On Tuesday 25th February Kelvin F Long gave a lecture to the British Interplanetary Society titled “The Philosophy of Starship Physics: The Exploration of Interstellar and Intergalactic Space”. He had been there many times before although not in recent years. Introducing him was past-President Alistair Scott and the current President Gerry Webb was also present during the evening. Despite the BIS computer choosing to shut down early on during the presentation, the talk garnered some interesting discussions post lecture.
Photo credits Geir Engene
During the lecture Kelvin discussed the developments of interstellar studies as a field. This included identifying three critical eras in history, which he termed the foundations age, the golden age and the consolidations age, with key people being involved in those eras as listed below:
Foundations Age (1950 - 1973): Les Shepherd, Eugene Sanger, Freeman Dyson, James Strong, Carl Sagan, Robert Bussard, Robert Forward, D. F. Spencer, L. D. Jaffe.
Golden Age (1973 - 1991): Freidwardt Winterberg, Anthony Martin, Alan Bond, Robert Parkinson, Robert Freitas, Al Jackson, Gregory Matloff, Giovani Vulpetti, H. D. Froning, T. A. Heppenheimer, E. F. Mallove, C. Powel, D. Viewing, D. Whitmore, C. E. Singer, B. N. Cassenti.
Consolidation Age (1991 - 2019): Ian Crawford, Ralph McNutt, Robert Zubrin, Les Johnson, Marc Millis, Geoffrey Landis, Miquel Alcubierre, Johndale Solem, John Anderson, John Halyard, G. Gaidos, Charles Orth, James Benford, Gregory Benford, Terry Kammash, David Fearn, Gerald Nordley, Robert Frisbee, John Cramer, Eric Davis, Jordan Maclay, Philip Lubin.
The years 1974 - 1991 was particularly interesting since this was the special red cover interstellar issues of the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, but many interstellar papers started appearing the year before that. The year 1992 was also interesting because it was when the first exoplanet was discovered, arguably sparking significant interest in interstellar ideas. Some significant technical projects over these periods included the nuclear bomb propulsion Project Orion (1957 - 1965), the fusion starship Project Daedalus (1973 - 1978), the laser beamed driven Project Starwisp (1984), the fusion starship Project Icarus (2009 - 2020), the laser beam driven Project Starshot (2016 - present).
The full video for the lecture is available on You Tube or via the link below.