The engineers have designed a spacecraft that could account for up to 2,400 people on a one-way trip to the Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to ourselves. The craft, known as Chrysalis, can make a 25 trillion miles of travel in about 400 years, and engineers say the shortest of the project, with many of its potential passengers only knowing the craft’s life.
Chrysalis is designed to accommodate several generations of people before entering the system, where it could be closed to the surface of planet Proxima Centuri B.
The project won first place in the Hyperion Design Competition project. This is a challenge that teams will need to design virtual multi-generation ships for interstellar travel.
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Chrysalis’s Life
Before boarding the ship, the Chrysalis project requires that you live and adapt to an isolated Antarctica environment for 70-80 years to ensure psychological health. The ship is theoretically built in 20-25 years and can retain gravity due to constant rotation.
The 36-mile (58 km) long container is constructed like a Russian nest doll, with several layers surrounded by one another around the central core. This layer includes communal spaces, farms, gardens, homes, warehouses and other shared facilities, each carrying a fusion reactor.
The core in the center of the vehicle hosts a shuttle that can take people to the Proxima Centuri B, as well as all the communication equipment from Chrysalis.
Related: Will we reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system?
The closest layer to the Chrysalis core is dedicated to food production, growing plants, fungi, microorganisms, insects and livestock. Various environments are maintained, including tropical and boundary forests, to maintain biodiversity.
The second level from the centre provides the boat residents with communal spaces such as parks, schools, hospitals and libraries. The following shells hold individual household housing with air circulation and heat exchangers.
The work is carried out at the next level. Here we have industrial facilities ranging from recycling to pharmaceuticals and structural manufacturing. The fifth and outermost shells act as warehouses for various types of resources, materials, equipment and machines. The designers of Chrysalis suggest that robots can perform this level and reduce the need for human physical labor.
Births are planned in chrysalis to ensure that the population remains at a sustainable level. This was determined to be about 1,500 people by the research team.
The people responsible for the governance of the ship “we will work with artificial intelligence that will enable resilience across the social system, and a deeper vision of better knowledge transfer between residents of different generations, and the overall dynamics of the Chrysalis spacecraft complex.
This plan is purely hypothetical as some of the necessary technologies, such as commercially available fusion reactors, do not yet exist. However, such hypothetical projects will be added to the existing knowledge base and will help engineers improve their future designs.
Project Hyperion Jury wrote on its website that Chrysalis is impressive for its “system-level consistency and innovative design of modular habitat structures” and “the overall depth of detail.” The winning team of five researchers was awarded US$5,000.
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