Aerospace, Engineering
Unmanned spaceship concept for interstellar travel
Our universe is vast that we cant even imagine its size. But what we can imagine is travelling through this dark space. Galaxies are light years apart which makes interstellar space travel a hard task to accomplish. It is necessary to develop spaceships that could help us find answers in wild space.
This futuristic concept is explained in the artistic impressions by Adrian Mann.
Scientists and engineers at Icarus Interstellar Inc and DARPA are working towards making this dream come true. DARPA’s 100Year Star Ship Project focuses on building a possible life supporting spaceship system to travel through the deep space.
According to Richard Obousy, President and Co-Founder of Icarus Interstellar, they are working on a new antimatter-rocket system. Vacuum to Antimatter-Rocket Interstellar Explorer System (VARIES) is an unmanned spaceship that uses the antimatter to propel the star ship into the space.
As per quantum mechanics, vacuum of space has bursting particles and antiparticles that appears and vanishes. VARIES propels by harvesting the antiparticles before they collide with particles and use them to generate an electric field with help of a laser system.
The laser to be used here requires a very high intensity and it depends on future developments in laser technology. The images show the spaceship’s laser system in operation as it feeds the antimatter particles to the apparatus.
Like the Destiny spaceship from the Stargate Universe TV series, the VARIES starship need to be designed to recharge itself when it travels near a star. With a large array of solar panels, it is possible to generate enough power for its laser system.
Credits: Icarus, (Image) Adrian Mann, Discovery, Metro Goldwyn Mayer
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