SF Starships

Science Fiction Starships

Reality always starts from the imagination and science fiction literature is an enormous source of ideas from which many concepts and designs could emerge. This is why we created the educational course 'Science Fiction Starships'.

One of the wonderful things about science fiction is that often the artists who create the concepts are not inhibited by a vast knowledge of physics and engineering and hence they will often take inspiration from organisms in nature. Whilst it may be true that these abstract concepts may not represent anything that could ever be built in our universe, elements of these concepts might be.

This course is a one day workshop, which ideally builds on the Starship Engineer course, although it doesn't have to. Typically the participants will be given several lectures followed by a team workshop session. Teams then present their answers to the problems they have solved.

Many fascinating starship concepts have come from the works of science fiction literature, but how realistic are they? In this one day course we examine concepts such as laser-sails in "The Mote in Gods Eye" (Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle), Torch Ships in "Time for the Stars" (Robert Heinlein), Quantum Ramjets in "The Songs of Distant Earth" (Arthur C Clarke) as well as other inspirational examples of interstellar vessels.

This course teaches you how to evaluate ideas from the imagination and how to perform a physics and engineering assessment of their feasibility.

Typical Schedule

Typically a Science Fiction Starships course will consist of:

If you would like to find out more about the course or book a place on the next available one, then please get in touch with us at info@i4is.org.