Lt Col Garretson addresses Starship Congress on a Billion Year Plan

100 Year Starship

From: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120518-reaching-for-the-stars 

18 May 2012

100-Year Starship: Mae Jemison reaches for the stars

Astronaut Mae Jemison flew onboard Space Shuttle Endeavour (Copyright: Nasa)

Mae Jemison fulfilled a childhood dream to travel to space. Now she wants to take humanity to the stars.

Today, Mae Jemison may be best known as the first black female astronaut to travel to space, but someday she could be known for something much more monumental. That’s because she is now at the helm of what could well be the most audacious project ever imagined: a Pentagon-funded effort meant to lead within 100 years to a spaceship that will take humans to the stars.
The 100-Year Starship, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), isn’t about building the Starship Enterprise, at least not yet. Rather, it’s about creating a nonprofit organization that can sustain efforts over the next century to enable interstellar travel. The Dorothy Jemison Foundation, headed by Mae Jemison, was selected earlier this year to lead the 100-Year Starship.
This week the foundation announced its plans for shooting for the stars. First on the agenda is a gathering of scientists and the public in Houston, Texas, to discuss ways to advance interstellar travel.
Jemison spoke exclusively with BBC Future to talk about how she plans to lead humanity on an interstellar journey.
Q: You have signed up for an ambitious project. Are you sure that in 100 years, we’ll be ready to launch a starship?
Let me put it this way: It should happen within the 100 years. But if we can figure out how to do it faster, in 20 to 30 years, I’m good, because that way I get to go. Why do I think the technology arc is sufficient? If you think about it, HG Wells wrote First Men in the Moon in 1901. Imagine how incredulous, fantastical that idea was in 1901. We didn’t have rockets, we didn’t have the materials, and we weren’t really flying. It was incredible. Less than 100 years later, we were on the moon. I know we will have the technological knowledge if we choose to pursue it.
Q: To get to the stars, you need to push technology forward. What do you think needs to be a priority?

We’re in the process of developing the research issues. The first one is energy. Even if you say, I’ll take a 1,000 years to get there, you still have to figure how to generate enough energy to power a vehicle for [that length of time]. You can’t do that necessarily with solar energy. If you say I want to do it in a human lifetime, then enormous amounts of energy also have to be created.
Q: Your first step towards the stars will happen in Houston this September. Can you tell us what to expect?
What we really want to do with the symposium is provide a place where folks who are deep into [interstellar travel], whether from the social sciences or plasma physics, can have technical discussions, as well as being able to engage the public writ large in advocacy, participation, and in understanding what’s going on.
Q: What comes after that?
The symposium is a very strong declaration of, “we’re here.” At the same time, we have been actually working on the overall program. What we see with the 100-Year Starship is that it’s really a multidimensional organization. By that I mean, it’s an organization that has at its core a nonprofit foundation. That nonprofit foundation is there to make sure we maintain its purpose. We have the capacity to spinoff for-profit organizations as well: companies, ventures, and partnerships based on things that come around opportunistically.
Part of the nonprofit organization is also a research institute called the The Way, aptly named because it’s going to have us figure out the way to get to the stars. It not something that assumes we’re going to do all the work. It’s an institute to push the technologies, and advocate for radical leaps forward in technology.
We are not saying our organization, is going to be the one that necessarily launches a mission to the stars in a next 100 years. We want to be the little piece that crystalizes out, the effort, the energy, and the capacity to make sure that the capabilities exist within in the next 100 years in case somebody wants to launch a mission.
Q: So, do you think it’ll a public or private organization that actually launches a starship in the next 100 years?
If we start with an assumption right now that that it has to be public, or it has to be private, we may miss something along the way. Our approach right now is to come with a clean slate and say: what are some of the issues that need to be addressed in order to make that happen? And what are some of the benefits that occur if we go to interstellar space?
Some of the ideas that came out from this blank slate include how would economies change? How do you develop an economy that is not directly connected back with the United States? We have the example of people talking about asteroid mining, and bringing it back to Earth. What’s the benefit of not bringing it back to Earth? What does that economy look like? This is re-envisioning fundamental things.
Q: Part of the role the foundation will be fundraising for space travel. What will be your message to organizations or people you’re trying to raise money from.
Our proposal was titled: “An Inclusive Audacious Journey Transforms Life Here on Earth & Beyond.” That title goes to the very heart of what we’re doing. The first term is inclusive.  I think we all know that we would have a lunar base right now, 40 years after Apollo 11, if there had been a public commitment. The fact we don’t have a lunar base has nothing to do with the technology. It has to do with public commitment and societal support.
Why did we have this gung ho spirit for a while, but we were not able to sustain it? I think it’s because many people did not see themselves as beneficiaries of it. That doesn’t mean you get money directly from it. It means, could you participate, could your children participate? Not necessarily being on the vehicle, but how does it impact your world? How does it impact your imagination, your aspiration? We want to look at inclusion, not only in terms of who builds the vehicle, or who does the research, but also the gender, ethnicity, and cultural pieces. We also want to look across disciplines. Something like this requires inclusion of the behavioral sciences, economics, art, and entertainment.
Q: You mention there wasn’t support for a lunar base. How will you ensure there’s support for something as ambitious as a 100-Year Starship?
We’re inviting the public to take part. The public didn’t leave space, they were left out. Nasa and many space organizations tried to do things, such as with teachers and education, but it didn’t feel like it was a public program.
I think that people need an adrenalin rush. Folks need something aspirational, they need to do something that is hard. That’s what ignites the imagination.  I grew up during the Apollo-era, in the 1960s. When I was a little girl: I thought when I had an opportunity to go into space, I thought I would at a minimum be working on Mars, or another large planet because we were doing all of these incredible things. But we stagnated, because we didn’t continue that push. We started to get a little bit timid. Timidity does not inspire bold acts.

Interstellar by 2112!

From: http://www.icarusinterstellar.org/mae-jemison-and-team-establish-100-year-starship-with-goal-to-make-interstellar-space-travel-reality-by-2112/

Mae Jemison and Team Establish 100 Year Starship With Goal to Make Interstellar Space Travel Reality by 2112

by admin

HOUSTON, TX, May 17 2012 — The Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence has been selected by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to receive seed funding to form 100 Year Starship(TM) (100YSS(TM)), an independent, non-governmental, long-term initiative which will ensure that the capabilities for human interstellar flight exist as soon as possible, and definitely within the next 100 years. The winning 100YSS proposal “An Inclusive, Audacious Journey Transforms Life Here on Earth and Beyond,” was created by Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence with team members Icarus Interstellar and the Foundation for Enterprise Development.
Former NASA astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison will lead the global multi-partner organization. Dr. Jemison, the world’s first woman of color to travel in space (1992’s Space Shuttle Endeavour), brings to her leadership role her vast experience as an engineer, physician, professor, former Peace Corps medical officer, and entrepreneur. Known for achieving the improbable, Dr. Jemison also brings a spirit of audacity, innovation and inclusion to 100YSS.
“Yes, it can be done. Our current technology arc is sufficient,” says Dr. Jemison. “100 Year Starship is about building the tools we need to travel to another star system in the next hundred years. We’re embarking on a journey across time and space. If my language is dramatic, it is because this project is monumental. This is a global aspiration. And each step of the way, its progress will benefit life on earth. Our team is both invigorated and sobered by the confidence DARPA has in us to start an independent, private initiative to help make interstellar travel a reality.”
100 Year Starship will bring in experts from myriad fields to help achieve its goal – utilizing not only scientists, engineers, doctors, technologists, researchers, sociologists and computer experts, but also architects, writers, artists, entertainers, and leaders in government, business, economics, ethics and public policy. 100YSS will also collaborate with existing space exploration and advocacy efforts from both private enterprise and the government.
In its first year, 100YSS will seek investors, establish membership opportunities, encourage public participation in research projects, and develop the visions for interstellar exploration. A 100 Year Starship Public Symposium will be held in Houston September 13-16, 2012, inaugurating what will be an annual event open to scientific papers, engineering challenges, philosophical and socio-cultural considerations, economic incentives, application of space technologies to improve life on earth, imaginative exploration of the stumbling blocks and opportunities to the stars, and broad public involvement.
The 100 Year Starship also will include a scientific research institute, The Way whose major emphasis will be speculative, long-term science and technology.
Alongside the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence, a non-profit organization that promotes science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) awareness and achievement, the principal 100 Year Starship team members are: Icarus Interstellar, a non-profit research and development organization dedicated to the research that will enable interstellar flight; and the Foundation for Enterprise Development centered on governance, innovation, entrepreneurship, technology and R&D based organizational planning, management, and strategic planning. The SETI Institute, a private, non-profit organization dedicated to astronomy, life sciences, education, and public outreach, will hold a permanent seat on the 100YSS Advisory Council.
To sign up for e-mail alerts from 100 Year Starship or learn more about the 100YSS Public Symposium visit www.100YSS.org. Follow 100 Year Starship on Twitter (@100YSS). Contact 100 Year Starship at info@100YSS.org.

The Daedalus Starship. Designed by members of the British Interplanetary Society
in the 1970s – an inspiration for researchers of today. Image courtesy Adrian Mann.