Going Interstellar (collection)

There is a way around this, but it does not seem practical for high-speed flight. As tabulated by Eugene Mallove and Gregory Matloff in The Starflight Handbook (Wiley, NY, 1989), both deuterium and Helium-3 exist in the interstellar medium (and the solar wind) at concentrations of a few parts per hundred thousand. If it is possible generate electromagnetic scoop fields hundreds of thousands of kilometers across, collect the fusion fuel from the hydrogen ions, and fuse the deuterium and Helium-3, some form of ramjet might be possible. But it will be a far cry from the dream ships of Bussard, Sagan and Schlovskii, Anderson, and Niven.

Fortunately, the ramjet idea was too attractive to abandon. So a number of less capable alternatives to the proton-fusing ramjet have been proposed. Some of them might just work.

* * *

Further Reading

Many journal articles have been written in recent decades about interstellar propulsion using thermonuclear rockets or ramjets. Most of these articles have appeared in Acta Astronautica, an organ of the International Academy of Astronautics published by Elsevier Ltd. In Oxford UK and in The Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, published by the British Interplanetary Society in London.

A number of books have been written that review and describe the results of the technical papers. One of these, The Starflight Handbook (by Eugene Mallove and Gregory Matloff and published by Wiley in 1989) was designed to appeal to both technical and non-technical audiences.

A somewhat more recent, but more technical compendium is Prospects for Interstellar Travel (by John H. Mauldin for the American Astronautical Society and published by Univelt in San Diego CA in 1992).

The third and most up-to-date of the books considered here is the second edition of Deep Space Probes (by Gregory L. Matloff in 2005 for Springer-Praxis in Chichester, UK).

PROJECT ICARUS A Theoretical Design Study for an Interstellar Spacecraft Dr. Richard Obousy

“Standing on the shoulders of giants” definitely describes the task being undertaken by Richard Obousy and his colleagues as they work to design a realistic interstellar spacecraft based on state-of-the-art engineering. The shoulders upon which they stand belong to the Project Daedalus team that performed a similar study in the 1970s for The British Interplanetary Society. Led by Alan Bond, Project Daedalus became the standard by which all interstellar spacecraft concepts to follow were judged.

Named for Icarus, Daedalus’ son who flew too close to the Sun and fell to his death, Obousy’s international team is designing a craft that will hopefully avoid its namesake’s mistakes and harness the power of the sun to someday give us the stars—Project Icarus.

* * *

Motivations for Project Icarus