ESA Colonization Flights in 2050

[navanod]

Adventure 5 TCS introduced us to the Islands Cluster, settled by 3 ESA generation ships. I've been doing some research into the best way for such an expedition to be set up. Canon states three large asteroids were hollowed out and fitted with reaction drives, with a thousand crew and 100,000 colonists in deep freeze. So far, here are my basic concepts.

1. An asteroid roughly 1.5 km in diameter and 3 km long. Hollowed out and given a spin, the habitat interior would be built on the walls of the cylindrical shaft for artificial gravity. SpinCalc tells me a 400 m radius with 1.5 rotations/minute gives you 1 G. A column running down the center of the cylinder would leave you room for low-G storage.

2. A rough number I found for the mass from here (http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/asteroidfact.html) give a mass of 1,000,000,000 tons.

3. Rough guessing the distance from Sol to the Islands, I came up with about 660 light years, and they took 2462 years to make the trip (about .26 ly per year). That to me says .25 C, give or take.

What I'm having trouble figuring out is -
A. .25 C is fast enough to start having problems with relativity, correct?
B. Starting and stopping from planets, would the actual peak speed would have to be higher to allow for acceleration and deceleration times?
C. What kind of drive system could possibly do the job in 2050?
D. Would using slingshot orbits on the way out-system provide enough of a boost to make any difference?
E. Anything else I've blatantly missed?

Thanks in advance for any insight your collective wisdom may bring.

Navanod

 

[Whipsnade]

Navanod,

Contact Chris Thrash either here or at the SJGames Traveller forum. He's done quite a bit of work on the Islands and the STL colony ships that settled them.

Why reinvent the wheel when you don't have to?


Regards,
Bill

 

[navanod]

Ah, already done. I've been talking to him a bit for the last day or two. I was unaware he had dug that far into things. Thanks anyway!

Navanod

 

[far-trader]

...

C. What kind of drive system could possibly do the job in 2050?

Saw this in the news just the other day. Maybe a VASIMR rocket is a possible candidate. Best we have at the moment anyway. I haven't run any numbers though.

http://www.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=15938&cat=2

...of course 2050 in a 1981 publication might better translate as 3050 today for space tech and programs.

 

[Icosahedron]

What I'm having trouble figuring out is -
A. .25 C is fast enough to start having problems with relativity, correct?
B. Starting and stopping from planets, would the actual peak speed would have to be higher to allow for acceleration and deceleration times?
C. What kind of drive system could possibly do the job in 2050?
D. Would using slingshot orbits on the way out-system provide enough of a boost to make any difference?
E. Anything else I've blatantly missed?

Thanks in advance for any insight your collective wisdom may bring.

Navanod

I haven't done any calcs, but off the top of my head, and IMHO:

A. Relativity will be noticeable at 0.25c, but shouldn't present any 'problems' - especially since the passengers are frozen and the crew are going to pass through several generations anyway. Time will be irrelevant.

B. Yes, the peak speed would have to be higher, but probably not significantly so, unless you're making a lot of stops or having extended stopovers. The time over which you're stopping and starting should be negligible compared with the time in flight, so the average speed will differ by very little.

C. Pass. Some form of handwavium, no doubt.

D. I would imagine slingshots would be factored in as a matter of course. Depends on your flavour of handwavium.

E. Pass.

Hope that helps a little.