One of the Directors of Icarus Interstellar, Robert Freeland, talks with Hailey Bright about the business and financial elements associated with the construction of a starship. He also expands on some of the technical issues including fusion power and fuel for a...
Asteroid starship arriving at an alien world by David Hardy, from [4] Source: http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/6797/asteroid2.jpg A large space mirror heats up an asteroid, slowly melting it. Water, which was injected into the center of the body expands, blows up the melted material, creating the shape of a balloon. After cooling down, rotation is induced into the...
written by Daniel Pütz Imagine you’d wake up from a deep long slumber and the first thing you’d see would be something like this http://www.enjoyspace.com/uploads/news/decembre2009/avatar/pandora-avatar.jpg Maybe you recognize the picture, it is Pandora from the movie Avatar. The point here is that Jake, the protagonist, travels to Pandora while sleeping, or more scientifically spoken, hibernating....
Starship Tel has been making progress on his Daedalus model for the Icarus team. Here is his latest report and some stunning photographs below: The photos show reaction chamber (2nd stage), part of the support structure and induction loop, so far. The support structure has caused me a major headake but im getting there....
Sheila Kanani introduces her Icarus Interstellar Interviews (I3). In this first interview she talks with Milos Stanic about his PhD research into Plasma-Jet driven Magneto-Inertial Fusion (PJMIF), his contributions to Project Icarus in the field of fusion propulsion, and his interests outside of...
Recently it was announced that one of the pioneers behind interstellar research, Dr Les Shepherd, had passed away. Les was a pioneer of atomic rockets (with Val Cleaver in 1949), interstellar flight (with his seminal 1952 paper) and international co-operation in the pursuit of space, being one of the founders of the International Astronautical Federation...
Sometime in the 1960s the physicist Robert Duncan Enzmann came up with the idea of using huge spheres of frozen Deuterium, mined from the gas giants, as the main fuel for so called ‘Slow Boats’. These are large vessels but much smaller than conventional world ships. Enzmann seems to have imagined these vessels travelling at...
Rob Swinney, Module Lead for the Navigation and Guidance Module talks with Hailey Bright at the 100 YSS conference in Orlando Florida, October...
The First Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop was a workshop organized by Les Johnson (Deputy Manager for the Advanced Concepts Office at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama). The workshop was a two day event held in Oakridge on November 28th and 29th 2011. The two videos below (part 1 and...
Jim French, Project Icarus Propulsion Scientist, being interviewed by Hailey Bright at the 100 Year Starship Conference in Orlando, Oct...
Have a look at this Project Icarus Team Members Map, and see where all the Project Icarus team are located. Thanks to Tiffany Frierson for putting this map together.
Lead: Ian Crawford Definition: The target system: including the primary and any secondary stars and any possible planets and belts of smaller bodies. The primary driver for the choice of target destination will be high science return: especially planetological and astrobiological data from the close up imaging of terrestrial planets or satellites. Scope: Information concerning [...]
Lead: Kelvin Long Definition: This includes a complete description of the vehicle layout with all dimensions and components defined. Orthographic projections will be required as well as 3D models. Scope: The total component and mass breakdown of the Daedalus vehicle should be compiled. Several engineering sketch options for alternative vehicle layouts within the existing Daedalus [...]
