starship

File:Daedalus Spaceship concept.jpg (1978), a fusion powered interstellar probe]]

To travel between stars in a reasonable time using rocket-like technology requires very high effective exhaust velocity jet and enormous energy to power this, such as might be provided by fusion power or antimatter.

There are very few scientific studies that investigate the issues in building a starship. Some examples of this include:

• Project Orion (1958–1965), mostly crewed interplanetary spacecraft
• Project Daedalus (1973–1978), uncrewed interstellar probe
• Project Longshot (1987–1988), uncrewed interstellar probe
• Project Icarus (2009–2014), uncrewed interstellar probe
• Hundred-Year Starship (2011), crewed interstellar craft

The Bussard ramjet is an idea to use nuclear fusion of interstellar gas to provide propulsion.

Examined in an October 1973 issue of Analog, the Enzmann Starship proposed using a 12,000-ton ball of frozen deuterium to power pulse propulsion units. Twice as long as the Empire State Building is tall and assembled in-orbit, the proposed spacecraft would be part of a larger project preceded by interstellar probes and telescopic observation of target star systems.

The NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program (1996–2002) was a professional scientific study examining advanced spacecraft propulsion systems.

• Sleeper: Starships that place their occupants into Cryostasis or Temporal Stasis during a long trip. This includes cryonics-based systems that freeze passengers for the duration of the journey. This is a common trope in science fiction, with some notable examples including "To Sleep in a Sea of Stars" by Christopher Paolini and Edward Bellamy's "Looking Backward"
• Generation: Ships in which the destination would be reached by descendants of the original passengers. These ships would necessarily be self-sustaining and self-maintaining for possibly thousands of years. Notable examples of this in fiction are the Godspeed in Beth Revis' "Across the Universe" (and subsequent sequels), as well as the Vanguard from Robert A. Heinlein's "Orphans of the Sky"

File:Stanford Torus-based generation ship.png-based generation ship, proposed by Project Hyperion{{cite journal |last1=Hein |first1=Andreas M. |last2=Pak |first2=Mikhail |last3=Pütz |first3=Daniel |last4=Bühler |first4=Christian |last5=Reiss |first5=Philipp |title=World ships—architectures & feasibility revisited |journal=Journal of the British Interplanetary Society |date=2012 |volume=65 |issue=4 |page=119|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236177990 }}]]

• Relativistic: Ships that function by taking advantage of time dilation at close-to-light-speeds, so long trips will seem much shorter (but still take the same amount of time for outside observers).
• Frame shift: Ships that take advantage of the fact that certain dimensions are less "folded" than others, to allow shorter travel by shifting one's frame of reference into a higher, more flat dimension to cut down on travel time, such as in science fiction with inter-dimensional hyperspace. Generally this results in speeds close to (but importantly, not greater than) light speed.
• Faster-than-light (FTL): A ship that functions by reaching a destination faster than the speed of light. While according to the special theory of relativity, faster-than-light travel is impossible, drives like a warp drive or using a wormhole, that is in principle similar have been hypothesized.

File:Wormhole travel as envisioned by Les Bossinas for NASA.jpg paper of Miguel Alcubierre]]

The Alcubierre drive is a speculative warp drive conjectured by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre in a 1994 paper which has not been peer-reviewed.{{cite journal |last= Alcubierre |first=Miguel |title=The warp drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity |url=https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0264-9381/11/5/001/meta |publisher=Institute of Physics | journal=Classical and Quantum Gravity |volume=11 |number=5 |date=1994|pages=L73–L77 |doi=10.1088/0264-9381/11/5/001 |arxiv=gr-qc/0009013 |bibcode=1994CQGra..11L..73A |s2cid=4797900 }} (Letter to the Editor) The paper suggests that space itself could be topographically warped to create a local region of spacetime wherein the region ahead of the "warp bubble" is compressed, allowed to resume normalcy within the bubble, and then rapidly expanded behind the bubble creating an effect that results in apparent FTL travel, all in a manner consistent with the Einstein field equations of general relativity and without the introduction of wormholes.{{cite journal |last= Alcubierre |first=Miguel |title=The warp drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity |journal=Classical and Quantum Gravity | doi= 10.1088/0264-9381/11/5/001 |date=5 September 2000|volume=11 |issue=5 |pages=L73–L77 |arxiv=gr-qc/0009013 |bibcode=1994CQGra..11L..73A |s2cid=4797900 }} However, the actual construction of such a drive would face other serious theoretical difficulties.

{{main|List of fictional spacecraft#Interstellar}}

File:NCC-1701 Prop.jpg from the Star Trek: The Original Series television show. The model was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1974, where it is on public display.{{cite web|url=http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A19740668000|access-date=February 19, 2015|title=Model, Starship Enterprise, Television Show, "Star Trek"}}]]

There are widely known vessels in various science fiction franchises. The most prominent cultural use and one of the earliest common uses of the term starship was in Star Trek: The Original Series.

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(This list is not exhaustive.)

• Axiom (WALL-E)
• Battlestar Galactica (Battlestar Galactica)
• High Charity (Halo Series)
• Hyperion (StarCraft)
• Jupiter 2 (Lost In Space)
• Long Shot (Ringworld)
• Moya (Farscape)
• NSEA Protector (Galaxy Quest)
• SDF-1 Macross (The Super Dimension Fortress Macross)
• SSV Normandy (Mass Effect)
• UNSC Infinity (Halo Series)
• USG Ishimura (Dead Space)
• Yamato (Space Battleship Yamato/Star Blazers)

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• Spacecraft in Star Trek
• USS Defiant (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
• USS Discovery
• USS Enterprise (various)
• USS Voyager (Star Trek: Voyager)
• Klingon starships
• Star Wars starships
• Millennium Falcon
• Star Destroyers
• M/V Seamus (Archer: 1999)
• The Reapers (Mass Effect)
• USS Callister (USS Callister)

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• {{Annotated link |Bioship}}
• {{Annotated link |Intergalactic travel}}
• {{Annotated link |IXS Enterprise|IXS Enterprise}}
• {{Annotated link |Mother ship}}
• {{Annotated link |Project Icarus (interstellar)}}
• {{Annotated link |Project Longshot}}
• {{Annotated link |100 Year Starship}}
• {{Annotated link |Spaceflight}}
• {{Annotated link |Space travel in science fiction}}
• {{Annotated link |Starship Technologies}}
• {{Annotated link |Unidentified flying object}}

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{{reflist}}

• {{Cite web |url=https://www.indymedia.org.au/files/starship_0.pdf |title=How to facilitate construction of a fleet of starships |date=June 20, 2014 |website=Indymedia Australia |publisher=Independent Media Center |access-date=November 14, 2020 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200810062809/https://www.indymedia.org.au/files/starship_0.pdf |archive-date=August 10, 2020}}
• [http://www.merzo.net/ Starship Dimensions] (to-scale size comparisons)
• [http://www.st-minutiae.com/misc/comparison.gif Starship Size Comparison Chart 1] (Dan Carlson, 13 July 2003)
• [http://www.st-minutiae.com/misc/comparison_huge.gif Starship Size Comparison Chart 2] (Dan Carlson, 30 October 2003)
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070217091033/http://www.infoshop.org/sf/index.php/Spaceship_Names Starship Names] (a Sci-Fi wiki article, outside Wikipedia)

Category:Fictional spacecraft by type

Category:Science fiction themes

Category:Spaceflight

Category:Fiction about transport

Category:Interstellar travel

es:Astronave