it needs to minimise the extent of the damage if something goes wrong, e.g.if humans are on board it needs to have pressurised compartments for them to live in, and enough space that they will be comfortable for the duration of the voyage.it needs to protect the crew from any radiation produced by the ship’s engines, or its power source (a big issue if you use something scary like nuclear power or antimatter annihilation!).

it needs to protect equipment and crew from space radiation (from stars or cosmic rays).it needs to be able to withstand impacts with interplanetary/interstellar debris, which although consisting only of rarified gas and small particles, may (depending on the mission) may be approaching at extremely high, even relativistic speeds.its rotation needs to be long-term stable in flight.it needs to be able to manouvre correctly and, for example, not start spinning uncontrollably when the engine does a burn.it needs to dissipate the heat generated by the crew, onboard machinery and direct sunlight into the highly insulating vacuum of space.it needs to bear the stresses of acceleration without breaking.There are a few design considerations that constrain what shape your spaceship should have… So most of what I know comes off Atomic Rockets, which has far too much love of old whitedude science fiction novels, but also a lot of useful information, and more recently, lots of conversations with arborine, who has thought/knows a great deal about space habitats and is generally wonderful. asteroids or attackers' weapons (maybe some sort of forcefield, or a perfect interceptor weapon system), are there any compelling reasons for starships to be any particular shape? (let's also assume the starship can travel at relativistic speeds)Īha! Excellent question! I love talking about spaceships. Previous attempts to put light sails in space have met frustrating ends – a rocket carrying a prototype exploded before leaving Earth and another sail broke apart in the atmosphere.Assuming a starship never has to travel through an atmosphere, and never has to worry about collisions with eg. “Provide ships or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will brave even that void,” Kepler wrote to Galileo in 1608. Indeed, solar sails are an old idea reaching new levels of achievability.Īn NBC News story noted a correspondence between famed scientists Johannes Kepler and Galileo. “Diffractive solar sailing is a modern take on the decades-old vision of light sails,” a researcher close to the project said. However, that push goes in one direction – scientists are working on grating the sheet of the sail so that power can be spread and move the ship in three dimensions. “If we have a spacecraft that’s low enough mass, and big and reflective enough then photons can give it a little push.”

“Each photon imparts just a tiny bit of momentum, but the Sun pumps out billions and billions of them every second,” CEO of the Planetary Society and beloved celebrity scientist Bill Nye explains. Solar sails would work like kites in the wind – but instead of a kite, imagine a spacecraft, and instead of wind it’s powered by the Sun. “As we venture farther out into the cosmos than ever before, we’ll need innovative, cutting-edge technologies to drive our missions,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.

If successfully engineered, solar sails will eliminate the need for expensive fuel and propulsion technologies in spaceflight. On Earth, it’s unnoticeable – but in the vacuum of space, light beams can propel even large objects forward. Sunbeams do exert force on humans and objects. The Diffractive Solar Sailing project scored $2 million in funding for research and development. NASA has announced a new vision for navigating space using sun beams as power. Photo sharing app ‘not working’ for thousands as frustrated users complain I’ve been using an amazing iPhone hack for years and almost no one knows it exists Google warns 3 billion Chrome users to edit their app now in major alertīillions of Facebook users warned to check account settings

Spaceship in space