In addition to small vessels it is important to examine concepts for large spacecraft structures that have the capacity to carry populations of hundreds of thousands or millions of people. This may be a part of some colonisation strategy. With this in mind we have been looking at medium sized to very large world ship concepts.

The Mk2A(ii) Ra World Ship concept is a study that builds on from work done originally in the 1980s. The spacecraft is 115 km in length and 15 km in diameter and begins with an initial population of 1 million people and sets out on a 1,000 year journey to the nearest stars travelling at a speed of 0.5%c or less.

Large 100 km Long World Ship Departs Earth Orbit

In the current studies we have been considering the various elements of the design with a particular focus on the advanced propulsion element. In particular, in the original 1980s studies it was considered that such a large vessel would be propelled by external nuclear pulse propulsion such as with Project Orion. But we wanted to know if such a vessel could be pushed by inertial confinement fusion engines and so that has been the focus.

World Ship with Many Parallel Thrust Engines

The Interstellar Research Centre continues to explore concepts for world ships and this includes an examination of smaller vessels which carry a population of only hundreds of people. Such a concept was proposed for the Enzmann starship, named after its creator Robert Enzmann and it would carry a huge frozen ball of deuterium on the front of the vehicle to be mined from the gas giants. Such a spacecraft would travel at 9%c and reach the nearest stars in less than 60 years.

Illustration of Enzmann Spacecraft Concept Design

References:

  1. A Crowl, K F Long, R Obousy, The Enzmann Starship: History & Engineering Appraisal, JBIS, 65, 2012.

  2. K F Long, Population Demographics and Other Issues for the Massive Ra World Ship Model - Part 1, JBIS, 76(11), 262-272, November 2023.

  3. K F Long, Inertial Confinement Fusion Propulsion for the Massive Ra World Ship Model - Part 2, JBIS, 77(4), April 2024.

  4. K F Long, Mission Architecture Calculations for the Enzmann Interstellar Spacecraft Concept, Submitted to JBIS, June 2024.