{"id":3149,"date":"2025-08-15T18:44:26","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T18:44:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mycbh.com\/Games\/spaceperium\/jgd80soqarxftumki6tzo3db9jqptctc\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T18:44:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T18:44:26","slug":"jgd80soqarxftumki6tzo3db9jqptctc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mycbh.com\/Games\/spaceperium\/jgd80soqarxftumki6tzo3db9jqptctc\/","title":{"rendered":"Generation Ships and their Consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Generation Ships and their Consequences
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\"Generation <\/p>\n

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Our ongoing discussion of the Project Hyperion generation ship contest continues to spark a wide range of ideas. For my part, the interest in this concept is deeply rooted, as Brian Aldiss\u2019 Non-Stop<\/em> (1958 in Britain, and then 1959 in the U.S. under the title Starship<\/em>), was an early foray into science fiction at the novel length for me. Before that, I had been reading the science fiction magazines, mostly short stories with the occasional serial, and I can remember being captivated by the cover of a Starship<\/em> paperback in a Chicago bookstore\u2019s science fiction section.<\/p>\n

Of course, what was striking about Criterion Books\u2019 re-naming of the novel is that it immediately gave away the central idea, which readers would otherwise have had to piece together as they absorbed Aldiss\u2019 plot twists. Yes, this was a starship, and indeed a craft where entire generations would play out their lives. Alex Tolley and I were kicking the Chrysalis concept around and I was reminded how, having been raised in Britain, Alex had been surprised to learn of the American renaming of the book. But in a recent email, he reminded me of something else, and I\u2019ll pass that along to further seed the discussion. <\/p>\n

What follows is from Alex, with an occasional interjection by me. I\u2019ll label my contributions and set them in italics to avoid confusion. Alex begins:<\/p>\n

I should mention that in Aldiss\u2019 novel Non-Stop<\/em>, the twist was that the starship was no longer in transit, but was in Earth\u2019s orbit. The crew could not be removed from the ship as it slowly degenerated. The Earthers were the \u2018giants\u2019 visiting the ship to monitor it and study the occupants.<\/p>\n

PG: Exactly so. To recapitulate, the starship had traveled to a planet around Procyon, and in a previous generation had experienced a pandemic evidently caused by human incompatibility with the amino acids found in its water. On the return trip, order breaks down and the crew loses knowledge of their circumstances, although we learn that there are other beings who sometimes appear and interact in mysterious ways with the crew. The twenty-three generations that have passed are far more than was needed to reach their destination, but now, in Earth orbit, their mutated biology causes scrutiny from scientists who restrict their movement while continuing to study them.<\/em><\/p>\n

PG: The generation ship always raises questions like this, not to mention creating questions about the ethics of controlling populations for the good of the whole. I commented to Alex about the Chrysalis plan to have multiple generations of prospective crew members live in Antarctica to ensure their suitability for an interstellar voyage and its myriad social and ethical demands. He mentions J.G. Ballard\u2019s story \u201cThirteen to Centaurus\u201d below, a short story discussed at some length in these pages by Christopher Phoenix in 2016.<\/p>\n

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Image:<\/strong> The original appearance of \u201cThirteen to Centaurus,\u201d in The July, 1962 issue of Amazing Fact and Science Fiction Stories<\/em>. Rather than having to scan this out of my collection, I\u2019m thankful to the Classics of Science Fiction<\/a> site for having done the scanning for me. <\/p>\n

I missed the multiple generations in Antarctica bit, probably because I knew the UK placed Antarctic hopefuls in a similar environment for at least several weeks to evaluate suitability. The 500-day Martian voyage simulation would be like a prison sentence for the very motivated. But several generations in some enclosed environment would perhaps be like the simulated starship in \u201cThirteen to Centaurus\u201d or the 2014 US TV series Ascension<\/em>. Note that Antarctica is just a way of suggesting an isolated environment, which the authors indicate is TBD. Like the 500-day Mars simulation, all the authors want is a way to test for psychological suitability.<\/p>\n

To do this over a span of multiple generations seems very unethical, to say the least. How are they going to weed out the \u201cunsuitable\u201d, especially after the first generation? I also think that there is a flaw in the reasoning. Genetics is not deterministic, especially as the authors expect normal human partnering on the ship. The sexual reproduction of the genes will constantly create genetically different children. This implies that the nurture component of socialization will be very important. How will that be maintained in the simulation, let alone the starship? Will the simulation inhabitants have to resolve all problems and any anti-social behavior by themselves? What if it becomes a \u201cLord of the Flies\u201d situation? Is the simulation ended and a new one started when a breakdown occurs? It is a pity that the starship cannot be composed of an isolated tribe that has presumably already managed to maintain multi-generational stability. <\/p>\n

If we\u2019re going to simulate an interstellar voyage, we could build the starship, park it in an orbit within the solar system, and monitor it for the needed time. This would test everything for reliability and stability, yet ensure that the population could be rescued if it all goes pear-shaped. The ethics are still an issue, but if the accommodation is very attractive, it is perhaps not too different from living on a small island in the early industrial period, isolated from the world. The Hebrides until the mid-20th century might be an example, although the adventurous could leave, which is not a possibility on the starship.<\/p>\n

Ethics aside, I suspect that the Antarctica idea is more hopeful than viable. In my view, it will take a very different kind of society to maintain a 100+ year simulation. But there are advantages to doing this in Earth orbit. It could be that the crew becomes a separate basket of eggs to repopulate the Earth after a devastating war, as Moon or Mars colonies are sometimes depicted. <\/p>\n

PG: I\u2019ve always thought that rather than building a generation ship, such vessels would evolve naturally. As we learn how to exploit the resources of the Solar System, we\u2019ll surely become adept at creating large habitats for scientists and workers. A natural progression would be for some crew, no longer particularly interested in living on a planet, to \u2018cast off\u2019 and set off on a generational journey.<\/em><\/p>\n

Slow boating to star systems will probably require something larger, more like an O\u2019Neill Island 3 design. Such colonies will be mature, and the remaining issue of propulsion \u201csolved\u201d by strapping on whatever is the most appropriate \u2013 fusion, antimatter, etc. The ethics problem is presumably moot in such colonies, as long as the colony votes to leave the solar system, and anyone preferring to stay is allowed to leave. <\/p>\n

This is certainly what Heppenheimer and O\u2019Leary were advocating when the space colony idea was new and shiny. On the other hand, maybe the energy is best used to propel a much smaller ship at high fractional c to achieve time dilation. If it fails, only the first-generation explorer crew dies. In extremis, this is Anderson\u2019s Tau Zero<\/em> situation.<\/p>\n

PG: With your background in biology, Alex, what\u2019s your take on food production in a generation ship? I realize that we have to get past the huge question of closed loop life support first, but if we do manage that, what is the most efficient way to produce the food the crew will need?<\/em><\/p>\n

I think that by the time a Chrysalis ship can be built, they won\u2019t be farming field crops as we do today. The time allocated to agricultural activities might be better spent on some other activity. Food production will be whatever passes for vertical farms and food factory culture, with 3-D printing of foods for variety. <\/p>\n

The only value I can see for traditional crop farming is that it may be the only way to expand the population on the destination planet, and that means maintaining basic farming skills. The Chrysalis design did not allow animal husbandry, which means that the crew would be Vegan or Vegetarian only. In that future, that may even be the norm, and eating animal flesh a repellant idea.<\/p>\n

In any case, space colonies should be the first to develop the technology for very long-duration missions, then generation starships if that is the only way to reach the stars, and assuming it is deemed a worthwhile idea. That techbro, Peter Thiel, cannot get seasteading going. I do wonder whether human crewed starships for colonization make much sense. <\/p>\n

But multi-year exploration ships evoking the golden age of exploration in sailing ships might be a viable idea. Exciting opportunities to travel, discover new worlds (\u201cnew life, and new civilizations\u2026\u201d), yet returning to the solar system after the tour is over. It would need fast ships or some sort of suspended animation to reduce the subjective time during the long cruise phase, so that most of the subjective time would be the exploration of each world. <\/p>\n

PG: I\u2019ll add to that the idea that crews on generation-class ships and their counterparts on this kind of faster mission may well represent the beginning of an evolutionary fork in our species. Plenty of interesting science fiction to be written playing with the idea that there is a segment of any population that would prefer to experience life within a huge, living habitat, and thus eventually become untethered to planting colonies or exploiting a planetary surface for anything more than scientific data-gathering. <\/em><\/p>\n

Like the university-crewed, habitat-based starship in Vonda McIntyre\u2019s Starfarers tetralogy. The ship is based on O\u2019Neill\u2019s space colony technology, but it can travel at FTL velocities and is mostly about exploring new worlds. It is very Star Trek<\/em> in vibes, but more exploratory, fewer phasers and photon torpedoes. <\/p>\n

PG: So the wave of outward expansion could consist of the fast ships Alex mentions followed by a much slower and different kind of expansion through ships like Chrysalis. I\u2019ll bring this exchange to a close here, but we\u2019ll keep pondering interstellar expansion in coming months, including the elephant-in-the-room question Alex mentioned above. Will we come to assume that crewed starships are a worthwhile idea? Is the future outbound population most likely to consist of machine intelligence?<\/em><\/p>\n

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