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Project Hyperion: The Hollow Asteroid Starship – Dissemination of an Idea
by Andreas Hein
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 hollow body creating artificial gravity. An artificial fusion Sun brings daylight to the dark interior. A team of bio-life-support system experts, urban planners, and ecologists starts to create an artificial world inside the balloon, preparing it for the first settlers. The small world is then provided with a propulsion system and launched to one of the next stars or used as a space colony.
Asteroid starship construction from [3]
Source: http://thewesternlines.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/page883.jpg
Dandridge Cole imagined this vision of constructing a manned starship / space colony in the 60s in his book “Islands in Space: The Challenge of the Planetoids” [1]. His concept was picked up several times, for example in the book “Macrolife” by George Zebrowski [2]. One of the most popular accounts to the concept was made in the book “The World of the Future – Star Travel” by Kenneth Gatland and David Jefferis [3]. David Hardy also imagined how such a concept might look like in Carl Sagan’s well-known “Pale Blue Dot” [4]. Gerard O’Neill himself takes account on Cole when he introduces his idea of space colonies, although his colonies are made largely of material from the Moon [5].
Although the original concept of directly melting an asteroid is probably not very attractive, Cole created an important link between artificial space colonies and manned interstellar flight. This link was later recited by Gerard O’Neill and Gregory Matloff [5, 6]. Both see space colonies as a precursor to generation and colony ships, in order to gain experience with sustaining life in space over extended periods of time. Whether or not such a logical link between space colonies and manned interstellar flight exists, is currently assessed within Project Hyperion. This is a vital issue as its clarification helps to identify technology paths to realize manned interstellar flight.
[1] Cole, D. M., and Cox, D. W. “Islands in Space: The Challenge of the Planetoids”. Philadelphia, Chilton Books, 1964.
[2] Zebrowski, G., “Macrolife: A Mobile Utopia”. Harper & Row, 1st edition, 1979.
[3] Gatland, K., Jefferis, D., “World of the Future – Star Travel”, Usborne Publishing, 1979.
[4] Sagan, C., “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, Random House, 1st edition, 1994.
[5] O’Neill, G.K., “The Colonisation of Space”, Physics Today, 27, No. 9, 32-40, September 1974.
[6] Matloff, G.L., “Utilization of O’Neill’s Model I Lagrange Point Colony as an Interstellar Ark”, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, Vol. 29, pp. 775-785, 1976.
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Awesome, do the R&D & capture some asteroid to build this megaship, wild.
Ideal stuff for SyFy movie or other Sci Fic or for another Star Trek movie alone.
Not a bad start. I would expect our technology would improve over the next century so we’ve long-range, low-cost robotic construction going on to build these huge ships. I also think it very unlikely they will be without human crews. But great enterprises all begin somewhere, so I am most pleased to see this under discussion. AD ASTRA!
My novel ‘Hollow Moon’ (a YA space opera) centres around an asteroid colony ship – in the book, I named the ship ‘Dandridge Cole’ in the hope it would rekindle people’s interest in Cole’s work.
It would fly apart from all the rotation as all of it would be subjected to the forces of the rotation. It would be better to coral a number of asteroids together, cabling and welding them together with thermite, nuclear bombs, lasers or a solar collector. Then support a manufactured rotating habitat inside the cavity formed by the asteroids. That way, the centrifugal forces are supported by non-rotating ( or slowly rotating ) mass which doesn’t have to support their own weight.
I concur that this is a practical idea. I also reckon that the life span of humans will be extended to ensure that the majority who start also arrive.
I have technical query.
A starship rotating producing an artificoal gravity of 1g makes sense. However, to go anywhere it must accelerate linearly so creating artificial gravity at right angles to the rotation. So what is the maximum percentage of g that would work without the effect causing real problems?
I saw that book when I was a child and it probably wired my brain for space; I looked at it recently (45 years later) and find I have been thinking along his lines ever since. A sphere many miles in diameter is really a Bernal Sphere (proposed in 1929) except for spinning it for gravity. I think a sphere will be the shape of habitats, not O”Neill cylinders.
I read both Cole’s and Zebrowski’s books as a young pre-teen many years ago, and have never forgotten them. I think the elliptical bubble world is an elegant use of space based resources. I do disagree on the use of a sphere except for extremely large constructions. As you travel up the “hill” of a rotating sphere the gravity lessens. For small construction, say spud shaped cylinders 10 miles long and five or so across, it is likely easier to do that than a sphere. Would have to do some engineering match to see if the material of a typical nickel-iron asteroid can handle that rotation.
This same idea was in a book called Macrolife written by George Zebrowski in the 1990′s. FANTASTIC CONCEPT!
I agree with John above. The concept of spinning a ship to 1g… or even near to it… is IMPOSSIBLE. The asteroid would fly apart unless you reinforced it. Think of it in the following way: 1g “gravity” on the inside, pointing out, is greater than the surface gravity of any asteroid, and so the surface of the asteroid gets thrown out into space as the rotation overcomes its surface gravity. The asteroid eventually falls apart as various stresses losen and disloge its components. A smaller spin rate, that would stop the asteroid falling apart, would provide very small aparent gravity… probably insufficient to keep humans and other life healthy over the longe term. I’d suggest the following: 1. Keep the body of the asteroid hollow for storage and perhaps functions that do not require gravity… perhaps an algae farm, biological sample storage, computers, etc. 2. Build human quarters on top of towers tall enough and aligned with the spin in such a way that at the top they would be spinning fast enough to have 1g apparent gravity. 3. Evacuate humans to the interior of the asteroid if radiation increases, etc.
One thing here. It doesn’t get you to the stars, but your nuclear fusion stuff. This is relevant maybe for the near future. Orbit hte sun, charge your capacitors with solar energy, free energy, then even if your fusion is only partly successful the energy you do get from it is free. You could store this to release it at night maybe or for later in the capacitors, if your solar cells are in darkness. It may turn out useful, I don’t know. Why not just solar cells I suppose. Just an idea.
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