiscoverySpace News Dr Ian O’Neill and Icarus’ Creative Strategy Director Mike Mongo.

The four candidate starship concepts from the recent ProjectIcarus design exercise.

those interests, to inspire themand get them interested, so I think it willbe a far larger community. What will beinteresting to see evolve will be therelationships between all theorganisations out there and I do not knowwhat will happen. Obviously the first onewas the British Interplanetary Society andthen over the last few years we have seenan explosion of interstellar organisationssuch as the Tau Zero Foundation, IcarusInterstellar, 100 Year Starship, I4IS,Starship Century and a couple of othersmore recently, so the interesting thing tolook at is whether there will continue tobe more and more interstellarorganisations or will there be some kind ofconvergence, some kind of umbrellaorganisation? Whether they choose towork with each other or choose tocompete with each other is going to bepretty interesting and will dictate thecommunity over the next few years.

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support what we are doing.

Where do you see Icarus Interstellarin the year 2024?I think that 10 years from now I would

like to see us well-funded with a physicallocation as well as continuing our virtualpresence and galvanising volunteers. Iwould like to see us either having figuredout a good, solid entrepreneurial plansuch that we could maintain that level offunding, or have some philanthropistsupport us and certainly that is notbeyond the realms of possibility. ThePerimeter Institute in Canada, forexample, is a privately-funded institutethat looks at alternatives to string theoryand it was funded to the tune of $50million by the founder of Blackberry, withno immediate return expected, just puretheoretical physics. The idea of theinstitute was really pushed by the dreamof some physicists who were dismayed atthe state of theoretical physics today withwhat they considered an over-focus onstring theory, so it is possible thatdedicated people can raise that kind ofcash from philanthropists.

Finally, in a wider context, how doyou see the interstellar communitychanging in the next decade?I definitely believe that the community

will be significantly larger by virtue of thecapacity of the Internet to connect peoplewith similar interests or, if they don’t have

I absolutely do think interstellarflight is feasible and that is aconsequence of me being ablatant optimist

Project Tin Tin is a mission profile and spacecraft design feasibility program which aims to establish the science, propulsion,communications, power and materials which will be used to build interstellar precursor missions using cubesats.

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 13

Starship-builder Terry Regandescribes step-by-step how hehas constructed his intricatelydetailed scale model of theDaedalus starship, startingwith the smaller second stage.

A big jobMy first job was to scale up the plans

that Kelvin Long had sent to me so that Icould get a better sense for what size themodel was going to be. With all myscratch-built projects I use A4 plasticsheets of Styrene card but looking at theplans, I realised that I was going to requirefar bigger sheets. My local model shop wasunable to help me, but talking to some ofthe lads at my model club they put me intouch with a shop in London, which is onlya 20 minute walk from Liverpool Streetstation, so off I went to stock up withplastic styrene card in 680 by 660 mmsheets.

Payload BayThe starship’s payload consist of three

parts: the top section houses the probes,the mid-section is where the telescopes arelocated and the bottom is thecommunication bay.

I cut two discs 120mm in diameter in0.75mm (30 thousandths of an inch) thickplastic card and four tubes 50mm longthat I then glued to four equidistant

points on one of the discs, before thengluing the other disc to the top of the fourtubes. Next I cut a length of 0.75mm-thickcard 52mm wide by 400mm long andattached it to the side of the box, workingit around until it meets up and thentrimming off the excess and cleaning upthe joint. This created a sealed cylindricalbox but with a joint line running from topto bottom that needed to be hidden.Fortunately, the surface of the starship isfar from dull when finished and there isplenty of detail that will be added that willobscure any unsightly seams.

So adding that detailing was the nextstep. Going by the plans plus artwork fromAdrian Mann (bisbos.com), the cylinder isdivided into three. According to thedesign, the top part of the payload sectionhouses 18 probes, so I cut a strip of card35mm wide and again 400mm long towrap entirely around the top of thecylinder in such a way that it hid the top ofthe join line. With a compass cutter I thencut out 18 round discs and drilled thecentre out of each, before cleaning themup and gluing them to the top half of thebody. Then, with strips of card I startedadding detail to these rings, which arewhere the probes are launched from.

The next step was to add detail to themid-section, including what is to be a five-metre telescope in the form of anotherring. Finally, I added detail to the bottompart of the body with plastic strips and,with that, I had finished construction ofthe payload bay.

The Wardens’ Bay The wardens are computerised robots

required to check and activate probes andcarry out general maintenance and repairsto Daedalus.

Their bay is a cone-type contraptionbelow the payload bay and is made up oftwelve triangular sides. I first made acardboard template, then laid it onto athin sheet of aluminium on which Imarked out the shape and then cut out thetemplate. Laying the template onto asheet of 0.75mm plastic card I cut outtwelve panels and started assembling thecone. Once the glue had dried I cleaned upthe joints and test fitted it to the payloadbay and, happy that it all fit snugly, I put itto one side along with the payload bay.

Internal fuel tanks.Below the wardens’ bay are two fuel

tanks. The top one is the liquid hydrogenstorage tank and the bottom one is themanoeuvre tank. The liquid hydrogen(LH2) tank was made from 1mm (40thousandths of an inch) plastic card. Iused a car/truck-stop light bulb that justhappened to be the diameter of the fuel

Building Daedalus: Step-by-Step

Wrapping card around the payload bay structure.

The detail added to the payload bay.The row of circles at the top are wherethe probes are berthed. Beneath themis the starship’s telescope.

Assembling the cone of the wardens’ bay.

The wardens’ bay test-fitted on top ofthe payload bay.

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 14

tank I wanted (they are the same size butone is 12 volt and the other is 24 volt). Idrilled a hole into a piece of plywood,clamping the plastic card over the holeand, with a hot air gun, heated the plasticand pushed the bulb through to form adome (we call this technique ‘plungemoulding’).

Once it had cooled down (it only takesseconds) I cut out the dome and cleanedup. As only half of the tank can be seen Ionly made one half of the dome. Themanoeuvre fuel tank is made in the sameway as the LH2 tank except that I used atail light bulb, which is slightly smallerthan the stop light bulb. With the twodomes made I joined them together andthen put them one side.

The engine (reaction chamber)The Reaction Chamber is also used as

an antenna dish once the fuel has run out.It is not a perfect dome as it has a slighttaper to the shape and just by luck I came

across an egg-shaped warehouse light bulbthat had the exact shape I was looking for.Again, I made the chamber in the sameway as I made the fuel tanks. I thenstarted to build the mountings for the 18electron guns. Two discs were cut out andtest-fitted over the bottom of the dome,the top disc having a slightly smaller innercircle cut out so it was a snug fit, around12mm above the bottom disc. Happy withit all I started to build a box section,adding detail. For the electron guns I cutplastic styrene tubes into 6mm sections,eighteen each of three different sizes oftube so that they slid inside each otherand then glued them together. Once dry Ispun each one up on a drill and shapedthem before putting them to one sidealong with the other completed sections.

The engine support structureWhat a pain this was! The intricate

structure covers the reaction chamber andis made from 1.2mm plastic styrene rods,cut into lengths. I drilled down the centrewith a 0.55mm drill and glued in 15-ampfuse wire to make locating lugs. Then Istarted to build the structure byinterlocking the rods and I was surprisedhow strong the structure became. I testfitted it to the engine and put it to oneside.

Induction loop.This is the magnetic loop that keeps

the pellet central in the reaction chamber.I cut two large round discs with 0.75mmcard and a strip of 0.5mm (20 thousandthsof an inch) card 12mm by 300mm longand shaped it into a circle, gluing the tworings top and bottom and adding detail.My next problem was attaching it to thebottom of the reaction chamber. There arewire supports that mount the ring to thechamber and, after a lot of trial and error,I came up with the idea of using a thinbrass wire, shaped into a ‘V’ and solderingthree of these to a locating peg on the top

before drilling three holes in the bottom ofthe reaction chamber and test fitting.

Centre support structureThis was another big headache. One of

Adrian Mann’s pictures showed four ringsmounted around a lattice cage supportstructure. I cut several lengths of 1.2mmplastic rod and made loads of 1.5mmround discs. I drilled through the discs andthreaded 15 amp fuse wire before thendrilling into the rods so as to interlock

A completed fuel tank. Note thedetailing on the bottom. Because onlyhalf the tank can be seen, only half thetank was made.

Plunge-moulding the internal fuel tanks.

The engine and its surrounding support structure.

The induction loop.

The lattice cage cylinders around aking pin.

The induction loop attached to theengine section.

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 15

them in the form of a ring. I made four ofthem. My next problem was to make thelattice cage and, just by luck at myworkplace, I had been replacing a king pinon a 7.5 (7.5 tonnes) truck steering and Ifound that the rings that I made fitperfectly around the king pin. As the pinwas being replaced I made use of it. Ifitted the fist ring over the pin and startedto build the lattice cage as the glue doesnot stick to metal but does stick to otherplastic and, eventually, I have the centresupport structure built. The next partswere the four support arms, made from3mm by 3mm square styrene rods. Idrilled loads of holes to give them theappearance of a framework and thenadded clamps to their ends. These are tohold the fuel tanks, which I have to buildnext.

Fuel tanks.The fuel tanks store frozen pellets of

deuterium and helium 3 fuel for use inDaedalus’ fusion engine.

To make the numerous round fueltanks that are attached to the starship Iused the plunge mould method by heatingup plastic and pushing through a roundobject such as a lightbulb or a ball bearing.However, size was an issue – these fueltanks are supposed to be about 78mm indiameter on my scale model so I had aproblem finding a suitable round object tomould them from. Nevertheless, when Ipopped into my local pound shop atChristmas I found in front of meChristmas baubles of all different sizes,including four in a pack, each 700mmdiameter, for £1. So I filled my basket upwith them. I sanded the glitter and theshiny stuff off the baubles, added detail tothem and once again put them to one side.

The parabolic reflector This round disc holds the fuel tanks

and also the pellet injector gun. From1mm thick plastic card I cut out a rounddisc 170mm in diameter and then cut a40mm diameter hole from the centre. Ifound a brass draw knob in a DIY storeand machined the back part of it where itscrews in to become the funnel and thenplunge moulded it and fitted it to theround disc.

The support structure.This is fitted from the bottom of the

payload bay to the bottom of the wardens’bay, again made out of 1.2 mm rods drilledand pegged with 15amp fuse wire

Painting the modelAll sections were painted separately

before final assembly. I sprayed thesupport structures in gloss black then,once dried, air-brushed them in chromesilver. Every part was primed in plasticprimer to take cellulose paint. The fueltanks were spayed in Audi Silver. The

payload and wardens’ bay were sprayed inVauxhall Polar White from a distance as Ididn’t want a brilliant shine. On thereaction chamber (engine) I used modelspaint including a metallic grey (gunmetal) with a satin lacquer just to give anengineering feel to it, while the internalfuel tanks were covered in gold foil fromchocolate sweet rappers (Rolos for thechocoholics amongst you!). On the

parabolic reflector I wanted to show somepanel lines and as part of the fun I alsowanted to use paints named with a cosmictheme, so I chose three colours : FordMoon Dust Silver, Vauxhall StarburstSilver and Nissan Cosmos Silver.

ConstructionOnce the paint had dried, all the

sections were then glued together and around tube inserted through the modelfrom the payload bay right down to theengine to provide the model with somestructural strength. This leaves just one

The completed central support structure, with four support arms that will hold thefuel tanks

Looking down on the painted parabolicreflector, which sports panels lines andthree different colours.

Looking down on the painted model.

Another view of the painted, assembledDaedalus second stage.

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 16

remaining job, which is the ‘erosionshield’ that sits atop the payload bay andprotects the starship from interstellarrocks. The hole in the centre shoots outbags of dust around 200 kilometres infront to smash up anything that gets inthe way.

The disc was cut out of a 1.5mm (60tho) sheet of plastic card and AdrianMann provided me with the pattern of theshield, which I printed off and enlargedbefore making three tracings. I airbrushed the disc in a metallic grey,marked off the sections, added a drop ofsilver to the metallic grey and airbrushedit. I then added a drop of black into themetallic grey and again airbrushed. Oncedried I wanted to tone down the effect so Ifilled a glass jar with thinner, added acouple of drops of metallic grey andairbrushed over the disc until I got thedesired effect.

Finishing off I wanted to display the model and give

some idea of scale so I cut a large sheet ofplastic card, spayed it a grey with lines init to give the impression of concrete to actas a base. I also found some figures thatare 1:350 scale, although they are slightlyon the big size: the Daedalus model isaround 1:400 scale, showing just howenormous it really is!

Overall I have spent 323 hours on themodel. It has been the biggest and themost complicated model I have ever built,but I have impressed myself given thatwhen I was initially asked to buildDaedalus I didn’t think I could build it.

I would like to say a very big thank youto not only Kelvin Long, but also AdrianMann for his invaluable help throughoutthe project and without whom I would nothave been able to build such a detailedmodel. I also should not forget AdamCrowl for his help as well with thetechnical aspects.

The completed first stage, along with slightly out of scale people.

Starship Century: Toward theGrandest HorizonEdited by James and Gregory Benford

The Benford twins’ grand StarshipCentury project in 2013 saw two symposia,in San Diego and London, as well as thelaunch of this accompanying book thatfeatures as authors many of thecontributors to the symposia. As a resultwe get essays from such esteemedpersonalities as Freeman Dyson, PaulDavies, Martin Rees, Geoffrey Landis andRobert Zubrin, but what makes this bookspecial (and is in the same vein as 2012’sGoing Interstellar, reviewed in issue one ofPrincipium) is that it also featuresnumerous science fiction stories and greatones at that. Authors include top drawerwriters like Neal Stephenson, GregoryBenford, Joe Haldeman and StephenBaxter. With this kind of talent involvedon both the factual and fiction sides, youwould expect the book to be pretty specialand, for the most part, it is.

The book is split into four sections: TheBig Perspective, Pathways TowardsStarships, Building Starships and TheStarship Era. The first section plays hostto essays from Martin Rees and FreemanDyson. In particular Dyson’s thought-provoking chapter raises the possibilitythat the future of space travel is actuallybiological, building habitats out of giant,genetically-modified trees that can survivein the vacuum of space on nutrient-richcometary bodies. On the other hand Reesis more conservative – while he paints an

epic picture of not only the scale of theGalaxy and the Universe as a whole, butthe scale of time that we have stretchingbefore us, he sees interstellar travel as anadventure for our far future descendantsrather than something we can lookforward to by the end of the twenty-firstcentury.

If there is a downside it is that thechapters from these big names in scienceare fairly short, only six and nine pageslong respectively for Dyson and Rees’essays, and a contribution from StephenHawking being only four paragraphs longand taken from quotes he has made in thepublic domain.

Of course, any discussion of starshipshas to explore the economic, sociological,political and technological developmentsthat could potentially happen in the futureand pave the path towards a starshipdestiny. However, there is a tendency forthis to morph into soothsaying about whatwill happen, as though the future is faitaccompli. So we find statements like inPeter Schwartz’s chapter where heespouses, “Several technologies ofsustainability begin to transform theplanet by the end of the century. Theenergy and industrial revolutions meanthe environment and resources are nolonger a barrier to the continued increasein wealth... over the next two centuriesaverage global growth of five percentmeans a doubling of wealth every fifteenyears... so that by the year 2200 the worldis nearly a thousand times wealthier thantoday with half as many people.” RobertZubrin makes similar claims in his chapter‘On the Way to Starflight: The Economicsof Interstellar Breakout’. While thesedepictions of the future sound enticingand, particularly in Zubrin’s case, isbacked up with at least some logicalreasoning, I found myself questioning howrealistic they were. The future is not aplace where the best outcome is alwaysinevitable; I would have appreciated adose of more down-to-earth realism to sitalongside these extremely optimisticchapters (although I should point out, Ihope Schwartz and Zubrin are right!).

This theme of an inevitable pathtowards a grand and prosperous humandestiny carries over into some of thefiction, which I have to say is neverthelessthe best part of the book. There are someexcellent short stories and novellas,particularly Neal Stephenson’sAtmosphaera Incognita, about theconstruction of a 20-kilometre tower andGregory Benford’s The Man Who Sold the

Stars, about an entrepreneur who leadsthe drive to launch the first interstellarmission. There is a slight sheen ofunrealism to them, partly because there isnot room to flesh things out, but partlyalso because like Zubrin and Schwartzbefore them they depict a future wherethings are achieved almost too easily.

Possibly the best story in the book isKnotweed and Gardenias by Nancy Kress,which is quite different to the Stephensonand Benford epics. It is an intriguing andmore down to earth tale of how what wemay leave behind on Earth could be thedeath of any interstellar voyagers.

There are more practical chapters onstarship design and engineering by AdamCrowl and Jim Benford, and a neatchapter on destinations by Stephen Baxterand Ian Crawford. There’s also a nicepoem by Geoffrey Landis entitled Acrossthe Dark: The Pioneers. While he is at itLandis provides an interesting chapter onnuclear rockets that could take us to theedge of the Solar System.

Despite any debate or slight criticismsof the conclusions of any of the chapters,they all share the common trait of beingvery well-written. There are some typosand editing mistakes that are annoyingbut do not prevent enjoyment of the book.It is also reasonably inexpensive andavailable on Kindle in addition to aprinted softcover edition, so there really isno excuse why any starship enthusiast, oranyone curious about what the future mayhold in general, should not go ahead andbuy this book.

Starship Century

Editors: James and Gregory Benford

Contributors: Stephen Baxter, David Brin,John Cramer, Ian Crawford, Adam Crowl,Paul Davies, Freeman Dyson, JoeHaldeman, Stephen Hawking, NancyKress, Geoffrey Landis, Richard Lovett,Martin Rees, Peter Schwartz, Allen Steele,Neal Stephenson and Robert Zubrin.

Published by Microwave Sciences/LuckyBat Books

ISBN: 978-1-939-05129-5

Available from Amazon(http://www.amazon.com/Starship-Century-Toward-Grandest-Horizon/dp/1939051290/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1402385756&sr=1-1&keywords=starship+century)

Principium | Issue 8 | June/July 2014 Page 17

Book Review

Front cover: ‘Flight Approval’ by Alex Storer,thelightdream.net.

Back Cover: The Hubble Ultra Deep Field,featuring galaxies that existed 13.2 billionyears ago, when the Universe was just 600million years old. Image: NASA/ESA/HTeplitz and M Rafelski (IPAC/Caltech)/ AKoekemoer (STScI)/R Windhorst (ArizonaState University)/Z Levay (STScI).

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I VE

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We'd love to hear from you, our readers,about your thoughts on Principium, theInstitute or interstellar flight in general.Join us on our Facebook page to join inthe conversation!

Editor: Keith CooperLayout: Adrian Mann

Mission StatementThe mission of the Initiative for Interstellar Studies is tofoster and promote education, knowledge and technicalcapabilities which lead to designs, technologies orenterprise that will enable the construction and launch ofinterstellar spacecraft.

Vision StatementWe aspire towards an optimistic future for humans on Earthand in space. Our bold vision is to be an organisation that iscentral to catalysing the conditions in society over the nextcentury to enable robotic and human exploration of thefrontier beyond our Solar System and to other stars, as partof a long-term enduring strategy and towards a sustainablespace-based economy.

Values StatementTo demonstrate inspiring leadership and ethical governance,to initiate visionary and bold programmes co-operating withpartners inclusively, to be objective in our assessments yetkeeping an open mind to alternative solutions, acting withhonesty, integrity and scientific rigour.

The Initiative For Interstellar Studies is apending institute in foundational start-up phasesubject to incorporation in the United Kingdom