Interstellar distances are enormous, and space technology is imperfect. The stars are so far from us that the journey to them can take the whole human life. But scientists have figured out how to trick space and time. Not individual astronauts, but entire families will go on a journey to other worlds. Interstellar ships will be the only home for generations of daredevils.
Ark for the elect
Today it may seem strange, but the founders of cosmonautics did not believe in the ability of mankind to withstand adversity and cataclysms. They believed that sooner or later our civilization will face a problem: live or die.
The reason can be arbitrary, but always catastrophic: the fall of a giant comet to Earth, a global epidemic, the degeneration of the human species, an ecological catastrophe, the onset of anarchy or, conversely, a total dictatorship.
Therefore, the founders considered it necessary to create a colony of the human race on one of the planets of the solar system, and better - at a neighboring star.
A similar idea of the inevitable and imminent end of human history was shared by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a Kaluga teacher who actively advocated the idea of humanity's penetration into space and substantiated the theoretical possibility of such penetration.
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In 1926, Tsiolkovsky, summarizing his considerations, drew up a "Plan for the conquest of interplanetary spaces." Initially, in near-earth orbit, it is necessary to mount "vast settlements" that exist due to solar energy. Then humanity will move from the nearest orbits into the asteroid belt, which can be used to build spaceships and cities.
After reconnaissance of nearby stars is completed, the flying colony ships will embark on an interstellar voyage that will last hundreds of years. For Tsiolkovsky it didn't matter how many generations would change on such a huge starship during the voyage. The main thing is that someday people will settle along the Milky Way.
Target - Alpha Centauri
However, the idea of colonial ships was so far from practical implementation in Tsiolkovsky's time that no one seriously considered it until the early 1960s. However, it was during this period that scientists, being impressed by the grandiose space breakthrough, began to make cautious, but much more optimistic predictions about the timing of the first interstellar expedition.
At the same time, projects of flying cities appeared, capable of providing everything necessary for a hundred or two cosmonauts.
The most realistic project of a colony ship was proposed by one of the brightest thinkers of the 20th century - the American physicist Freeman Dyson. In 1959, shortly after the beginning of the space age, he prepared a memo for the management of Project Orion, in which he first described an interstellar spacecraft based on the explosive principle.
The ship was a huge hemispherical structure with a pusher shield located behind the stern, behind which atomic bombs were to explode, accelerating the ship to a speed of 10 thousand kilometers per second.
He could reach the stars closest to us, Proxima and the alpha constellation Centaurus, in 150 years. The main goal of the flight was to be the preservation of human culture - not ordinary colonists were supposed to be sent into space, but 1,000 of the best representatives of civilization with a complete archive of accumulated knowledge and samples of terrestrial flora and fauna.
For 10 years, Dyson thought about his project and, just before the closure of the Orion project, offered more specific figures. His starship has turned into a real flying city with a base diameter of 150 kilometers and a mass of 240 million tons. According to calculations, this gigantic ship for 30 years had only to accelerate to the required speed, having spent 25 million atomic bombs to accelerate.
Dyson did not care about the cost issues, as he assumed that it would take at least 200 years to build the starship, and even with a minimal 4% economic growth, the project would not cause significant financial damage to the participating countries.
Interestingly, when describing his colony ship in 1969, Dyson added two more reasons, with which he can be created and launched to the stars. Human civilization must have a spare world in case of a large sudden catastrophe or an independent colony in case of a sharp change in the political situation - for example, as a result of the victory of the fascist dictatorship.
Cities in flight
Tsiolkovsky's idea of space settlements was developed by another American physicist, Gerard K. O'Neill. In 1969, during the flight of the Apollo 11 lunar ship, he organized a student discussion on the topic "Are planets suitable for the spread of an advanced civilization?"
After reviewing the pros and cons, the students concluded that it was preferable to build self-sustaining space cities, within which the terrestrial habitat was reproduced.
Tens of thousands of people will want to move to these cities from the overcrowded megacities of the Earth, since they will be provided with more comfortable conditions in space cities.
In the future, O'Neill devoted himself to the development and popularization of this grandiose idea. He developed several options for space settlements, proposing to build them from materials mined on the moon.
The simplest space settlement of O'Neill consists of two paired long cylinders rotating around the axes in opposite directions to compensate for the gyroscopic effect.
People will live inside these cylinders, on the walls of which an artificial landscape is arranged that forms a natural plant environment: grass and trees, streams and water bodies. Three longitudinal “valleys” (zones of the earth) are interspersed in a circle with “solaris” (windows), and natural sunlight enters the interior space through three rectangular mirrors, the position of which is controlled by a computer that regulates the climate and the length of the day.
The first settlement will have a mass of about 500 thousand tons. It will take 16 years to create and settle down. When such an outpost is fully equipped, it will serve as a base for the construction of new structures.
Equipping the settlements with engines, you can send them on a thousand-year flight to the nearest stars. O'Neill wrote that it makes sense to send them not alone, but as a whole armada - so that there is an information and transport link between the flying cities, so that they can trade and exchange their cultural achievements. In this case, even a centuries-old flight will not seem boring.
Life on an asteroid
It is clear that the creation of huge starships is a matter of the distant future, however, we can begin the first stage of human dispersal in space in the coming years.
For example, on a serious level, space agencies are discussing projects for a manned expedition to near-Earth asteroids, mining resources on these small bodies, and even towing one of the asteroids into a circumlunar orbit.
And of course, they remembered that back in 1964, the American engineer Dandridge Cole proposed the concept of "Hyperion", in which he outlined the technical foundations for turning an asteroid into an extraterrestrial colony.
In his works, he showed that it is quite realistic to deploy a base on one of the asteroids, then "hollow out" it from the inside, spin it around the axis, having achieved artificial gravity in the inner cavity due to centrifugal acceleration, and then use the asteroid as a ship, which, while moving in its natural orbit, it will make it possible to make a long-term journey through the solar system.
If there are many such asteroids, then a kind of extraterrestrial transport network will arise, and on its basis it will be possible to build interstellar colony ships, which Konstantin Tsiolkovsky once dreamed of.
Scientists' calculations are encouraging. Although the business of building space settlements seems incredibly difficult, it is within the forces of humanity. And if someday a global threat looms over us, requiring extraordinary countermeasures, then a solution will always be found. The stars are waiting for us!
Anton PERVUSHIN