PRINCIPIUM The Newsletter of the Initiative for Interstellar Studies Issue 16 | February 2017 ISSN 2397-9127 ■ Ad Astra Project Starshot ■ Interstellar News ■ Letter to the Editor : Stephen Ashworth ■ ISU Masters Degree Projects - the i4is contribution ■ Film Reviews: Arrival and Passengers ■ Book Review: Star Ark : A Living Self-sustaining R O Spaceship F E V I ■ Interstellar Challenge for London Schools 2016 T A I ■ Image Feature: Artificial Intelligence Probes for Interstellar T I N Exploration and Colonization I S T U D I E S www.i4is.org Scientia ad sidera Knowledge to the stars Principium | Issue 16 | February 2017 1 Our good friend, Professor Rachel Armstrong, has a new book, Star Ark : A Living Self- Editorial Sustaining Spaceship. This is an important book about sustainability on Earth as reflected in the Welcome to Principium 16, the quarterly proposition of a self-sustaining starship, containing newsletter about all things interstellar. both Rachel's own long-matured thinking and First, we welcome a new deputy editor, Patrick a series of contributions she has commissioned Mahon, who will be taking some of the load off the from architects, sociologists, designers, engineers, shoulders of both editor and Kelvin Long. biologists, chemists, biochemists and artists. Kelvin For our Guest Introduction this time we bring back Long reviews it in this issue of Principium, setting our Executive Director, Kelvin F Long. Kelvin it in the context of pioneers as diverse as Richard reflects on the most momentous project start of 2016, Buckminster Fuller and Rachel Carson. Breakthrough Starshot. He considers its significance Stephen Ashworth has written our first Letter to the both in the next few years and for the long-term Editor. He expresses some reservations about the future of interstellar exploration. current movement to laser-push as the preferred Interstellar News reports on our new, and very near first step to interstellar travel. Stephen is a critical future, Project Glowworm. We announce the new friend of interstellar endeavours. I hope this letter i4is website and upcoming membership scheme and to Principium is the first of many from Stephen and report Kelvin's visit to NASA, Houston. We will be others. Constructive criticism is always welcome. at the UK Space Conference in May-June 2017 and Alongside our elective contribution to the ISU we are organising an Interstellar flight workshop in Masters Degree, i4is experts also advise students New York in June as we develop our Institute for on their projects. We describe this work with a Interstellar Studies, USA. We will also be addressing particular focus on the achievements of the 2015- the Royal Astronomical Society and delivering 2016 year. another two week elective at the ISU, Strasbourg. And we celebrate another successful Starship We celebrate the work of a new artist helping us to Engineer course. More in the News section. visualise our interstellar dreams. Efflam Mercier has contributed to a paper soon to be published Given the announcement of the 2017 session we by Andreas Hein, Artificial Intelligence Probes have held over further accounts of the May 2016 for Interstellar Exploration and Colonization. A i4is/ISU course Interstellar Studies. We'll be selection of Efflam's images inspired by Andreas' reporting soon from this renewal of a major part of vision are in a picture feature in this issue. And one our work with the International Space University. of them provides our front cover this time. As promised last time we have a report from the Our rear cover is a magnificent starry panorama Interstellar Challenge for London Schools 2016 and taken at the European Southern Observatory (ESO). outline our plans for taking it to other parts of the UK, Europe and the world. We also report from Comments on i4is and all matters interstellar are our 2016 Starship Engineer course at the BIS in always welcome. Write to me! November. John I Davies, Editor, Principium [email protected] There have been two major interstellar-themed films in the last few months, Arrival and Passengers. Arrival contemplates human (at times very human) Keep in touch! Join in the conversation by following the i4is on our reaction to the arrival of inscrutable aliens at Facebook page www.facebook.com/InterstellarInstitute multiple locations on Earth. Emotional, institutional Become part of our professional network on LinkedIn and international reactions are all dealt with. Patrick www.linkedin.com/groups/4640147 And take a look at the i4is blog, The Starship Log www. Mahon contributes a suitably thoughtful review. i4is.org/the-starship-log Passengers is both a larger and a smaller film than Follow us on Twitter at @I4Interstellar And seek out our followers too! Arrival. It looks magnificent and its theme is nothing Contact us on email via [email protected]. less than the first serious attempt to show how our Back issues of Principium, from number one, can be species might migrate to the stars. But it is flawed found at www.i4is.org/Principium both structurally and technically. John Davies, with input from i4is colleagues, contemplates a brave The views of our writers are their own. We aim for sound science but not editorial orthodoxy. effort to "boldly go" to a new realism in this subject. Principium | Issue 16 | February 2017 2 AD ASTRA PROJECT STARSHOT Kelvin F Long INTRODUCTION In this article, the Executive Director of the Initiative for Interstellar Studies gives his personal perspective on the Breakthrough Initiative Project Starshot. Kelvin also serves on the Starshot Advisory Committee. - Kelvin F Long As we seek to send our voyagers to those things, not because they are easy, but because incandescent lights in the night sky as a plethora they are hard, because that goal will serve to of diamond sparkles, it is worth reflecting on organize and measure the best of our energies our philosophical approach to the exploration of and skills, because that challenge is one that space. There are two ways to accomplish things we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling in space flight. The first is to build only on what to postpone, and one we intend to win…” we have accomplished to date and to set all I was not born when that speech was made, but programmatic goals based on an extrapolation I encountered it for the first time in 1989 during of existing achievements. Because this is an a visit to a museum exhibition to celebrate the incremental method, I shall call this the ‘ad astra 20th anniversary of the Project Apollo moon incrementis’ (to the stars incrementally) approach landings. For me, a young man still in school, to space exploration. The second approach is to my exposure to that vision was life changing declare a stretch goal, accepting that there are and a personal epiphany. There was something many unknowns along the way and that there intoxicating about the optimism of it, and I is no full certainty of success. Because this is a knew from this moment that America was a direct path method, I shall call this the ‘ad astra’ special country, where people can dream of (to the stars) approach to space exploration. One travelling to the Moon…and then they go there. is a conservative and low risk philosophy, and That experience is incredibly empowering and the other is a high risk but potentially high gain years later, after a long period of self-discovery philosophy, in that it jumps you forward towards and education, I made it my mission in life to a big vision. In fact, I would go so far as to say contribute similarly to the next big challenge that one is past-oriented and the other is future- of humankind, travelling to those distant stars oriented. In the early 1960s President Kennedy that adorn the Cosmos, like camp-fires in the also used an ‘ad astra’ approach by declaring that: night, constantly taunting us to go and see what “We choose to go to the Moon!...We choose to is there. go to the Moon in this decade and do the other Principium | Issue 16 | February 2017 3 Over the years, I have been a part The Initiative for Interstellar former Director of NASA Ames of creating many space projects Studies had already been Research Center, a retired US and indeed space companies, in collaborating with some of the Air Force Brigadier General, both the United Kingdom and Breakthrough Starshot leadership and the recipient of the NASA the United States. All of these team in early 2016, since we gave Outstanding Leadership Medal for had some interstellar focus where some input on what was possible the 1994 Clementine mission to appropriate, and like a bowman technologically, and some of the the Moon. Heading the Advisory with his arrow, I was trying output from this was discussed Committee is Professor Avi Loeb, to point the way towards an in Principium issue 15 under the Frank B Baird Jr. Professor of optimistic future where humanity project name Andromeda and our Science at Harvard University. can perfect itself as it embarks on existing laser-sail effort Project These people join this endeavour, one of the greatest journeys since Dragonfly. But it all became real because they are not only inspired the migration out of Africa all when the Russian entrepreneur by the vision, but also because those many hundreds of thousands and physicist Yuri Milner backed they believe it is possible in of years ago. My hope was the possibility of an interstellar theory. I have had the honour of that, one day, someone with the flight with the launch of Project meeting them and all of them are resources and capacity to make Starshot.