Questions tagged [generation-ships]

For questions about the use of a mobile space station used to colonize the stars. A generation ship travels well below the speed of light and relies on natural processes of reproduction to support the number of colonists. Entire generations of people will live, reproduce, and die on board a ship before it even reaches the Oort cloud of our Solar System.

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Scrutinizing this anti trespass system implemented on a generation ship

Set on a generation ship, there is a unique teleporter room located just adjacent to the bridge where the captain works. This teleporter room has 26 telephone box-like chambers for personnel to be ...
user6760's user avatar
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1 vote
1 answer
210 views

Would this design for a generational star ship be realistic for traveling to Alpha Centauri?

https://www.tinkercad.com/things/6hFXA0L0dOW I am writing a story with where the main character discovers this ship traveling to Alpha Centauri because our solar system has been devoured by a black ...
user11937382's user avatar
0 votes
4 answers
140 views

What would be the best approach to raise newborn humans in a generation ship without computers or previous humans? [closed]

So, in this scenario, humans just proven that the light-speed limit is absolute. In other words, you can't travel faster than light, even with warp drives or worm-holes. To get things worse, even with ...
Fulano's user avatar
  • 209
13 votes
12 answers
5k views

Why do generation ships have large rectangular shaped portholes instead of round ones?

We know traveling in the vastness of space is very boring, as all galaxies and stars appear as dots against the black emptiness of space. It has been established that portholes play an important role ...
user6760's user avatar
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3 votes
3 answers
243 views

Is delta v relevant for interstellar travel for generation ship?

Imagine I have a generation ship that is heading to a nearby star system say 10 light years away, the average lifespan for the crew is 150 years on Earth and is expected to increase by about 5 years ...
user6760's user avatar
  • 47.8k
7 votes
2 answers
414 views

Estimating thrust and kg fuel for a generation ship's journey to Alpha Centauri

Premise: A generation spaceship leaves Earth around the year 2060 on a journey to colonize Alpha Centauri A (ACA). In this fiction, fusion power is achieved in 2040, improved over 20 years, and used ...
Koon W's user avatar
  • 405
5 votes
3 answers
464 views

How much energy can a space ship use internally without overheating?

More thoughts on hard science possibilities for interstellar colonization and the request to check my understanding of physics. Suppose you have a fully self contained colony ship. They have some ...
quarague's user avatar
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29 votes
16 answers
6k views

Is it more efficient to send a fleet of generation ships or one massive one?

Assuming it would be possible (but not required) to share resources between ships during the journey, but doing so takes minimal (but non-zero) resources. Is it more fuel/space efficient to have a ...
AncientSwordRage's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
309 views

How close to a magnetar could a generation ship get?

In the news recently, it has been discovered that the fast burst radio waves are coming from magnetars. It is doubtful that a habitable planet could form anywhere near one, but such a star would be an ...
Justin Thyme the Second's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
123 views

Magnetic sail on rotating ship

I'm thinking about a design like this generation ship, which obviously has spin gravity. Would the fact that the ship is rotating affect the use of a magnetic sail? The magnetic sail as a sort of ...
Adam Reynolds's user avatar
32 votes
6 answers
5k views

Keeping a healthy immune system on a generation-ship

An old saying goes that if you have an army, it will want to fight a war. That seems to be true also for our personal army, our immune system: there seems to be various pieces of evidence that many ...
L.Dutch's user avatar
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32 votes
15 answers
9k views

Are generation ships inherently implausible?

So I've been thinking about the idea of a series that takes place on a small fleet of generation ships, traveling at around 10% of lightspeed to Proxima Centauri, which should take around half a ...
Adam Reynolds's user avatar
4 votes
5 answers
240 views

Generation ship "stealing" resources without acceleration or deceleration

How could a generation ship "steal" energy or resources from star systems which it passed without changing velocity?
TheSpidermonkey's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
142 views

How could a fusion device be held at the centre of a ring-shaped space habitat?

I'm trying to create something like a generation ship, but it has no destination, and is travelling endlessly, so is more like a deep space non-orbital habitat for humans. One helpful and appealing ...
TheSpidermonkey's user avatar
4 votes
4 answers
286 views

Basic concepts for a functioning generation ship [closed]

I'm writing a story (part of a larger work) which features a generation ship. I don't want to get too deep into the science, because it's not the focus of the story, but I'd like it not to be so ...
TheSpidermonkey's user avatar
9 votes
6 answers
4k views

Would this system work to purify water?

This is part of my generation ship worldbuilding. I mentioned my water purification system in a different question, but I never directly asked about it. Here, I will directly ask about it. I think it ...
Caters's user avatar
  • 4,159
12 votes
4 answers
4k views

How fast can a ship with rotating habitats be accelerated?

Alright so I'm not really a physics person by any stretch so forgive me if I butcher some physics jargon on this post. So I'm making this hard sci-fi interstellar ship with a rotating habitat that ...
Galaxy's user avatar
  • 571
29 votes
17 answers
8k views

Can a generation ship withstand its own oxygen and daily wear for many thousands of years?

Regarding the idea of a generation ship carrying a community of people for thousands of years to another planet: Is there is any material for an engineered structure or set of systems that will ...
Matt Skeptic's user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
353 views

The Mighty Generation Ship Jupiter

"The planet moves." Inspired by this link in a comment from Gryphon here, I also see the concept in this question. We've colonized the moons of Jupiter adjusted their orbits to our satisfaction (to ...
Pelinore's user avatar
  • 9,225
3 votes
3 answers
2k views

What are the different areas or compartment would a colony-ship have? [closed]

So I'm trying to create a sci-fi colony ship for a science discussion that we have in class. So as a sci-fi fan (Hard sci-fi to be exact), I want to portray a realistic ship and not those cliche ...
Galaxy's user avatar
  • 571
10 votes
5 answers
1k views

Hiding a handful of immortals on a Generation Ship?

I have a handful of immortals that have spent the last 6000 years stuck on planet Earth. They really, want to get out of here. They missed their chance back in Egypt before The Fall of the Pharaohs**. ...
EveryBitHelps's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
493 views

Generation ship population growth

I have taken several things into account when it comes to population growth. First off, it is likely that on a generation ship it would be 100% natural conception so I need to take into consideration ...
Caters's user avatar
  • 4,159
2 votes
3 answers
1k views

Generation ship: How big exactly?

So first off I will assume that the generation ship has a reasonable capacity of 1 billion and 45,000 people are the first generation on it. Also assuming an 8/1000 per year death rate(the average ...
Caters's user avatar
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1 vote
2 answers
172 views

Would there be any bacterial illness aboard a generation-ship? [closed]

Okay, so I know that severe, life-threatening illness such as rabies which has a 100% chance of death without treatment and Ebola which has a 50% chance of death would not be allowed because that ...
Caters's user avatar
  • 4,159
8 votes
2 answers
908 views

How much ice do I need at 0.79c to protect my megastructure

Ok I have a moon, or cored out moon, that is a generation ship. I really do: I built it by mining out one of the rock/ice moons around my solar systems gas giants (not earth's solar system). Its ...
ArtisticPhoenix's user avatar
3 votes
3 answers
193 views

On a generation starship headed to a nearby planet, what would be the most beneficial survival courses to take? [closed]

In my world, there is a generation starship cruising through outer space. It’s been a long time since they have stepped foot on a planet. To make sure that everybody is safe, the leaders of the ...
Bryan's user avatar
  • 95
2 votes
2 answers
194 views

Reasonable motivations to build a Generation Ship [closed]

What reasons could motivate the building and subsequent launching of a million-population generation colonization ship in a near-future ambientation? Earth is not in immediate danger, there are not ...
atMalkyor's user avatar
-1 votes
4 answers
150 views

Motives for preventing a generation ship from reaching its destination - but not destroy it [closed]

The home planet of a race is completely annihilated (hit by another planet or something), but they managed to launch a generation ship beforehand, and a few thousand people go on a century-long trip ...
user2118985's user avatar
2 votes
4 answers
370 views

How can the newly-discovered inter-galactic matter be harvested by inter-galactic mega-generational ships?

Scientists have just released details on their discovery of inter-galactic baryon material - "Dark Matter" that turns out to be regular matter, except that it is 'dark' - dispersed throughout the ...
Justin Thyme's user avatar
  • 9,640
0 votes
1 answer
493 views

A Completely Self-Sufficient Generation Ship? [closed]

Is it possible for there to be a generation ship that was completely self-sufficient? An airtight vessel that used plants to create food and oxygen, and reused everything with a tight hold on ...
The Unanswered Anomaly's user avatar
5 votes
8 answers
502 views

How do you detect a rock in interstellar space?

You are on a generation ship in interstellar space, between star systems. We know that there are rocks whizzing around out there - escaped asteroids, bashed planets, we have even put a few artificial ...
Justin Thyme's user avatar
  • 9,640
4 votes
7 answers
627 views

What would the economy look like on a generation ship?

On a million-person strong generation ship in space for upward of a century (multiple generations will live and die on the ship), what would the economy look like? Scenario: The crew running the ...
Azor Ahai -him-'s user avatar
3 votes
5 answers
906 views

Starting Sex Ratio - Generation Ship

Aliens have abducted 10,000 people and placed them on a generation ship, a really big one, for the purpose of seeding the stars with our species, which is nice of them. What ratio of men to women ...
Michael Morrison's user avatar
5 votes
9 answers
3k views

What's the feasibility of using the earth as a generation ship [duplicate]

The sun is going out, so we decide to use the earth as a generation ship. We plant bombs in various locations of earth's crust and core, which uses a portion of the earth as propellant to send the ...
Nathan Merrill's user avatar
14 votes
8 answers
2k views

Could humans survive on an alien generation ship?

In the near future (next few decades) a giant spaceship is detected as it decelerates on its way into the solar system. It heads for Earth orbit, but a few weeks before reaching Earth, it veers away ...
Cyrus's user avatar
  • 22.4k
1 vote
6 answers
486 views

What night sky would look like on a generation ship?

Hail folks. I've been reading a lot about generation ships lately and this occurred to me: imagine a ship that tries to emulate perfectly life on earth (atmosphere and all). Leaving aside the ...
T. K. Pereira's user avatar
3 votes
4 answers
317 views

Is blood pressure a good restriction?

I'm researching who to let onto my generational ships. I have figured that certain pre-existig inheritable medical conditions should be screened out of who makes the cut or not, focusing on ...
Caters's user avatar
  • 4,159
5 votes
5 answers
430 views

Civilian or Military Government on a Generational Ship

The generational ship is a small closed system, nothing comes in, nothing goes out. The population is under 10 thousand and stable, it's in the middle of its run. No surprises, just day to day routine ...
Separatrix's user avatar
  • 118k
8 votes
3 answers
478 views

Generation ships: Over coming agoraphobia when you land

Setting So for generations a ship has been traveling through space. After reaching their desired destination you are left with a group of people who have been used to their largest spaces being no ...
Lio Elbammalf's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
421 views

An O'Neil cylinder vs. A cylinder with vertical layers

If humans had access to artificial gravity technology similar to Star Trek in terms of holding people to the floor, and if faced with annihilation and forced to build a generation ship to escape Earth,...
totally not rick sanchez's user avatar
-3 votes
4 answers
2k views

Monogamy vs Polygamy [closed]

When the humans start mating on my generation ship(so after survival training), there should be at least 100 pregnant women as a result. I mean per 1000 women in the united states that are married ...
Caters's user avatar
  • 4,159
15 votes
9 answers
2k views

Should I use base-10 or base-12 numbers in my story? [closed]

My aliens have 2 thumbs for a stronger grip and the 2 thumbs are on opposite sides of the hand. However since there are 6 fingers total per hand and 2 hands my aliens naturally use base 12. +1 for ...
Caters's user avatar
  • 4,159
2 votes
4 answers
383 views

How does a crash landed generation ship's crew survive?

A little while back I asked why a crash landed generation ship would fall back to the stone age, but now I realize that I had the exact opposite problem. Without advanced technology, and stuck on a ...
TrEs-2b's user avatar
  • 56.2k
43 votes
29 answers
11k views

Why would a crash landed generation fall back to the stone age?

Background In the mid 22nd century, a super plague has killed 99% of human life, many survivors are killed in the ensuing riots and fighting. The few billionaires that are hiding in their bunkers ...
TrEs-2b's user avatar
  • 56.2k
17 votes
8 answers
953 views

How do you circulate cryoprotectants through the human body?

Context if you're interested The main problem with freezing living things is that the cold tends to damage tissue. Ice crystals form between cells, dehydrating and shrinking them, and preventing ...
Zxyrra's user avatar
  • 20.6k
2 votes
3 answers
338 views

Generation ship: Too restrictive requirements? [closed]

I have started rewriting my generation ship story and the first scene after the background info(just a little to start it up, not a lot) is where an alien named Pistol Star decides who is to go on the ...
Caters's user avatar
  • 4,159
1 vote
2 answers
95 views

Humanoid Alien basking and ship shifts

I just realized 1 problem with 2 shifts on the generation ship. My aliens when they wake up, bask in the infrared for up to 4 hours. Even the robots that they have can't compensate for 4 hours of ...
Caters's user avatar
  • 4,159
-3 votes
2 answers
451 views

Generation ship: Artificial sunlight

The energy source both in terms of fuel and electricity on my ship is nuclear fusion. Very precise nuclear fusion: there is no helium fusion until there is absolutely 100% helium in the main fusion ...
Caters's user avatar
  • 4,159
10 votes
15 answers
6k views

Could ships in space use a Steam Engine?

When in space, the amount of force required to move goes down drastically, due to the virtual lack of drag. In this environment, would be feasible for engines in space (more specifically belonging to ...
TrEs-2b's user avatar
  • 56.2k
6 votes
3 answers
1k views

Ideal size for a relativistic generation ship?

Assuming the ship has access to fusion power, a large volume of solar panels, and crude antimatter power generators (say maybe 1 gram a day per generator, or whatever is reasonable for technological ...
Z.Schroeder's user avatar
  • 11.3k