What Would a Generational Space Ship Actually Look Like?

[@backcountry164]

It wouldn't "get off the ground." It would be built in space.

[@goosenotmaverick1156]

I was thinking the same about the "landing" it wouldn't land, it would orbit and send smaller landing vehicles down

[@maryellencook9528]

Thank you both for pointing this out. I thought that at the beginning. It's pretty obvious that Simon and his writers have not read the SF classic authors such as Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, Niven, or Pournelle. A lot of these scenarios were already addressed, both pros and cons.

[@devincreislerstudios]

@@goosenotmaverick1156 extra weight for the smaller ships to fit in there. But then again the smaller ships could be living quarters or storage.

[@goosenotmaverick1156]

@@devincreislerstudios to boot, if it spends all it's time in microgravity, what's the weight really matter? Regardless, if you're planning on disembarking, you're going to need some sort of lander, requiring airlocks and docking capability, why not have a multipurpose vehicle capable of suiting all those needs and also possibly as emergency escape vehicles? Such an interstellar travelling vehicle, would indeed already be modular. Isn't a big deal to add a little extra transportation. At this point we've figured out so many other things that it couldn't possibly be a make or break thing to have.

[@bozhijak]

@@devincreislerstudios And you wouldn't just send one ship. Three would be an optimal number for redundancy in case one should suffer a catastrophic failure. They should be designed to absorb at least one ships entire crew but with three the load could be minimised.

[@Petriefied0246]

The worst case scenario for a generation ship is to arrive at the destination and discovering a fully functional society because in the mean time humans had already developed FTL drives and colonised the planet hundreds of years ago.

[@HuevoBendito]

Reminds me of Lancer lol

[@manwiththeredface7821]

That's why humans on Earth should keep a database of all the generation ships launched before (along with their planned routes) and in case of FTL having been developed these ships could be contacted asap.

[@darkdragonguardian8505]

​@@manwiththeredface7821ahh yes only to be lost in the next major human war

[@zogar8526]

While that would be annoying, they'd have a place to live and everything. So nothing is truly lost. The actual worst case would be getting there, and finding the planet isn't actually habitable. Either because of a miscalculation, as we obviously wouldn't have been there before. So it can be hard to know. Or because of something that happened in the travel time. That or finding an alien civilization. Those would leave them with nowhere to go basically.

[@erikburzinski8248]

they would probably rescue them

[@thebaccathatchews]

1: You wouldn't built just one ship, but a *fleet* of ships, to increase chances of survival. 2: You wouldn't built it on Earth, you'd have to build it in space.

[@lnilin8810]

3 you leave embryos in a cryo- state until they reach the destination and have Robot caretakers to help them mature

[@harryguy76]

Exactly...we need a giant as s spacestation if we are going to send people to mars...cause to do that we need a big spacestation to build the biggest space ship needed to hold and sustain all the materials needed for a manned mars mission...and it would appear Elon has such a space station port in the works...if only he had a fleet of reuseable rockets with fast turn around times to ferry the tons of building materials from earth to space needed to first build the station...like a mile in diameter or more that can easily be expaned by adding another ring to bottom of existing. Oh wait...Elom is working on a fleet also.

[@HugoBroad]

i feel like you got the language thing wrong. I think the languages on earth would evolve to be unrecognizable but the language on the ship would stay the same because they would constantly interact with the ships computer systems and I don't think they would bother updating the ships language or even be able to to fit their own slang. they would have to keep speaking their origanal gen 1 languages to some extent for them to interact/speak to the computer.

[@leowic]

This was my thought as well. Their language wouldn't drift much because their literature i.e. the ships soft & hardware would be locked at Gen 1.

[@noahwail2444]

Right. Just look at the language on Iceland, it has chanced very litle the last 1.000 years, due to its remoteness and lack of interaction with other people. They can still read 1.000 years old texts, something not possible most places on earth.

[@stanleydavidson6543]

Computers will keep language from changing much

[@Jayjay-qe6um]

Project Hyperion, launched in December 2011 by Icarus Interstellar, was to perform a preliminary study that defines integrated concepts for a crewed interstellar generation ship. This was a two-year study mainly based out of the WARR student group at the technical University of Munich. The study aimed to provide an assessment of the feasibility of crewed interstellar flight using current and near-future technologies. It also aimed to guide future research and technology development plans as well as to inform the public about crewed interstellar travel. Notable results of the project include an assessment of the world ship system architectures and adequate population size. The core team members have transferred to the Initiative for Interstellar Studies world ship project and a survey paper on generation ships has been presented at the ESA Interstellar Workshop in 2019 as well as in ESA's Acta Futura journal.

[@ronaldlebeck9577]

I would think the language on the ship wouldn't change as much since they would have all sorts of audio books, videos, and so forth to keep the language the same as it was when they left. HOWEVER...the language back HERE would continue to evolve over time, so when the people on Terra receives a message from the colonists, they would have to be able to understand the old (or possibly ancient) dialect of the colonists.

[@laustpeternielsen-norman9569]

Love that you use the Lego Space logo😊

[@Magneticlaw]

We have about twenty bazillion sci-fi shows, movies, novels, and comics attempting to answer this very question, but thank you for throwing your hat into the ring, Simon.

[@halley4032]

Having wintered on an Antarctic base for a couple of years, I can certainly testify to the fact that people do indeed break up into factions. Arguments do erupts, sometimes there are fisticuffs, despite the works still getting done. I really don't see how a generational ship can work TBH. Human societies, in this scenario, are such a huge random element, much better to invest in some kind of automation to manage embryos, or cryo-sleep systems (if that ever becomes a thing).

[@istvansipos9940]

11:56 and, as the video shows, we know it might be a problem. Which means that all those pioneers and their mission planners would know it, too. Safe to say that they would use the millennia old method of language lessons to keep their departure day English intact, even if they used Spaceian (or whatever) as their 1st language. It's just education. Not the re-invention of the wheel.

[@Califoryan]

Watching the show Ascension would give a pretty good perspective of this video.

[@justincase6387]

Actually the weight is not an issue if the ship would be built in orbit with ressources gathered in space. Then stocking it up with many trips from earth. Also this ship would not land on the destination that would be absurd, you'd have more shuttles for landing crew and equipment and the ship would never leave space/orbit. I don't know why he didn't bring that up

[@ShadowzGSD]

imagine spending multiple generations to get to some destination only to find out you have been beaten to it, because in the time it took to get there we came up with the technology to get there in a few days.

[@jamiecoxe7327]

Some of the challenges can be solved with AI. For example, providing education and ensuring language consistency. Don't allow language drift for any preexisting words. VR may help provide the needed release from day to day activities and provide a common positive impression of their end goals, show how the contribution of those before them, support what they are doing for the generation after them. Give everyone a purpose is key. There's nothing more important than ensuring their family is safe, healthy, and happy.

[@cashmoney923]

Awesome video. This is an amazing idea. In my opinion, humans would need guidance at some point during the journey. We can't really manage to get along on 🌎... We would need a super intelligent Ai that oversees (aka) ''keep the peace''.... Also, the Ai would need to be virtually alive... In order to monitor and maintain all vital systems on the ship. We would need a real star trek type computer system ...

[@wilfridwibblesworth2613]

Imagine if a speck of dust crashed into the ship really quickly... They would need to have a *_really_* fast vacuum cleaner on board to hoover it up before it happens! I vow to start selling them now so I will make a fortune in the future - Anti-Dust hoovers.

[@JimAllen-Persona]

Just steal a deflector array from a passing starship 😂

[@benjamintoro4129]

There's a bunch of water on the ship. When it gets "close" to its destination they could split the water in to rocket fuel. It could also act as radiation shielding.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

You'd either have to have unreasonably big water reserves, or you'd already have to be very close to the destination indeed.

[@Sumo264]

There is a game called colony ship that takes place in one of these.

[@ertemkiziltan1971]

I think the population problem can be solved with cloning. To be exact, creating clones when the ship arrives at its destination and then letting them reproduce natually via banging.

[@tomcat124us]

No need for Cloning, just do what Insterllar did, have bank of fertlized eggs and dozen incubators and incubate as many as you can then have the poplulation incubate the eggs.

[@QuicksilverSG]

4.5 RPM is equal to one complete rotation every 13+ seconds. At that angular velocity, the outside surface of a cylinder 448 meters in diameter would be moving at around 235 miles/hour. Standing on the inside of such a rotating cylinder would feel like you were balancing inside a huge silo spinning at over four times the maximum speed of a roller coaster. This would induce a paralyzing sensation of nausea.

[@benjaminlombaert1998]

replacing parts would be the biggest issue

[@robertmarchand1346]

This was pretty awesome Simon...

[@vincentzhou-zm1cm]

This ship will be perfect to survive an apocalyptic disaster

[@broccanmacronain457]

I would think more of a skeleton crew with gametes in frozen stasis until arrival at the destination. Of course, the skeleton crew and their offspring would have to be more than dedicated. but this would reduce the size, food, and water requirement. Water can also be used as shielding.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

That's an interesting idea how to tackle the issue of genetic diversity, indeed.

[@redhothotsauce451]

Maybe by the time a generation ship gets about half way to its destination, we advance enough to catch up to it quickly. Just follow its path with our faster space crafts.

[@michaeltuite5510]

I like the "solution" to the knowledge issue presented in Warhammer 40k - colony ships were equipped with a device/system called an S.T.C. It was basically a supercomputer with intelligence just below true A.I. that not only held all of earths knowledge at the time it was built, but was capable of innovation and was hooked up to what amounted to a giant ultra capable 3D printing system. Need a tractor to farm your new colony? here's the best possible one based on examining existing designs and analyzing the specific needs on this world. Need to learn how to use that tractor? no problem, here's a custom training manual. It could solve the language issue too since it will have learned the new language and is aware of the old. Admitted this a SUPER Sci-Fi solution that amounts to a Deus Ex Machina, and it was created by humans in like the year 10,0000 or something in the Warhammer setting or something like that, but I think it shows a good approach to follow when developing tech needed to colonize other worlds. Fabrication would be a big deal - a huge part of a generation ship would have to have easily understood systems to take things like asteroids and make the most of every little bit of it. The ship would absolutely have to be an entire supply chain/production means for EVERYTHING even before reaching the new planet.

[@dalton6173]

Yeah also most studies suggest that you need at minimum 2000 for real genetic diversity but then again they are assuming that you're starting out with people who are already living in a local population... So 500 might be able to do it if they're genetically diverse enough. However the likelihood of them ending up related after just a few generations is extremely high.

[@Chris.Davies]

You are apparently unaware that hitting a single grain of interstellar dust at 10% of C has an impact the same as a .5 caliber sniper rifle. And hitting a grain of sand has a yield 50-tons of TNT. So you need a forward facing shield which is wider than the ship, and extremely deep. And you need to be able to turn your engines to face diagonally forwards to protect them in the deceleration phase. This is just basic stuff.

[@MusicalRaichu]

How to live together on a new planet? I thought Plato addressed that problem 2K+ years ago.

[@xAnAsianx]

For fuel, I wouldn't expect the ship to actually take off and land on its own. I would assume it'd be built in space or somewhere with less atmosphere, like the moon, to make things easy and use smaller transport ships to actually leave/enter the planet. That does fall more into science fiction though. closest thing we have to that now is the very large ships just to get a handful of people to the ISS

[@HansDunkelberg1]

The whole concept of a generation ship has to be considered science fiction anyway - hasn't it?

[@david_melech]

Just a thought.. Should the crew/population of generation ships be allowed to have (full) control of it? What if after an x number of generations, a revolution/mutiny breaks out and they want to turn back to earth, nulling its mission..?

[@captainspaulding5963]

Ahhhh, but you then have the problem that is presented in 2001 A Space Odyssey. Now yes, the concept of AI taking over is still somewhat laughable right now, but by the time we advance enough to make any real headway into intergalactic space, our understanding of AI will have had to keep up. Would you be willing to trust the population of a generation ship to something beyond our control?

[@devincreislerstudios]

Red Dwarf!

[@jackesioto]

Inevitably, a whole culture would evolve on the star ship, as those aboard would spend centuries or millenia in complete isolation. I'd be surprised if people on the ship didn't start evolving into a different species of hominid, due to the insane time scales and isolation

[@Forsworcen]

You could also not stop at the destination and instead spend a few years in orbit around the star at said destination while dropping off a few hundred colonists that want to stay then continue onward, no slowing down necessary (or at least less) and you also have a long while to restock supplies.

[@totalermist]

Relative speeds are a thing my friend. If you want to reach your destination in a couple of hundred years, you'd have to travel at a signification fraction of light speed. This exceeds the escape velocity of anything but a black hole's event horizon by orders of magnitude. You'd simply shoot by the target star in mere hours instead of orbiting it. Delta-V of orbiting and landing on a planet are insignificant compared to the difference in velocity between stars and relativistic space ships (i.e. a few km/s vs. a few thousand km/s).

[@HansDunkelberg1]

As totalermist has explained it: you'd still need a hell of a lot of slowing down to park in an orbit around a star, with a ship traveling a few light years in a few hundred Earth years. Hardly less than if you landed on a planet of such a star immediately.

[@elliotsmith9812]

Most analysis I have seen give the mass and volume of fuel required for a. Chemical rockets b. fission rockets c. fusion rockets d. anti-matter rockets and e. singularity drives. For a through d it is spectacular, and large compared to the habitat. If you have lived for that long on a ship, an uninhabitable solar system would seem like paradise in comparison. Ideal you would send several ships in case one dies, but... cost money. So probably not a big open space like the Navoo, but compartmentalized with visits every year or two.

[@ljdasilva3139]

The real question is what sort of society would have developed by the time the GS reaches its destination - would the generation after the original travellers be angry and bitter to be forced to live and die on a mission they did not volunteer for and never set foot on a planet or breathe fresh air? Would they rebel and want to be taken back to Earth? It's a cruel world.

[@MaxRideout]

Okay, the language part seems pretty silly to me, cause the people on such a ship would be born into and live their whole lives immersed in Earth-made media, so it's not like generation-six kids would suddenly be unable to watch Mister Rogers and understand what he was saying.

[@ronchappel4812]

The mental aspects are something that would be near impossible to plan for.There are so many ways things could go off the rails! You mentioned several already. Some other ways: One psycho ending all life by damaging the ship.Depressed later generations wanting to (collectively) end it all. Arriving at the planet but everyone decides to stay on the ship because they're used to that life. Weird religions,all out wars, the list goes on and on. Personally i'm fascinated by the biological aspect.We all carry masses of other biota within ourselves.This helps us digest food along with other vital functions .Will that survive the trip? Will everyone's lifespan decline from certain bacteria dying off?Will everyone have permanent health issues? Until we learn everything about that area i think it's inevitable most will succumb to sickness.

[@Mark73]

Also, the only way we're making something that big in space is to get into asteroid mining.

[@lyrapsi]

Follow me on this: small AI-driven ships, assuming there is some sort of electromagnetic shielding, would have bots to repair the ship and a manufacturing facility with 3D printers to replace worn-out parts. There would also be repair bots to maintain the bots themselves, as well as bots to maintain the ship's interior. All the ship would need is a very secure, temperature-controlled, and radiation-protected vault to store embryos. With 3D technology, it's even possible for the AI to use 3D printers to create eggs and "print" all the necessary genetic data for the lifeforms. This includes not just humans but all necessary lifeforms. Furthermore, when these ships arrive at other worlds, drones could be sent to the planet's surface to sample the genetics of the local life. The human genome could then be rewritten to create a humanoid creature capable of surviving on that planet, along with its domesticated animals. Storing our data in diamond crystals would make it feasible to store a significant amount of genetic data in those crystals, which would be relatively well protected from cosmic damage. These ships wouldn't need to be very big or require as much power as ships carrying living persons. There would be less concern about cosmic particle damage to the genomes. Of course, for this new civilization to work, AI and humans would have had to achieve a symbiotic relationship beforehand.

[@Issac-eg5ek]

You don't need a generation ship, as long as you travel really fast, you could get there quickly, if your spaceship traveled at 99.99 percent the speed of light. You would reach a solar system 100 light years away in about 1.25 years because of length contraction, and length contraction is real, it's not a illusion

[@Patrick1985McMahon]

NASA determined that 80 people is the min population for long term travel not 500. you would need 20 men and 60 woman. This could create a colony. That can last. While the language would change over time. If the archives are used in the schools to teach then the language would still be rooted on the arcive data. Thus they would still understand it and know what to do.

[@ajfarr8481]

Before generation ships ... prototype would be legrange point space station around earth and the moon .. Akin to medina station and expanse. And side stations in gundam series

[@xTerminatorAndy]

I think the ship should be built in space. Takeoff and landings are by far the most dangerous part of any mission. And having come all these thousands of generations later to a planet that may not even have a breathable atmosphere, then to land your ship and kill everyone .... that. does. not. make. sense. You absolutely NEED a lander. To scout, to get additional resources etc.

[@vijayanchomatil8413]

The Ship will be built in Orbit and astroid mining will be required to build the ship. Also the ship wouldn't need to land at the new location, just reside in orbit.

[@akgarada]

We are a long way from such technology. I would not worry too much about language or what to do when we get to our destination. These have doable resolution. We probably going to need populations in thousands, if not tens of thousands, for this to reliably work. If will come down to size. Can we make what is basically a rotating habitat? And this must be built in space.

[@brianpembrook9164]

Water is also, kinda, easy. Unless you are traveling specifically to a system right next door you can find yourself flying close to other systems or plan a stop. Water, or rather ice, is quite common and minning it should be rather easy at the point of technological growth. 8:35 getting it off the ground will be impossible without enough rocket fuel in a disposable tank to move the ship at escape velocity; like our current rockets. (Assuming the 400k ship is structurally sound on ground level and is able to survive surface to space). We will need a space elevator just to get started. Getting out of atmo might be sufficient even if we are not quite out of gravity.

[@Phoenixspin]

I volunteer if I can have a sweet loving wife and a side chick.

[@ScottJPowers]

I think a more likely reason for an "intergenerational" ship would be that something terrible has happened on earth and the survivors need to leave asap. Then they would create ships that can sustain large populations of people indefinitely while they look for a new home. or maybe some some people just want to leave earth and its people behind and leave on such a ship with no specific destination in mind, with the idea they might eventually find a new planet to call home. Also, intergenerational ships would be a much more economical solution to expanding our population into space than terraforming a planet.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

What a sort of terrible thing happening on Earth might serve in such a role?

[@KhaoticDeterminism]

Better question: how long would it take to get to Proxima Centauri at Interstellar speed? 🤔🤔🤔 56,500 ish years.

[@totalermist]

What's "interstellar speed"? Natural macroscopic objects (asteroids, comets, etc.) move at a few km/s - so 10,000+ years. Using technologies we know today and cannot build yet, but that maybe are available in the foreseeable future, we could get to about 0.1% the speed of light. This would bring travel time down to about 400 years. Using technology we know _might_ exist, but have no clue how to build, we can get there 10x faster than that, so about 40 years. The practical limit would get us to roughly half the speed of light and ~10 years seems plausible given the currently known limits of physics and material science.

[@jlmwatchman]

After watching this representation of what is needed for a generational spaceship, my mind was running MAD, but I slept well after focusing on the audiobook about… Okay let us start with his calculations; 500 people arere necessary to start a stable human habitation on a new world. That sounds right, but every other calculation is questionable. First, the city spaceship doesn’t need to be over 200 meters wide and 20 meters tall to hold an Artificial-Gravity Space-Settlement. The Hypergravity Vehicle Habitat will run on MagLev Rails, because of the little power they consume and they are very stable. Yes in space within a protective shell that is 200 meters wide and 20 meters tall to hold the Orbital Space-Settlement with two nuclear generators. A space tug will tug the Settlement to a stable orbit around the Sun where it will be self-sufficient for the 500 residents that can grow to thousands. The AI that will run the habitat will have robots constantly mining the asteroids they pass annually, not far from the orbit they follow. There will be robots constructing new Artificial-Gravity Space-Settlements for the humans to move to after the 500 grow to thousands… We will never send a Generation Ship outside the Sol System because the likely hood of survival is too slim.?? We might send a ship with an AI to help a human civilization to survive after terraforming the planet enough for human seedlings to flourish…? Written by Gregory A. Dorais from NASA Ames Research Center; “The interior of each car is expected to be customized to meet the needs of its occupants and managers. Car types are expected to include at a minimum living quarters and workspaces. Other car types may include dining facilities, farms, aquariums, pools, arboretums, botanic gardens, factories, gyms, sports centers, markets, meeting rooms, etc.”

[@pendurton3081]

I am LOVING surfer Simon 😂

[@chrispeterson8781]

Guessing unless we figure something out about faster than light travel this will never actually work or be our ultimate method. Instead being aware of Breakthrough Starshot I envision something more like Project Starseed. Small AI computer sent with test tube babies. Makes way more sense if we are able to miniaturize our generation ship with one generation and an AI to raise them when they get there. Easily done at 20% C.

[@OpalholicsAnonymous]

7:38 couldnt you use processing of human waste and gasses plus the same from the farm and animals so that over the 1000 years you could produce enough fuel to break. Do you dont need the weight of fuel for initial launch but can reate it enroute?

[@darthyetgon]

I don't foresee the language being an issue being how all of their equipment and technical panels and all their readouts would still be in the mother language now as far as verbal speech Yes I can foresee that changing

[@timrorabaugh9874]

A generational ship would need to be constructed in orbit.

[@oscarsainz9865]

i feel like some people born on the ship would not wanna be alive out there knowing they’ll never be on a planet in there lifetime 😅

[@mrmr446]

How close are we to a functioning cryo-sleep? This would surely solve many of the problems.

[@AeriFyrein]

Pretty sure Simon has an episode on cryogenics, and the answer was basically "not even close." LOTS of hurdles to go through for that to be a reality, and that is assuming a very good working environment. A spaceship housing cryo pods would inherently add a few additional layers of problems: the space required for the pods; any machinery/backup machinery (and likely, double/triple/more backups due to their importance) and said space for all of that; space for and/or materials to create any "fuel" needed for the pods (i.e. some form of blood replacement fluid); lots and lots of replacement parts to keep everything functioning for thousands of years; likely at least a few additional passengers to act as technicians/maintenance, above and beyond the number needed strictly for genetic diversity. In addition, while we already aren't anywhere close to technology necessary at present, even if we developed a working method tomorrow, we'd still need tens/hundreds of years of testing to see how long the process was actually viable for. It could very well be that cryo could work for an entire journey of a generation ship. It would also be entirely within the realm of possibility that cryo will only work for a few years at a time, perhaps a few dozen, before people need to be revived. It is also highly likely that cryo would induce at least *some* form of permanent/semi-permanent damage that might preclude people from undergoing the process multiple times, or at least not without being "awake" for a decent span in between cycles.

[@richardpeel6056]

A generation ship would be built with the best technology available to the constructors at the time of construction, many problems discovered during construction would be solved as they went along. Once the ship was launched all the people involved it's it's construction would then not only have the skills to build another generation ship but to build a better generation ship. With new technology discovered during and after the construction of the first generation ship, the 2nd generation ship would be considerably faster than the first generation ship and therefore require a smaller population and would arrive at the destination before the first generation ship arrives. The third generation ship perhaps with a cryogenic crew would be even smaller and faster then the 2nd generation ship and arrive even earlier. If cryogenics for adults is impracticable it could carry cryogenic embryos and nurseries staffed by robots. When the first generation ship actually arrives the later and faster ships will have already established a colony and snapped up all the best land and resources.

[@justinyates1154]

So the name change on this channel doesn't really bother me, but that other channel will forever be business blaze

[@AnthonyBullard]

I dont understand the assumption being made that there would be no communication between Earth and the ship. True, real-time communication goes out the window pretty quickly, but i think that research, news, and media would be constantly shared. If you are headed to a star say 4 light years away, the max lag is 4 years(8 years bidirectional). That is on par with the propagation of ideas within recent human history. One last note, it os possible that as we gain greater propulsion capabilities, we might send automated craft to intercept the ship and upgrade it as well as resupply it with stuff like water, hydrogen, etc

[@PRCOM]

As long as you dont let the tories or snp onboard

[@philly83]

Are we there yet?

[@glennnile7918]

It's very hard to figure out how to word comments to avoid further visibility restrictions. Unless you are just a cheerleader. I'm already down to 1%. That being said, due to human nature you would need more than one ship. Many more.

[@Seriksy]

How many channels does this guy have, that's the real question here

[@zollen123]

Does a fix size generation ship allows population growth?

[@Reladan187]

We are never leaving our solar system. Im quite sure of that. I don’t think any civilization is. The distances are way too huge to overcome. And even if we would reach the closest stars, theres nothing really there for us. We could however populate the solar system in the future, but I think any meaningful journey to the stars with humans on board is out of reach. Forever and for everyone in the universe

[@PhilippusPistor]

Another problem would be the energy source to keep everything working. Such a ship would require huge amounts of energy and even if you cover all its surface with solar pannels, I doubt you would have enought light in deep space.

[@danielbrstak5730]

Only a nuclear fusion. We can also use hydrogen as a fuel from the Jupiter's athmosphere or Helium 3 from the Moon for aneutronic fusion reaction. Fission is out of question because we would storage large amount of uranium.

[@randyranderson690]

if you desgined the ship with decks set up like a skyscraper, the thrust from the engines could supply the gravity, much like in the Expanse. Also it also might look like a mobile Babylon 5.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

Accelerating with 1 g (= the equivalent of gravity on Earth), you'll reach 90% of the speed of light after about one and a half years. This will bring you to Alpha Centauri in less than a decade - which would mean that you'd have to have a very specific farther destination to justify a generation ship.

[@man_at_the_end_of_time]

Lunar or asteroid industries are lowest bidders as they aren't in such a deep gravity well. And if the drive is an aneutronic fusion torch drive, the trip might be as little as ~ fifty years one way. This would coming from a solar system already containing long term rotating colonies with recycling habitats. And with suggest technological base, the ship would be bound towards something that is pretty well understood. Further, if it is a space habitat based civilization, a planet may not be the goal.

[@Alien1492]

Why build a spaceship when you can fit out an asteroid that's full of useful raw materials?

[@OLDMANTEA]

So, no one is growing coffee on this ship?

[@richardturner2455]

An Aircraft Carrier Carry's a crew of 3000. But why weigh the LONG haul when halfway to the moon could be a way station for vessels in transit. Long hauls can be advanced generation CARRIER GROUPS for support. Remember you can continue to BUILD in transit - A space station above Mars and so on... Stepping stones. Way stations between the earth and Mars?

[@ItsPizza.]

Digging the new channel name

[@TryForLink]

I’ve always thought you missed the mark when you didn’t name the channel, “The Science Of Fiction”

[@scottmoore6131]

That they would have to maintain a replacement level to their children.

[@ecofriend93]

Any generation ship that has farmed animals will be doomed to failure because of the energy requirements. Just have people eat the plant foods directly instead of getting them to animals.

[@shamrock3957]

farming once you arrive is easy AF, just keep doing what you're doing. No need to go away from Aeroponics, just build more Aeroponic facilities as needed to meet the growing needs of growing populations, problem solved.

[@mho...]

My hope is still on FTL being possible *somehow* 🖖 o_O 1:35 you say ds9 isnt like the enterprise? they both use magical gravityplating! i think *Babylon5* would have been the right choice!, specially, because you go on talking about "the drum" shaped ships afterwards.

[@captaincrooked9051]

Another important factor to consider is technology stagnation of the ship compared to earth. If the generational ship takes 1000 years to get to its destination, will earth have discovered faster then light technology by then? could the generational ship be outrun by a newer, more modern ship, and arrive to a planet that has now already been colonized by humans who had much faster ships, which then adds another level of risk to the generational ship, this risk of it being completely redundant in its role.

[@devc1258]

Why didn’t you mention cryogenic sleep?

[@ash_calisthenx]

Another MAJOR problem would be space debris in many forms, shapes and sizes for example asteroids and small rocks travelling at hundreds of thousands of km/h. The ship would need some form of "force field" that could withstand direct hits as it travels through space.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

The major contribution to the force of such impacts would come from the ship's own speed, I'd like to annotate.

[@ash_calisthenx]

@@HansDunkelberg1 exactly.👍🏻

[@JonPITBZN]

"The easiest way [to shield against radiation] is just make the walls thicker in the inhabited parts of the ship." Technically yes. The easiest way to shield against radiation is to use the walls of the ship in the inhabited areas as water storage.

[@lavenderlilacproductions]

It would likely look like Onmuamama: a long space rock/ slushball until you see the glow of the VASIMIR as it leaves.

[@brettbridger362]

I'm glad you approached this topic with such optimism. And no, I'm not completely being sarcastic. I will throw one point in, though, using water as part of the radiation armor will help with the long term water problem. This would allow for some redundancy there. Also, building in space and arriving in orbit will make some things easier, removing the issues of having to lift off and land most of the ship's weight (also allowing the use of lunar regolith for the rest of the shielding). You would also build it with the intention that you would increase the population close to arrival, so the required specialty skills could be trained. This would also allow for redundancy. Say if you planned to have three times the population on arrival, that would mean you have enough resources in stock to triple your food and environmental production. This would allow a good buffer in case of unplanned failures.

[@Marcus_Postma]

I was looking in the comments to make these same observations.

[@tomich20]

For the lenguaje if people is teached by an AI at the ship they will always learn the same and language won't change. And if it does it would be slow enough so we can retrain the ai with this new variations and it can translate all human knowledge. Information with computers is an already solved problem

[@brettbridger362]

@@tomich20 David Brin covered this in his fiction book 'The heart of the Comet'. But there, it's not the spaceship that has a language drift, but Earth. This book covers the idea of converting a planetary body to a generational spaceship and is more than worth a read.

[@stumilesyt]

Sign me up to your generational ship Captain Bridger, you sound like the man for the job!

[@emeraldfinder5]

@@tomich20 I mean, AI uses a hell of a lot of power, not sure you want that sucker active 24/7

[@markc1548]

FYI, water kept in tanks around the ship would actually be very good radiation shields, using less weight than "steel radiation shields". Plus Hydrogen can be easily kept in the form of water, yes it can be done safely in purpose built areas of such a massive ship with a bit of reserch I'm sure.

[@jtasakorn]

Yes. Hydrogen/water would likely be the propellant of such space ship, but how much is needed for the journey also dictates the size of the ship (it's a risky bet to rely on harvesting of probable space ice in empty & unknown interstellar space). Fusion reactors and drives would likely be the tech for energy. This is currently just beyond our reach, and we do not yet have the tech to convert abundant plain hydrogen into fuel for fusion; the ones needed are rare and extracted from natural sources.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

@@jtasakorn Dennis Whyte of MIT currently does build a small fusion reactor which you can expect an economic operation of. It certainly would fit into a generation ship of the size envisioned by Whistler.

[@mikep9690]

​@@jtasakornthe ship would have an ion drive powered by cosmic rays.

[@fuzzy3440]

Wouldn't multiple ships make more sense? I would think at least 3 habitable ships, and a large number of automated support ships. That reduces the risk of catastrophic failure dooming the entire mission.

[@SkyRoy]

Ships have to be a minimum size, or humans have huge problems with the simulated gravity. You can't just make 3 tiny ones and have it work properly. I am sure any sensible design would include small automated repair ships, as you say.

[@jili4214]

Probably the first ship that faces a catastrophic failure will try to attack the others to harvest their spare parts/ resources or conquer them to continue their travel

[@GonzoTehGreat]

There are broadly 2 types of internal problems they might face: technical and psychological. The former is best addressed via redundancy in the technology, such as multiple AI, life support and propulsion systems. By contrast, putting more humans on other ships won't make solving "human" problems on board a particular ship any easier, but if these ships can communicate with each other, or even better, visit each other, then this could be a significant psychological advantage. Consequently, a single mothership consisting of several, self-sufficient smaller ships, each with their own crews, might be the way to go.

[@runeingebretsen8378]

They have build the spaceship like a uboat where there are doors that can close of sections of the ship,and there must be personal safe cabinets for one person with a spacesuit,plus extra air and food just in case.

[@lance8980]

@@SkyRoy This guy was saying that you would have multiple ships of the required size. So if one ship broke down you have 3 extra ones

[@iangregory3719]

Simon, I'm not sure Deep Space 9 is the best comparison. A better analogy would be Babylon 5. 5 miles long, 2 mile diameter, slowly rotating with the habitable areas on the inside face of the cylinder. If the outside were to be covered with something like Polyethylene or Polypropylene, materials with a high Hydrogen content it would block most of the outside radiation.....or just hollow out an appropriate sized asteroid.....like Omouamoua.

[@ulariv1701]

hollowed out asteroid would still need to be reinforced outside, since spinning it up might break it apart otherwise.

[@martykarr7058]

@@ulariv1701 Read the book "Gypsy Earth".

[@martykarr7058]

Remember the Cortez from B-5. The design might have begun life as a generation ship, but was sidelined when Earth met the Centauri and got access to jump gates.

[@GonzoTehGreat]

_"like Omouamoua"_ Are you suggesting what I think you are...?

[@saintsinner6195]

I see Generation Ships becoming popular at a key point in the future when the increasing quality of life offered on the ship intersects with the decreasing quality of life available on a more and more polluted and overpopulated earth.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

Why do you expect such a competition between generation ships and only one planet? Other planets of the Solar System will certainly gain strong populations long before the first generation ships are built. Such other planets could easily develop a much lower quality of living than the one of Earth.

[@OttoSigvardt]

Ah, another great episode of what will eventually be Space Blaze

[@ThatWriterKevin]

Damn, now I wish I pitched Science Blaze to Simon when we were renaming the channel

[@planetdisco4821]

There’s been some great science fiction novels dealing with the generation ship trope. Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson was one of the most recent I’ve read and actually dealt with a few issues that I can’t recall other authors bringing up, such as the ships biosphere starting to collapse after over a century in flight because all the bacteria on the ship evolving in a closed-loop system much faster than the larger organisms and becoming incompatible. He also points out that while the initial crew are freely leaving earth behind by personal choice, the subsequent generations certainly are not and are eventually filled with a sadness and longing for a mythical home world that they unfairly never allowed to exist on. It’s not actually a particularly happy book tbh but then I can’t recall one of the many novels I’ve read that are set on a generation ship to say they’re a great idea lol. Other honourable mentions are: Orphans of the Sky. R E Heinlein. It’s one from a long time ago and may not be very PC by todays standards Hull Zero Three. Greg Bear. Really good! Non-Stop. Brian Aldiss. Loved that one! Anyway, think I got it right! There’s many others feel free to list below if you’ve bothered reading this far lol

[@Russo-Delenda-Est]

Heinlein having... questionable... moral and ethical ideas? Nah, that doesn't sound like him... 🤣

[@Lethgar_Smith]

The story has been around for a while. Universe, by Robert Heinlein is probably the most well known telling. It was adapted to more than one radio play. They're available on KZbin. I recommend listening to those old sci-fi radio anthologies. They're pretty good. The first sci-fi story of this topic, I believe was a story titled Tani of Ekkis by Aladra Septama published in 1930.

[@planetdisco4821]

@@Lethgar_Smith thanks mate, I’ll check it out 👍

[@marcopolo2730]

Books of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe. The whole New Sun series is great.

[@broccanmacronain457]

Tau Zero by Poul Anderson is also a good book on long term space flight.

[@ZeroKage69]

I thought this was a new channel but I'm already subscribed lol

[@jaygibbons7488]

Lol same

[@jrmckim]

Same

[@ThatWriterKevin]

Just a new name since we've branched out from strictly Science Fiction topics

[@thejudgmentalcat]

Me getting a notification for "Science Unbound": wtf? I've never subbed to...DAMN YOU SIMON!!! ...it's okay, I'm okay 🥴

[@stephaniep8879]

Every time I’ve considered how a generation ship scenario would work out I’ve always wound up concluding that every two or three generations there would be a ‘revolution’ (whether actual fighting or just a philosophical shift) and they would decide that no, they don’t want to go to this planet, their forebears had no right to make this decision, and (assuming they had some kind of self generating power source to work the breaks) they’d turn the ship around to go back to Earth. Then a generation or two later they’d have another revolution, decide they had a sacred duty to complete their mission and turn the ship around again, and just spend the rest of forever zigzagging back and forth across the same empty expanse until the rest of humanity, in their fleet of much more advanced ships, caught up to them and asked WTF they were doing here, they were supposed to arrive on planet X 200 years ago and would they like a lift?

[@usmcson3]

Lol id self destruct before i let a bunch of whining baby communist take over

[@FablestoneSeries]

I thought about writing a book where they finally arrive at their destination. the ship is all they've known. it wasn't their choice and now they must land on a planet. their geologists have never seen rocks, their biologists have never step on land, their carpenters have never seen a tree, no one has a clue what they are doing, and no one wants to be there. Everyone is a textbook expert with zero real life experience. None of them have seen weather. probably none of them have seen an animal. they are likely all terrified of even the most harmless fluffy cute creatures.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

@@FablestoneSeries That's an interesting scenario. It just suffers from an egocentric bias, inasmuch as a person born on such a ship would certainly consider his or her _own_ life as the real deal. They'd laugh about people who have never traveled on a generation ship, for decades.

[@FablestoneSeries]

@@HansDunkelberg1 they MIGHT laugh, but i doubt it. Not after watching thousands of hours of our television and movies and seeing all the comforts they left behind. It is an interesting question. They might also be anxious about leaving the familiarity of their ship, and they could very likely all suffer from a degree of imposter syndrome.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

​@@FablestoneSeries They'd likely be the descendants of an elite of genius engineers and military test pilots, the gene pool of whom would not have been diluted. Actions of a demanding caliber in fixing their ship may provide a sound basis for self-confidence, while their laughter could rather be stifled when they see how _little_ comfort a planet reached affords. Life on their ship may altogether have been more luxurious than what life at other places until then would have been like. So they rather could scold into what ridiculous, terrible conditions they have plunged. Self-doubts developing in such a situation would certainly appear as a plausible scenario too - especially when the spear-wielding natives arrive, on their super-quick, six-legged mules.

[@grejen711]

Some alternate solutions to explore - even if just as a sciFi experiment. For most of these the ship, or ships, would need to be much much bigger but maybe still plausible. 1. Don't stop at destination. Save huge amounts of fuel by slipping into orbit around the target star and explore the system. If there's a usable planet then shuttle a portion of the population over. Eventually the mother ship(s) can push on to the next target system. 2. It's an inside out Earth so there could be a full on agrarian society alongside a technical one. 3. Massive volumes of media brought along should stabilize the language issue. 4. People have been believing in the second coming of Jesus for a couple millennia. Wrapping them up into something much more tangible should be pretty easy. 5. Sense of mission (see 4.) would smooth things a lot. 6. A technical hurdle is the radiation. Too much of the wrong kind and not enough of the right kind. Could it be converted. Scoop interstellar radiation to build a power source? Yeah SciFi for sure here. Still one of my favorite SciFi vehicles.

[@lunatickoala]

Regarding No.4, while technically true, over the past couple thousand years there've been multiple schisms and a lot of wars between different sects with different interpretations of their beliefs. Through shifts in language, changes in tradition, and some intentional re-interpretation for political purposes (see: passing a camel through the eye of a needle), much of the original intent will be lost.

[@olencone4005]

@@lunatickoala And thus came the days of the Great War, whereupon the citizens of Deck 4 and Deck 5 did throw themselves into battle against each other to determine the definition of Directive 1279-4b, subsection 41, paragraph 17, which stated that the corners of sheets should always be tucked but did not specify which corner should be tucked first... and after much great debate, so the War began........ :P Seriously tho, yeah, people have begun wars or violent feuds over some of the most trivial of reasons here on Earth... pack all that into a much smaller space, and it's bound to eventually trigger someone :(

[@totalermist]

Regarding 1) - how would that work outside of magic? The velocity of a relativistic space ship exceeds the escape velocity of a typical star by at least 2 orders of magnitude. There's no such thing as gravitational capture for objects moving at a significant portion of the speed of light. Heck - we've witnessed what happened to Oumuamua and that thing only travelled at 26 km/s relative to the Sun and just whizzed by it. Now imagine what would happen at 3,000 km/s - a mere 1% the speed of light.

[@Sienisota]

​@@lunatickoala That's because Bible and religions are based on philosophy. Make this one based on easily provable concepts that everyone can test. Basically a book of Scientific method. It doesn't instruct how anyone should live their private lives: Basically, everyone would need to work for living (just like humans always had to, collecting resources or building shelters), but privately, as long as they aren't actively harming the community, everyone can do what they like. No rules on right type of sex, clothing etc. They do their work, and no-one cares what they do on their free time. What that ship needs is a punishing system for broken rules. And a system of imprisonment if someone starts to become a danger to themselves or others. Punishment system could just be restrictions on past time activities: If the person plays games on free time, no access to games until the bad behaviour has demonstrative stopped etc. Imprisonment comes if there is any violence towards rest of the crew, or sabotage towards the ship. The place would need cameras everywhere, with footage being accessible to everyone, if there is a conflict (to ensure the actual culprit is the one getting in trouble.) Also on language: we already have AI translating languages. We make them an AI that observes their own communication, keeping the original meaning of the language in its databanks. Basically they would only need to add their own words to an AI that is keeping the the original language, keeping the translation available. Everyone has a mandatory poll every year, putting down as much synonyms as they know for words that the AI gives them. Those poll results can be used to trace back the original language centuries later.

[@watcherit1311]

​@@Sienisota People are still fighting about flatness of Earth, mask wearing, or massive 5G conspiracy... So no, scientific method is not answer to everything 😀

[@southcoastinventors6583]

I think the title of this video should be if we build a generational ship now because all the problems you mentioned are already solved by the time one would actually be built plus people would die on them at that point. Genetic diversity would be a problem now since you could just freeze a bunch embryos and thaw them out when you needed them.

[@captainspaulding5963]

Really? We've solved the problem of people losing skills? Let's take building a house for example because it was brought up in the video. Now, I can read, do math, and use a variety of power tools. But I wouldn't be able to build a house right now if my life depended on it! And I'm living on earth, with all the information and tools necessary available to me. Now think about a ship, in the middle of interstellar space.... in just 100 years from now, why would anyone need to know how to build anything that WASN'T part of the ship?

[@RHCole]

The visuals on this channel are the best!

[@HansDunkelberg1]

In this video there does indeed occur grandiose futuristic imagery.

[@ignitionfrn2223]

1:25 - Chapter 1 - The design 5:40 - Chapter 2 - The technical hurdles 9:05 - Chapter 3 - The human problem

[@RichardBenoit-q4z]

I added a few things that might need to be discussed and/or answer questions. KZbin gave that handle, I am just Richard Benoit.

[@kinderdm]

The language thing shouldn't be too much of an issue. I mean on Earth, we have lots of people who speak "dead" languages and can read ancient script. And that's with many of them having to be discovered after the fact and re-learned. I think in the case of a generation ship, where you plan on the language changing over time, you would just have some people who's job (at least one of their jobs) is to be an expert translator of Ancient (most likely) English. They are the keepers of the old knowledge until its needed and can serve as translators if there is communication with Earth (who also has likely had their language evolve and would also have translators). Alternatively, the colony ship could be supplied with a constant stream of media from back on Earth that would keep everyone on board in sync with the overall changes in language. Sure, the ship would have some regional dialect as they're probably not communicating back, but there's no reason the ship needs to be cut off from the current earth culture by anything other than travel time of that signal in one direction (decades at most) and so their language would likely closely mirror what media they are consuming from Earth. And with that communication available, you just need to be sure you can read the old manuals as a backup. Because ideally, you would be updated with the latest technological advancements from Earth that you can utilize with the equipment you brought. Sure, you won't have the newest Earth technology, but you would have multi-hundred-year advanced ways of using and repurposing what you brought, and even knowledge on how to make new better stuff if you're capable.

[@HansDunkelberg1]

Such a constant updating based on a media stream from Earth sounds as if it could well be exploited for fiction. Do you know examples?

[@fubaralakbar6800]

I think relativistic travel is probably the best we are going to get--and to be honest it's not that bad. A lot of people have the misconception that what feels like a few weeks would actually be thousands of years--but that's only true if your destination is thousands of light years away. If you're going to Alpha Centauri, that few weeks would actually be only four years--less time than Cassini took to get to Saturn!

[@HansDunkelberg1]

Very good point. Apart from it, you also have a clearly measurable reincarnation-like phenomenon in this universe - which makes it less terrible to leave your home century behind.

[@scooby45247]

i disagree on the language analysis: im pretty sure if everything is written in english and spoken in english future generations will learn english.. they might have a variation such as elizabethan english vs modern vernacular but its still translatable.. common language over multiple generations without reliable communication for hundreds of years is exactly what england proved possible by trying to colonize the world.. case and point - Spanish in Americas, English in Americas, French in Americas, English in Aus.

[@ewalker9051]

And on top of that there will probably extensive records of all of Earth's civilizations, languages, and histories. I mean, if Simon had read anything by Anne McCaffery in the Pern series this problem has theoretically been solved.

[@ThatWriterKevin]

The language analysis is based on things that already happened to humans on Earth. Even if it is a form of English, the need for new vocabulary, as well as language adapting over time anyway, may make it virtually unrecognizable.

[@Adyen11234]

The ship also needs to be built in space, since it would need to be built on the idea of the centrifugal force is how people would stand "up" thus if it was built on Earth it would need to 1) Break through the gravitational pull of the planet, and 2) Have rooms that work on both in the directions where the Earth's gravity is "down", as well as the centrifugal "down".

[@ckl9390]

Depending on how long or fast it would be accelerating a stacked toroidal structure may be better than a pure cylinder structure. There would be both the potential for centrifuge "down" and acceleration "down" as a by-product of simply getting up to speed.