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NASA’s Ames Director Announces “100 Year Starship”

by Jason Rhian on October 20, 2010

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The Director of NASA’s Ames Center, Pete Worden has announced an initiative to move space flight to the next level. This plan, dubbed the “Hundred Year Starship,” has received $100,000 from NASA and $ 1 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He made his announcement on Oct. 16. Worden is also hoping to include wealthy investors in the project. NASA has yet to provide any official details on the project.

Worden also has expressed his belief that the space agency was now directed toward settling other planets. However, given the fact that the agency has been redirected toward supporting commercial space firms, how this will be achieved has yet to be detailed. Details that have been given have been vague and in some cases contradictory.

The Ames Director went on to expound how these efforts will seek to emulate the fictional starships seen on the television show Star Trek. He stated that the public could expect to see the first prototype of a new propulsion system within the next few years. Given that NASA’s FY 2011 Budget has had to be revised and has yet to go through Appropriations, this time estimate may be overly-optimistic.

One of the ideas being proposed is a microwave thermal propulsion system. This form of propulsion would eliminate the massive amount of fuel required to send crafts into orbit. The power would be “beamed” to the space craft. Either a laser or microwave emitter would heat the propellant, thus sending the vehicle aloft. This technology has been around for some time, but has yet to be actually applied in a real-world vehicle.

The project is run by Dr. Kevin L.G. Parkin who described it in his PhD thesis and invented the equipment used. Along with him are David Murakami and Creon Levit. One of the previous workers on the program went on to found his own company in the hopes of commercializing the technology used.

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For Worden, the first locations that man should visit utilizing this revolutionary technology would not be the moon or even Mars. Rather he suggests that we should visit the red planet’s moons, Phobos and Deimos. Worden believes that astronauts can be sent to Mars by 2030 for around $10 billion – but only one way. The strategy appears to resemble the ‘Faster-Better-Cheaper’ craze promoted by then-NASA Administrator Dan Goldin during the 1990s.

DARPA is a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense whose purview is the development of new technology to be used by the U.S. military. Some previous efforts that the agency has undertaken include the first hypertext system, as well as other computer-related developments that are used everyday. DARPA has worked on space-related projects before, working on light-weight satellites (LIGHTSAT), the X-37 space plane, the FALCON Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle (HCV) and a number of other programs.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA has been involved with a number of advanced technology projects. Image Credit: DARPA

Source: Kurzweil

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Tagged as: DARPA, future technology, Technology

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  • Hellvis

    @ROEN

    Tacitus has it right, so I’ll not repeat that point. But your sense that this would only serve ego is so errant it’s scary. You seem like you’re trying really hard to come off as an intellectual superior by repeatedly belaboring the word choice of others, but you also seem to have no understanding of scientific method and discovery. In essence, your argument’s only value is its irony: you insult the intelligence of others (arrogance in action) while stating that others’ use of insults proves your point about mankind being too arrogant for another planet. Way to go. Maybe we should just ban YOU from going to another planet.

    If the world worked like Sid Meier’s Civilization series, sure, you could prioritize scientific discovery and green solutions and do everything one at a time; to the contrary, we as a society multi-task and make numerous amazing discoveries in different areas that support growth of still more scientific advancement.

    “I know we’re all doomed. I don’t hold any hope for this world.”

    Then why in the blue hell would you a) bother making any argument, b) want to stop us from escaping said alleged doom by developing interplanetary colonization, c) not want to see such an initiative succeed to rid “mother earth” of these pesky humans?

    Your platform appears to be environmentalism wrapped around a core of misanthropy. Old hat.

  • Jacqo

    @Roen
    More species have gone extinct before humans ever populated the earth, whome do we blame there?

  • Roen

    @lotusface: You raised some very valuable points. Not that I am reassessing my stance, I’m not. Just saying that until now, I’ve not read a single intelligent response to my points.

  • Roen

    @tacitus:

    Your first point is a strawman argument and worthless.

    your second point misses the point. Those that fill others on this planet with the hope of a different world only serves to cause them to give up on this one. THAT was the point.

    Your last point I agree with, but only in part. NASA are up at bat, they are doing real work toward mitigating the climate change issue. Great. But I challenge you to reveal exactly what advantages colonization will have for EARTH. I’ve never, ever, stated that all of space should be ignored until another time. That is a fiction you seemed to have created all on your own… and another strawman.

  • Roen

    @Hellvis:
    “But your sense that this would only serve ego is so errant it’s scary”

    Well, well… you do need to provide the quote where I stated that.

    “You seem like you’re trying really hard to come off as an intellectual superior by repeatedly belaboring the word choice of others”

    No, I’m trying to come off as one on the moral high ground. Which I am.

    “Maybe we should just ban YOU from going to another planet.”

    No need to. I love my planet too much to abandon it. Bye, enjoy destroying the environment of the next one.

    “Then why in the blue hell would you a) bother making any argument”

    Because all of us had the chance to avoid this mess and far too few of those that mattered (those that COULD have curbed their CO2 emissions and didn’t, those that COULD have run corporations with more care for the environment and didn’t, etc) have even bothered.

    Because some here still drive gas guzzlers, knowing that they’re pumping more of the problem in the atmosphere.

    Because now that the climate change, that we were all warned about in the 70′s is here and didn’t care to change things in 40 years, need to be beaten over the head with the fact.

    Because all the nations bickering over what they’re willing and unwilling to do, naysayers with blinders on discrediting science with bogus facts, those that have their heads on other planets while driving that huge GMC, Ford to Seven Eleven for caffeine, nicotine, and cholesterol need to eventually get it in their heads that it’s THEIR fault.

    “b) want to stop us from escaping said alleged doom by developing interplanetary colonization,”

    Strawman argument. You have no idea what my motivation was. What I want is for all you people with hopes of other planets to live on to focus on this one.

    “c) not want to see such an initiative succeed to rid “mother earth” of these pesky humans?”

    Because now that the damage is done, all that research power and money Worden plans to put toward this misconceived notion NEEDS to be put toward fixing the damage.

    Still not getting the point? Still up with the attitude toward Roen for following his heart and doing all he can to give his children a planet this will not be dead in 2055?

    Didn’t think so. You’re far too gone. But my hope is for the lurkers who’s minds can still be swayed, because regardless of how lame you feel my efforts here are… every bit counts.

  • Roen

    @Jacqo: Before humans arrived it was natural processes that killed them off. Humans didn’t cause those. But now we live in a time where humans have achieved unmitigated power over the planet and that power is destroying it.

  • high_school_astronomer

    Okay people, no need to be rude with each other. Let’s face it… NASA is not going to be doing any of this any time soon. It would take too much political will spread over too many administrations. It just won’t happen. So this whole argument over the ethics of colonizing space is pointless. If bases are built on the moon, it will probably be by Bigelow Aerospace or SpaceX. In that case it is private money being spent and there really is nothing you can do about it, like it or not.

  • high_school_astronomer

    And by the way… I fully agree that the governments should be pumping more money into stopping global warming than space exploration. Leave space exploration to private entities…using environmentally friendly spacecraft.

  • tacitus

    Fabulous — I see Roen has unilaterally declared himself the winner. Congratulations, Roen, I see we are no match for your razor-sharp debating skills and penetrating logic. You truly are a legend in your own lunchtime. What next? Are you going to tell us that physicists should stop their experiments into quantum teleportation until we’ve weaned ourselves off fossil fuels because it might lead people to believe that they will be able to teleport around the world one day?

    Now, back to reality…

    My second point was simply that all this talk from officials like Worden and this other nutcake who feels we’ll have a Mars colony very soon is promoting a feeling of relief we can ill afford, for relief breads complacency.

    Mmm — relief breads sure sound tasty….

    But this is really where your entire argument separates it from reality. Who, pray tell, is in the slightest bit relieved that we could have a colony of Mars “very soon”? I have never met anyone who thinks that, not in real life or online.

    As I said before, the very notion that a Mars colony could provide an independent base from which humanity (let alone any other life on Earth) could survive calamity within the next two or three hundred years (at the very least) is utterly dumb.

    And the only people dumber than people who believe for one second that planning for an outpost on Mars in the next 50 years allows us to relax over the threat of climate change are those who seem to believe they are on a mission to correct them of their dumbosity,

    Arguing with idiots (none of whom is in evidence here anyway) make you the bigger fool.

  • tacitus

    By the way, I don’t believe I told you to shut up — or that you should be banned.

    Why would I want you to stop being able to make a fool of yourself?

  • Roen

    @high_school_astronomer: “NASA is not going to be doing any of this any time soon. It would take too much political will spread over too many administrations. It just won’t happen.”

    I agree. But the bigger underlying issue is the false hope for a different planet non-learned people will and have seized upon. We’ve all been lulled into complacency by this rat-race perspective of survival. We’ve all been conditioned to get more and more frivolous stuff of poorer and poorer quality and not given the choice of better. Out to the waste bin nearly all of it went/goes. As stated, in 1970 we all knew this would happen. General Motors EV1 had the EV1 from 1996 to 1999. But some people killed it, didn’t they? Who fought to get it back? Not enough, obviously, because the EV is still dead.

    For the last 40 years we’ve been saying “someone will figure it our before it’s too late”, but it is now too late and no one bothered trying to figure it out, and when they did they were shut down, shut out and shut up.

    @all: Which brings me to the next comment. I won’t shut up. I didn’t then and I won’t now. It is morally, intellectually and scientifically correct to be the biggest pain in the arse I can be. Those of you who did nothing need to be harassed up one side and down the other, because you deserve it. Those of you who defend the waste of money on efforts unnecessary to survival of our planet, deserve all the discomfort my words can offer. I will always be the voice in the chorus that throws the whole song off key.

    “And by the way… I fully agree that the governments should be pumping more money into stopping global warming than space exploration. Leave space exploration to private entities…using environmentally friendly spacecraft.”

    I agree with this too, but on the grounds that private companies be forced into the moral behavior they rarely ever show.

  • Roen

    Just using UT as a cross section of humans I did a quick poll of the views here in an effort to show everyone just how bad this is. I divided those that placed comments in 3 camps.

    The No’s (Those don’t believe that our planet deserves our full attention before it’s dead) = 4

    The Yes’s (Those the seem to agree that the money that could be spent in this proposal should go to saving life on Earth) = 3

    The Neutrals (Those that don’t seem to care one way or the other) = 5

    Of all those tallied above, those that are useless in saving Earth = 9 and those who really seem to give a crap and see the problem = 3.

  • Spoodle58

    The level of funding this project is getting is very small but enough to start a study like project daedalus (barnards star probe) but on a interplanetary scale with a human crew, would be interesting to see private companies involved. I hope they consider a nerva type engine in some designs.

  • Roen

    Correction:
    The Neutrals (Those that don’t seem to care one way or the other) = 6

  • Spoodle58

    Roen help save the planet from CO2 emissions and go and turn your computer off.

  • Roen

    @Spoodle58: lol :) . Actually My wife and I have exceeded the conditions detailed in the Carbon Footprint Challenge. How are you coming along with that?

  • Spoodle58

    Well said Tacitus, thats exactly how it is.

  • William928

    @TACITUS,
    Bravo!. I think most of us that visit this site are conscious of and interested in doing what we can to mitigate climate change. However, as you point out, this is a space site, and we primarily come here to learn about and discuss topics related to the universe. The reason that most who discount climate change do so is because of people ranting as ROEN has here.

  • HeadAroundU

    STFU, Roen. :D

  • Roen

    “(something the vast majority of us have just about as much chance of doing something about, individually)”

    40 years of that kind of thinking passed off as wisdom is what brought us here.

    “Amazingly, you also seem to believe that people can’t wish for and dream for both outcomes (colonized worlds and a better Earth) at the same time”

    You proved that very well all on your own.

    “bashing people for dreaming of other worlds is utterly pointless. (Except maybe to stroke your own ego, I guess.)”

    I agree it’s pointless for those like you. As for the stroking of my own ego you’re doing the stroking very nicely for me. I mean, you obviously feel that my view points have enough merit to attack them so vehemently.

    The more you attack, the more you oppose, fight and try to thwart moral logic, the more you show those who can actually be swayed to think about where the government funds are going and why.

    “Even if NASA decided to invest every penny into colonizing Mars, it would hardly shift the dial at all.”

    You did the research and calculations yourself? Or is this just another of your trumped up fantasies passed off as evidence?

    “Finally, it might have also sailed over your head that this is a web site about space, and people come here to get away from the worries and troubles we encounter back here at home for a while.”

    You’ve polled everyone who reads UT? Impressive. It’s interesting to note that in the process of counter-accusing me of strawman arguments you made another one. The simple fact is, and it doesn’t surprise me that it’s so complicated that you missed it, there are 2 others here that agree with my basic premise. See, that’s clear evidence that anyone who has read this exchange can see discredits your claim that “people come here to get away from the worries”. Unlike you I actually read all the view points, took an impartial tally of who felt what about this issue. With that and the fact that UT has not yet silenced me. So until they do (which I really doubt) it’s like UT telling me that I’m fully welcome to express my views here. Gotta love freedom of speech, eh? :D

    “Just as pointless….”

    The only thing that is pointless in all this is your effort to shut me up. Keep going, though, because the more you oppose my valid views the more credence you give them each time.

    and BTW…
    Corrections:
    The No’s (Those don’t believe that our planet deserves our full attention before it’s dead) = 6

    The Yes’s (Those the seem to agree that the money that could be spent in this proposal should go to saving life on Earth) = 3

    The Neutrals (Those that don’t seem to care one way or the other) = 5

    11 to 3 for those who don’t care.

    “However, as you point out, this is a space site”

    Again, unless and until UT blocks me they are saying I am fully allowed to express my views and concerns. You may not see that my concerns are unrelated, but that’s your own failing.

    For the record, however, I’ve left far more space related comments here on UT in the past than environmental comments.

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