Introduction
The Ultimate Project has been launched !
The Ultimate Project, a Plausible Path to the Stars, went live at 9:28 on March 11th, 2007.
For an introduction to the project download Dr. Steve Kilston's presentation (20 MB PDF)
, given as the Dinner Keynote at the 2nd International conference on Space Mission Challenges for IT (SMC-IT). For other Generation Ship concepts see the Wikipedia entry. Dr. Kilston's presentation stands out from its science fiction counterparts because it constitutes an existence proof: There does exist a mission plan and spacecraft design which is plausible.
Recent News
Atlassian has generously granted us a license for their Confluence and JIRA collaboration software packages. This contribution will allow us to base our collaborative The-UP efforts on industrial strength Wiki software (Confluence) and requirements/issue tracking software (JIRA) from the very start. -- 10 April 2007 (PDT)
We launched The Ultimate Project Discussion Forums on May 11th, 2007.
The Ultimate Project Portal was implemented as a fixed point in the web universe on May 13th, 2007.
The-UP will be presented at a poster session during the JPL Exoplanet Fair on Friday February 22nd, 2008. The poster can be downloaded at PDF format from this link.
What ?
The Ultimate Project is a project to get the human species and our scientific understanding to planets in neighboring solar systems. The project is very ambitious, spanning hundreds of generations, but still quite plausible from a scientific and technical perspective.
Why ?
As humans we are driven to explore and extend our presence wherever we can. Scientific exploration is not limited to any one lifetime, the results of one generation are passed on to the next and so it is with The-UP. The reason for missions like the Terrestrial Planet Finder NASA mission and the Darwin ESA mission is not to just find such planets and then not try to get there. The Ultimate Project is "A Plausible Path to the Stars" and habitable planets beyond our solar system. We embark on the project to further science, both in the near term and way beyond our expected lifetimes.
One of the main program challenges will be to formulate a mission plan which offers near term benefit to the contributors while maintaining an absolute commitment to the long term objective. It is not reasonable to assume that enough long term visionaries will be found to staff a project of this size without help from those who need the additional motivation of short term benefits
What is The Ultimate Project Not ?
The Ultimate Project is not a plan to escape from the Earth, but to explore, and expand our presence beyond the boundaries of our solar system.
Precedents
[Notre Dame], [the Great Wall of China] ... ?
Schedule
As a first cut, 500 years from project inception to launch towards a new habitable planet.
- [100 years to develop the plan]
- [100 years for a detailed design]
- [100 years for prototyping and demonstrating technologies]
- [100 years to assemble the materials, get them into orbit and construct the spacecraft]
- [100 years to conduct a shakedown cruise in the solar system]
Budget
On the order of [one year of the gross domestic product of the world] spread over 500 years.
Crew
On the order of one million travelers.
For reference, the vibrant Icelandic nation has a total population of about 310,000. Of course, Iceland is in instant contact with the rest of the world which allows for a healthy exchange of ideas which will not be available to the The-UP crew, but the Icelandic genetic pool is healthy at just over one quarter million inhabitants.
The selection of the The-UP crew will pose an interesting challenge. Who should be priviliged enough to board and how is The-UP best served by the selection process ?
Spacecraft
A cylidrical shell, 2 km long and 2 km in diameter. 10 or more decks of habitable space. 1 g gravity provided by 1 rpm rotation. Outermost shell filled with water for radiation shielding.
Technical Project Challenges
The-UP offers a huge assortment of challenges in almost all areas of human experience and understanding. The main currently identified topics for research and development are listed on the Research and Development page, but even that list may be incomplete at this early stage.
Organizational and Cultural Project Challenges
No human goal-driven endeavor to date has spanned the amount of time anticipated for The Ultimate Project. Even if The Ultimate Project progresses considerably faster than currently anticipated, due to the increasing pace of technological advances, it will still span an almost inconceivable number of generations.
An immediate realization is that The-UP can not be tied to any one nation. The project has to be a project which includes all of humanity regardless of nationality. How does such a nationless organization exist in the real legal, financial and cultural world ?
The currently identified non-technical challenges are listed on the Organizational and Cultural Challenges page.
The Organization
At its inception The Ultimate Project consists of three founders:
- Dr. Steve Kilston who first made us aware of the possibility and serves as Mission Director #1 and Principal Investigator
- [Sven U. Grenander] who is managing The Ultimate Project formation and start-up and is The Ultimate Project Manager #1
- [Nancy J. Grenander] who manages The-UP operations
One of our first serious tasks will be to draft and agree upon a Constitution for The Ultimate Project.
We are planning the first The-UP retreat during the Summer of 2008.
Operations
Due to its magnitude and international nature The Ultimate Project will operate principally over the net.
Collaboration software:
Since The-UP is not a funded project we rely almost completely on Open Source Software (OSS), donated software, or otherwise free software.
Current Events
The-UP Foundation
The Ultimate Project (The-UP) was founded on March 11th, 2007
Because one of the many important steps toward realizing The-UP is to find one or more promising destination planets, NASA's planned Terrestrial Planet Finder mission may be of considerable value both toward an ultimately successful search and in building enthusiasm. Near-term TPF-related meetings are for TPF-Lite (Mar. 16 in Princeton) and for the Navigator Program (TPF and other planet-finding missions, May 17-18 at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA).
Joining The Ultimate Project
For the time being we are restricting The Ultimate Project contributions to registered users. To find out about getting involved please e-mail us and let us know
how you would like to get involved.
