Would you dare to take a 400‑year one‑way trip to Alpha Centauri on this ship?

A multigenerational ship could take 2,400 people to Alpha Centauri on an interstellar trip that will last hundreds of years, more than each of their lifetimes. The only ones who would be able to get off on Proxima Centauri b, the exoplanet believed to be fit for life, would be the youngest ones. Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to us. The project that won first place in the Project Hyperion Design Competition proposes that a spaceship could be built consisting of everything humans need to take the 400-year-long trip, the engineers stated in their brief. The ship has been named Chrysalis and could travel through space for 40 trillion kilometres to reach Alpha Centauri. Of course, it would only be a one-way trip, and no one who gets on the ship would set foot on the exoplanet. Chrysalis has been planned in a way that lets humans stay on the ship like on Earth, with all the basic facilities, like medicines, food, gardens, storage spaces and power.

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Preparation to set food on Proxima Centauri b

Anyone who wishes to get on Chrysalis and for their future generations to live in Alpha Centauri would need to spend almost all their life in a remote region of Antarctica first. Getting used to being in an isolated environment would acclimate them mentally to being away from civilisation. Meanwhile, the ship's construction could take 20-25 years. It would be 58 km long, with various layers nestling within each other. At the centre would be the core, which would house all the shuttles that will carry humans and communications systems to Proxima Centauri b when the ship reaches there. The layer around it would deal with food production, with plants, fungi, microbes, insects and livestock being kept in controlled environments. Both tropical and boreal forests would be maintained to ensure biodiversity.

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Only 1,500 people can live on the spaceship

People on the ship would be spending their entire lives there, so the next layer would have the necessary places like schools, hospitals, parks and libraries. The third layer would have houses with basic air conditioning and heat. All kinds of industries and manufacturing facilities would come in the next level. The last layer would be warehouses where all kinds of machines and equipment would be stored. The population on the ship would need to be kept in check, with only 1,500 people on it at any time, even though it can carry 2,400 people. The project engineers stated that AI would help in governance, to allow "resilience of the whole social system, better knowledge transfer between the different generations of inhabitants and a deeper vision of the overall dynamics of the Chrysalis spaceship complex."

Lost In Space - A trip to Alpha Centauri

The spaceship and everything about it sounds like an episode of a space show about people going to another planet. The popular TV series Lost In Space had humans going to Alpha Centauri in the year 2046. The Robinson family witnesses the unknown during their trip, aboard Resolute, getting lost on another planet. If the actual journey to Alpha Centauri is anything like what we have seen on the show, humans might want to stay away from Chrysalis. However, the hypothetical ship might not become a reality for many, many years to come.