Thanks to Prof. Chris Welch, International Space University, for the opportunity to co-deliver the Interstellar Module to ISU students this year again! We deliver two-weeks of lectures and hands-on projects on world ships! Members of the Initiative for Interstellar Studies have access to video recordings of the lectures that the i4is crew presented. The videos […]
Starship Blog
With the recent creation of the new i4is website, along with the newer blogs, we have included a selection of previous Starship Blog posts from our archive which we hope you will enjoy browsing. If you would like to write an article and have it appear on our web site, then get in touch with us.
Project World Ship
World ships are hypothetical, large, self-contained spacecraft for crewed interstellar travel, taking centuries to reach other stars. Due to their crewed nature, size, and long trip times, the feasibility of world ships faces an additional set of challenges compared to interstellar probes. Despite their emergence in the 1980s, most of these topics remain unexplored. This […]
i4is World Ships featured in Medium OneZero
We are proud to announce that our research on world ships has now been featured in an article on OneZero, “Scientists Are Contemplating a 1,000-Year Space Mission to Save Humanity” by Corin Faife. The article generated a stream of other features such as on Futurism. From the article: There’s no principal obstacle from a physics […]
Project Lyra featured in Wired
Our new Project Lyra research was featured in Wired magazine. Project Lyra assesses the feasibility of missions to interstellar objects such as ‘Oumuamua and Borisov.
David A. Hardy – AI interstellar probe paintings
We are proud to have legendary space artist David A. Hardy among our ranks. He created two wonderful paintings of AI interstellar probes, inspired by the paper by Andreas Hein & Stephen Baxter published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. The probe’s characteristic features are large solar panels at the front for generating […]
i4is World Ship journal article published
We are proud to announce that our article on world ships, huge, self-contained generation ships, has now been published in Acta Futura, the journal of the Advanced Concepts Team of the European Space Agency. The article provides a concise overview of the state of research on world ships and generation ships and touches on the […]
Freeman Dyson passed away
With great sadness, we received the message that Freeman Dyson has passed away on the 28th of February 2020. He was 96 years old. A distinguished physicist, Freeman Dyson was a member of the i4is Advisory Council for many years. Many obituaries have already appeared. In the following, we would like to honor Freeman by […]
i4is at BIS Space Day
The BIS Space Day was an event held at The Hive, Worcester to celebrate space, astronomy and anything astrophysics! This event was open to the public and anyone with an interest in space was welcome to explore the activities on offer. Did you get involved with the BIS Space Day on 5 October? You may […]
i4is Headquarters
The Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) was delighted to host the second Foundations of Interstellar Studies Workshop (FISW II), between 27 and 30 June 2019 at The Bone Mill, its headquarters in Charfield, Gloucestershire, UK. The workshop was highly successful, with participants discussing many aspects of deep space and interstellar flight, from living in deep […]
Results of our poetry competition: the inspiration of space exploration – from Apollo to the stars!
In issue 25 of Principium, published in May, we challenged i4is members and supporters, and space fans more generally, to mark the 50th anniversary of the first manned Moon landing on 20 July 1969 by writing a poem to show how interstellar exploration can inspire us just as much today as the epic achievement of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins did half a century ago, during the Apollo 11 mission.
Hein – Baxter AI article featured in Ciel et Espace
Ciel et Espace features Stephen Baxter and Andreas Hein’s article on AI for interstellar travel. Ciel et Espace is the most wide-spread French astronomy and space magazine and can be found in almost any kiosk in France.
Catching ‘Oumuamua
Our Project Lyra team has published a second paper, showing that missions to ‘Oumuamua are not only possible short-term (2020-2024) but also during the next decades, with launch dates in 2030, 2033, and even later.