PRINCIPIUM The Newsletter of the Initiative for Interstellar Studies Issue 15 | November 2016 ISSN 2397-9127 ■ Guest Introduction by Nick Kanas ■ News from the Initiative ■ i4is/ISU 2016: Space Environment & Spacecraft Systems Engineering ■ Daedalus: Model and Art ■ The Andromeda Study ■ Book Review: Gypsy: Carter Scholz R O ■ The art and imagination of David A Hardy F E V I T A I T I N I S T U D I E S www.i4is.org Scientia ad sidera Knowledge to the stars Principium | Issue 15 | November 2016 1 suggest that ultra-light spacecraft using laser-push technology look like our best chance for early Editorial interstellar missions. Welcome to Principium 15, the quarterly Our first book review for a while is by a new friend newsletter about all things interstellar. to i4is, Patrick Mahon. Patrick makes a strong case for Gypsy by Carter Scholz as the best hard SF Interstellar News this time reports on the 60th novella in many years. Patrick recounts its plausible birthday of BIS Spaceflight magazine. We hope we technology and rounded characters - still too rare in can be as good - and last as long! We report from interstellar SF. the annual Starfest of the North Essex Astronomy Society in Chelmsford and on our annual Progress Also promised last time, we celebrate the art and and Planning meeting. We greet two major films imagination of David A Hardy. David is both a on interstellar themes for the Christmas season grandmaster of SF and astronomical art and a good and chronicle the seemingly endless travels of our friend to i4is. Our piece concentrates mainly on Executive Director, Kelvin F Long. interstellar themes from David's vast portfolio. Our Guest Introduction this time is by Nick The front cover illustration this time is another work Kanas MD, who has advised NASA on astronaut of Adrian Mann, extracted from the i4is report on psychology over many years. He examines the our Andromeda project. It depicts the spacecraft psychological and sociological issues which may as it approaches its target star. Thanks, as always, arise for both generation ships and sleeper ships to Adrian for lending his talent to i4is and the on very long duration interstellar voyages. Nick is interstellar cause. Professor Emeritus of the University of California For our rear cover we have an image from David A. San Francisco and has also published several novels Hardy's science fiction work. In this case an image including one, The Protos Mandate, about a colony of the starship Liberator from the TV series Blake’s ship bound for an exoplanet orbiting Epsilon Eridani. 7. Despite the dodgy sets and dated effects it was Our series of reports on the i4is/ISU 2016 elective fine space opera made in an era when such stories on Interstellar Studies at the International Space were very rare on TV - or film for that matter. University, Strasbourg, continues with a summary Look out for the latest issue of our academic of the unit on Space Environment & Spacecraft education journal, Axiom, out now, and for Systems Engineering by Marc Casson of Surrey opportunities to help us achieve our interstellar Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL). goals, Working towards the real Final Frontier, And as his work takes its place at BIS HQ London, towards the end of this issue. You don't have to be a we compare Terry Regan's model of the BIS rocket scientist! Daedalus starship with the art of our old friend Comments on i4is and all matters interstellar are Adrian Mann. Technical photographer Paul Kemp always welcome. Write to me! places the model in a setting inspired by Adrian's John I Davies, Editor, Principium art. I think you will agree that both representations [email protected] of this historic design show the beauty which often arises from great engineering. Keep in touch! And as promised, Andreas Hein (Technical Director, Join in the conversation by following the i4is on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/ i4is) and Kelvin F Long (Executive Director, i4is) InterstellarInstitute give an account of the Andromeda Study. An i4is Become part of our professional network on team had three days to produce a design for a LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/groups/4640147 laser-propelled interstellar mission. This was the And take a look at the i4is blog, The Starship Log i4is response to a March 2016 request from the www.i4is.org/the-starship-log Follow us on Twitter at @I4Interstellar Breakthrough Initiative. Drawing on earlier work And seek out our followers too! including Project Dragonfly (see Principium Issues Contact us on email via [email protected]. 11 and 12, www.i4is.org/Publications#Principium) Back issues of Principium, from number one, can the team delivered in this very short time. The be found at www.i4is.org/Publications#Principium design differs in some ways from the Breakthrough Starshot proposal but both approaches, the earlier The views of our writers are their own. We aim for sound Project Dragonfly work and other recent studies science, but not editorial orthodoxy. Principium | Issue 15 | November 2016 2 The Psychology and Sociology of Interstellar Travel INTRODUCTION Professor Nick Kanas, University of California San Francisco, is a long established NASA researcher into the psychological and social issues arising in long duration space missions. Here he looks into the implications arising from very long duration interstellar missions for both multi-generational and "sleeper" crews. For over 15 years, my research colleagues the distances would be measured in terms of and I were funded by NASA to investigate light-years, real-time communication with the psychological and interpersonal issues affecting Earth would not occur, and the crew-members near-Earth manned space missions[1, 2]. The would have to rely on their own resources to results of our work and studies from other labs survive. If suspended animation is planned, have isolated a number of psychosocial issues this will have non-trivial ramifications on the that are characteristic of these missions[3]. psychology of the crew-members. If it is not For example, crew-members working in used, then a multigenerational approach will be orbiting space stations experience isolation and needed. The number of births and deaths must confinement in an environment fraught with be matched in order to conform to the limited danger and psychological challenges. Transient space and resources available on the starship. depression and psychosomatic problems have Consequently, social control will need to be occurred. Personality conflicts can result after established that would govern coupling and one to two months, and interpersonal tension can interpersonal relationships. arise. This on-board tension may be displaced Let’s examine some of the psychological and outwardly to people working in mission control, sociological ramifications of an interstellar Nick Kanas, M.D. disrupting the crew-ground relationship. People mission lasting 107 years to a planet around the from different cultural backgrounds can have star Epsilon Eridani, which is 10.5 light years different experiences, especially in terms of away[4]. Assume that the vehicle is a giant perceived work pressure. starship with a crew of around 280 people. Problems resulting from such stressors can be One way to minimize the vicissitudes of countered by supportive activities from flight such a long mission is to put some or all of surgeons and psychologists on Earth and by the future colonists in suspended animation. frequent audiovisual contact with family and In this scenario, after the critical activities friends. However, this support may be less involving the launch and course verification effective during future exploratory missions to are completed, the crew-members would Mars or beyond, where the long distances and enter capsules that would slow down their mission durations, the delayed communication physiological functions until such time as times, and the need for the crew to be more they neared their final destination, when the autonomous lessens the effectiveness of crew would be revived to perform landing countermeasures initiated by crew-ground and colonization activities. The space vehicle interactions[3]. The crew-members will have to would be on autopilot during most of the deal with all emergencies themselves, including mission, with computers monitoring life medical issues and psychiatric problems such as support and navigational progress. However, suicide and psychosis. the technology involved with putting people In researching the background for my second in suspended animation and later reviving science fiction novel, The Protos Mandate[4], I them is complicated. Although freezing is used had to consider what some of the psychosocial today to preserve red blood cells and corneas issues would be involving a large group of people for transplantation, the ability to freeze and engaged on an expedition to colonize a planet later thaw whole bodies whose organ systems orbiting a distant star where the outbound journey are composed of differentiated cells with would last for over a century. In this scenario, their own freeze-thaw rate profiles is beyond Principium | Issue 15 | November 2016 3 our abilities in the foreseeable arrival and colonization of their on a 200-year expedition to future[5]. Ice crystals can form exoplanet destination. Also, Alpha Centauri. He attempted during both freezing and thawing these individuals would vividly to establish a stable population procedures, and these can damage remember the Earth and the that could be productive and live cells. In addition, areas of the family members and friends within the physical and supply body can be deprived of oxygen they left behind. Unlike modern constraints of the mission. His from blood clotting or premature day immigrants, there would be findings supported a model that freezing before metabolism is no possibility for return to their began the mission with a crew of slowed down, leading to cell original homeland after landfall.