by Kelvin F Long
In some recent studies I have been looking at World Ships. These are massive vessels 10^11 - 10^12 tons travelling at 1,500 km/s (0.5%c) to reach the nearest stars in 1,000 years or less. They carry 1 million people at the start of the journey and allow for growth of that population. The design concepts were to be propelled by 1024 engines based on inertial confinement fusion systems and this requires a staggering 170 TJ driver energy assuming an optimistic 25% wall plug efficiency of any lasers. The individual pellets in the design are 230 grams each of TN fuel along with 2.43 kg/shot of expellant propellant for thrust augmentation, all detonated at 100 Hz pulse frequency. The first paper was published and examines population demographics, power supply requirements for the habitats and spin gravity to contain the atmosphere and regolith. The second paper is currently under submission and examines the propulsion system. These studies were based on earlier papers from Bond/Martin in 1984 which utilised external nuclear pulse propulsion and seeks to advance concepts to the next stage. Its not easy to push such a large vessel and requires a thrust of 978 GN.
K. F. Long, Population Demographics & Other Issues for the Massive Ra World Ship Model - Part 1, JBIS, 76(11), 262 - 272, 2024.
K. F. Long, Inertial Confinement Fusion Propulsion for the Massive Ra World Ship Model - Part 2, JBIS, Submitted, February 2024.
World Ship Frontal View
World Ship Rear View
World Ship under Construction in Earth Orbit