Article Designing an interstellar generation ship for a 250-year trip to habitable exoplanet

[C C]

Can an Interstellar Generation Ship Maintain a Population on a 250-year Trip to a Habitable Exoplanet?
https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2025/03/...exoplanet/

EXCERPT: . . . So what are the constraints or boundary conditions for the competition design? Seven are given:

1. The mission duration is 250 years. In a generation ship that means about 10 generations. [Modern people can barely understand what it was like to live a quarter of a millennium ago, yet the ship must maintain an educated crew that will maintain the ship in working order over that time – AT].

2. The destination is a rocky planet that will have been prepared for colonization by an earlier [robotic? – AT] ship or directed panspermia. Conditions will not require any biological modifications of the crew.

3. The habitat section will provide 1g by rotation.

4. The atmosphere must be similar to Earth’s. [Presumably, gas ratios and partial pressures must be similar too. There does not appear to be any restriction on altitude, so presumably, the atmospheric pressure on the Tibetan plateau is acceptable. – AT]

5. The ship must provide radiation protection from galactic cosmic rays (GCR).

6. The ship must provide protection from impacts.

7. The crew or passengers will number 1000 +/- 500.

The entering team must have at least:

• One architectural designer
  
• One engineer
  
• One social scientist (sociologist, anthropologist, etc.)
  

Designing such a ship is not trivial, especially as unlike a Lunar or Martian city, there is no rescue possible for a lone interstellar vehicle traveling for a quarter of a millennium at a speed of at least 1.5% of lightspeed to Proxima, faster for more distant stars. If the internal life support system fails and cannot be repaired, it is curtains for the crew. As the requirements are that at least 500 people arrive to live on the destination planet, any fewer survivors, perhaps indulging in cannibalism (c.f. Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves), means this design would be a failure... (MORE - missing details)

[Zinjanthropos]

If that ship ever gets to its destination it probably won’t be the first, in 250 years the technology changes and faster speeds become attainable. So what do you do? Intercept the original and abandon ship or pass them and get ready for their arrival. Maybe bring install engine refit. Also 250+ years sounds like something scientists working on human lifespans might be able to get to.

[confused2]

The children of the original crew (assumed to be volunteers) can't be considered volunteers and may bitterly resent their fate - condemned to a life away from their 'home' civilization. I'd say it has to be done on a freeze/thaw basis. Crew for the trip could be thawed out as required even without the possibility of being frozen up again so never reaching the destination - they would be volunteers for this. Even if it were possible to create a viable human population on Sol2 .. would it be 'moral' to do it? (I think not)