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Title: Spacecraft Designed That Could Carry 2,400 People on a 400-Year Trip
to Alpha Centauri

Link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/08/09/1...

They haven't built a spacecraft for travelling to our nearest star system.
But "Engineers have designed a spacecraft that could take up to 2,400 people
on a one-way trip to Alpha Centauri," reports LiveScience: 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. The project won first place in the Project Hyperion Design
Competition, a challenge that requires teams to design hypothetical
multigenerational ships for interstellar travel. Before boarding the ship,
the Chrysalis project would require initial generations of ship inhabitants
to live in and adapt to an isolated environment in Antarctica for 70 to 80
years to ensure psychological wellbeing. The ship could theoretically be
constructed in 20 to 25 years and retains gravity through constant rotation.
The vessel, which would measure 36 miles (58 km) in length, would be
constructed like a Russian nesting doll, with several layers encompassing
each other around a central core. The layers include communal spaces, farms,
gardens, homes, warehouses and other shared facilities, each powered by
nuclear fusion reactors.... This plan is purely hypothetical, as some of the
required technology, like commercial nuclear fusion reactors, don't yet
exist. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot for submitting the
article - and for sharing this observation... "My first thought was that
someone read Arthur C. Clarke's book, Rendezvous with Rama and used it as a
model design!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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