Scientists and science fiction writers of the 20th century dreamed of conquering other stars by ships flying for hundreds of years.
The Generation Ship is a huge, relatively slow spaceship. Also known as the interstellar ark. It is assumed that on board such a ship, generations of people will live and die while traveling to other stars.
Alternative
The Generation Ship has been proposed as an alternative to spacecraft that fly at much higher speeds. And have regular crews.
For the first time such an idea was proposed in 1918 by the American scientist Robert Goddard. It described a ship carrying the remnants of an advanced civilization from one star to another. But perhaps disturbed by professional criticism, he placed his manuscript in a sealed envelope. And it hasn't appeared in print for over half a century.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and D. Bernal also wrote about artificial planets and autonomous worlds in the 1920s. Olaf Stapledon discussed this in his science fiction novels. In the 1940s, the concept of a generational ship was voiced by science fiction writers in the publications of Hugo Gernsbeck and many others.
Perhaps the earliest work to describe a ship of generations is Don Wilcox's A Journey That Lasted 600 Years (1940). Robert Heinlein, in his novel Stepsons of the Universe, first suggested that the crew of such a ship might eventually forget that they are in deep space. And instead, believe that they are the inhabitants of some closed small world. This topic was also touched upon in one of the episodes of the series "Star Trek".
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In 1952 L. R. Shepard took a closer look at the idea of a generational ship. He described a nuclear powered interstellar vessel weighing a million tons. The ship was shaped like a flattened spheroid. And it was called "Noah's Ark".
Noah's ark
Such a ship would be a microcosm of human civilization with a significant and very diverse population. It would have many educational and medical institutions, food production areas, research laboratories, etc. In fact, it would be a miniature nomadic planet. Perhaps there is some strange attraction to this idea. Although, in reality, it will probably be quite difficult to voluntarily imprison yourself in such conditions. Knowing that death will come at some stage on the path to the final goal.
Perhaps fewer psychological problems will arise for subsequent generations who were born on the ship. They have never seen what life looks like on the surface of the planet under the open sky. Then again, how difficult will it be for those who have finally reached the goal of their journey to go beyond their artificial world?
This idea, like many other old ideas about space travel, now seems strange and romantic. It is almost certain that other stars will never be reached with similar technologies.