What Are Realistic Mid-Journey Disasters in Interstellar Travel?

[Vanadium 50]

Say his name three times and he will appear.

 

[Drakkith]

What, if anything, can realistically go wrong on an interstellar journey?

The same things that can go wrong anywhere else. Everything.

The problem is that all of these challenges are so big that, if a ship cannot handle them, there’s no point in it even leaving the solar system.

When it comes to airplanes, ships, spacecraft , etc, disasters don't usually happen because people knowingly design things that can't handle tough challenges, they usually happen because people thought that what they were building could handle the situation, but it couldn't.

Some component or system going on the fritz halfway through a multi-generational voyage through space isn't bad storytelling or handwaving, it's an entirely plausible situation that is similar to those which have plagued engineers and production companies throughout all of history. Things break. Often unexpectedly and when they shouldn't. The bigger, more powerful, or more complicated the thing, the bigger the problems (and often fireworks) when it breaks.

Even internal failures of the ship aren’t that easy to create. A hull breach, as it seems to happen quite frequently in Star Trek (or even more vividly in one episode of The Expanse), shouldn’t happen too easily, either: Not just because even minor collisions with dust speckles have to be avoided anyway; but also because the ship hull will have to be thick enough to shield everyone inside against radiation.

Then you have a boring ship, a lack of imagination, and/or an unwillingness to handwave away something that should be mostly unimportant in its details. Unless you are writing a story about an engineer investigating the details of how some component failed, and those details are actually very important to the story, then just blow open a hole in the ship, start a fire somewhere, have a group of teens go on a rampage, make the captain go crazy, or use any of a million other possibilities.

Finally, deliberate human sabotage is also hard to justify

Human sabotage is quite possibly the easiest thing to justify, because it doesn't have to make logical sense or require that you make a leak-proof case about why some critical system blew up at an inopportune moment. I can literally start a story with this premise with no problem. I'll do it right now.

Bob turned over, grabbed his wrench from under his pillow, and hit his alarm clock as hard as he could. Yawning, he got up, wrench in hand, and went to his clothes locker in the corner of the room where he dressed. Afterwards he brushed his teeth, tossing his wrench into the air over and over again with one hand while he brushed with the other. He spit, rinsed, and then smiled into the mirror above the sink.

"Today's the day." He said quietly. "Today's the day they all meet the real me."

Bob chuckled and then turned around and walked to the door. He hit the open button and would, in a very short time from now, walk into the pages of history as the Wrenching Wreckman of Wickerson Way. Wickerson Way being the name of the ship he was about to empty of all life. Happy wrenching, Bob!

Granted, this particular style probably isn't what you're going for, but I'm using it to illustrate that there need not be any real justification at all. "And then someone blew themselves and half our food out of an airlock" is a perfectly good way of introducing a problem for your cast of characters to overcome.

The fact that people often do awful, terrible, illogical things is so well understood that your audience rarely requires an explanation as to why.

 

[Jarvis323]

Basically, it is difficult to engineer machines to be able to handle the unexpected. Humans with general intelligence ameliorate the problem by being able to assess an unexpected situation and respond with ingenuity. But humans, with their general intelligence, are imperfect, inexact, make mistakes, take risks, and become corrupted. Maybe an advanced AI could achieve a general intelligence more suitable for handling problems encountered on interstellar missions than people, but who knows how successful that will be, and as the author it’s your choice anyways.

Also, I personally don’t think that interstellar travel is unrealistic, not even by todays technology. Although, I see why people think it is unrealistic. I also think it is unrealistic that future civilizations will be limited by our current technology. Besides, our observational evidence suggests to some (depending on the interpretation how much) that game changing technology may actually exist already. The truth is that “realistic” is relative to the observer. Feasibility, or difficulty rather, is unknown in my opinion.

 

[pinball1970]

Basically, it is difficult to engineer machines to be able to handle the unexpected. Humans with general intelligence ameliorate the problem by being able to assess an unexpected situation and respond with ingenuity. But humans, with their general intelligence, are imperfect, inexact, make mistakes, take risks, and become corrupted. Maybe an advanced AI could achieve a general intelligence more suitable for handling problems encountered on interstellar missions than people, but who knows how successful that will be, and as the author it’s your choice anyways.

Also, I personally don’t think that interstellar travel is unrealistic, not even by todays technology. Although, I see why people think it is unrealistic. I also think it is unrealistic that future civilizations will be limited by our current technology. Besides, our observational evidence suggests to some (depending on the interpretation how much) that game changing technology may actually exist already. The truth is that “realistic” is relative to the observer. Feasibility, or difficulty rather, is unknown in my opinion.

Sci fi aside. What is the radiation like in-between stars? Based on radiation we measure on earth? Also Voyager 1 and 2 and what they have detected since they left the solar system?

 

[Jarvis323]

Sci fi aside. What is the radiation like in-between stars? Based on radiation we measure on earth? Also Voyager 1 and 2 and what they have detected since they left the solar system?

Why do you think that is a deal breaker?

If the bar is “seems too costly or challenging”, then by that logic the pyramids shouldn’t exist either.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Also, I personally don’t think that interstellar travel is unrealistic, not even by todays technology.

How many probes have we launched to distant stars?
How many have we launched to, say, Sedna?
How many manned missions have we launched to other planets in our own solar system?

 

[Jarvis323]

How many probes have we launched to distant stars?
How many have we launched to, say, Sedna?
How many manned missions have we launched to other planets in our own solar system?

I don’t see the relevance.

 

[Strato Incendus]

How many probes have we launched to distant stars?
How many have we launched to, say, Sedna?
How many manned missions have we launched to other planets in our own solar system?

Manned missions to the outer solar system at this point in time would be putting the cart before the horse. Our first step, in my view, is to get to a breakthrough on nuclear fusion — since that hasn’t just implications for space travel, but also for Earth-based problems (most notably, renewable energy sources).

Once nuclear-fusion drives are well established enough to allow us some regular trips to Mars and back, then we can talk about sending people to the outer solar system. And at some point in the far distant future, maybe even beyond that.

 

[PeroK]

Manned missions to the outer solar system at this point in time would be putting the cart before the horse.

A horse and cart won't get you to outer space, however you arrange things!

 

[Jarvis323]

Manned missions to the outer solar system at this point in time would be putting the cart before the horse. Our first step, in my view, is to get to a breakthrough on nuclear fusion — since that hasn’t just implications for space travel, but also for Earth-based problems (most notably, renewable energy sources).

Once nuclear-fusion drives are well established enough to allow us some regular trips to Mars and back, then we can talk about sending people to the outer solar system. And at some point in the far distant future, maybe even beyond that.

Fusion would be nice, but it is not required, and for all we know won’t be solved, to this degree, soon enough to wait for it.

I get that it would take a lot of effort and modern technology constrains some mission parameters in ways we wish it wouldn’t. But I have never heard of a single barrier to interstellar travel that is technically insurmountable. If someone can point one out then maybe I would change my mind.

That said, I stand by my assertion that realistic is relative. To be honest, it’s also ambiguous. One’s reasons for thinking it is unrealistic may be valid, which I suppose depends on context.

 

[Jarvis323]

A horse and cart won't get you to outer space, however you arrange things!

Enough horses and carts might if you arranged them the right way on a molecular level.

 

[Vanadium 50]

don’t see the relevance.

If interstellar travel is, as you claim, realistic by today's technology, why haven't we gone already? Why haven't we done even simpler things?

 

[Algr]

If interstellar travel is, as you claim, realistic by today's technology, why haven't we gone already? Why haven't we done even simpler things?

I think it is variable definitions of "realistic". The voyager probes could technically be counted as "interstellar travel". They even have a gold record that functions to this intent.

Our first step, in my view, is to get to a breakthrough on nuclear fusion

Humans spent decades trying to do nuclear fusion, and just when they almost had it, someone invented Charm Swapping, and everything everyone else did became irrelevant.

 

[DaveC426913]

A horse and cart won't get you to outer space, however you arrange things!

"Hold my beer!" : the guys over at Spinlaunch.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I think it is variable definitions of "realistic".

It will make it to alpha centauri in a mere 100,000 years, or would if it were pointed in the right direction, is not my definition of realistic.

 

[Algr]

How about Project Dragonfly?
Honestly I don't see a reason to be stewing over Jarvis' offhand comment. It is kind of irrelevant to the point of this thread.

As for what could go wrong: It's hard to justify an interstellar ship failing to accommodate anything that could be foreseen by people on a science forum way back in year 2022. So I'd recommend imaginative technobabble. Maybe some mundane resource is being consumed faster than expected and the crew spend the whole book unable to figure out why.

 

[jrmichler]

Keep in mind that all machines fail. Some sooner, some later, but few machines last for over 100 years without maintenance. Spare parts in storage cannot be trusted to still work after 100 years. Therefore, a generation ship needs some sort of all purpose manufacturing machine. Since there will not be an outside source of raw materials, the inputs to the machine will be every bit of trash generated. That includes everything from used diapers to old underwear to floor sweepings to used oil to worn fusion plant radioactive parts. The outputs from the machine will be everything from computers to refrigerators to clean diapers to new oil to antibiotics to a new fusion plant to a replacement machine that is larger than the original machine.

One positive outcome is that, since all manufacturing will be to order, everybody will be able to get clothes and shoes that fit in whatever style they want. On the downside, what happens if the software that runs the machine gets corrupted?

 

[Drakkith]

As for what could go wrong: It's hard to justify an interstellar ship failing to accommodate anything that could be foreseen by people on a science forum way back in year 2022.

Sure, in a perfect world full of perfect people who aren't under time and resource constraints, never make mistakes, have perfect understanding of their specialties, etc etc. But people aren't like this. Look at any large-scale project. It WILL be flawed. No exceptions.

Example: the ship in Passengers has a shield that protects it from impacting objects. It fails to protect the ship one time and the entire ship is almost destroyed. Perfectly fine use of something going wrong that was planned for, in addition to things going wrong that weren't planned for (reactor going critical, cryo pods malfunctioning, etc).

One has to acknowledge that people are imperfect and so is everything they make. Good lord, Apollo 11 was almost stuck on the surface of the Moon because they broke the switch that turned the ascent engine on!! Apollo 13 partially blew up! We've lost two space shuttles and their entire crews! The Soviets lost a crew because a valve malfunctioned and all the air was sucked out of the capsule! Planes fall from the sky! Bridges collapse! Nuclear reactors meltdown! The pipes in my bathroom clogged up and leaked under the slab!!!

Things break. People screw up.

 

[PeroK]

Keep in mind that all machines fail. Some sooner, some later, but few machines last for over 100 years without maintenance. Spare parts in storage cannot be trusted to still work after 100 years. Therefore, a generation ship needs some sort of all purpose manufacturing machine. Since there will not be an outside source of raw materials, the inputs to the machine will be every bit of trash generated. That includes everything from used diapers to old underwear to floor sweepings to used oil to worn fusion plant radioactive parts. The outputs from the machine will be everything from computers to refrigerators to clean diapers to new oil to antibiotics to a new fusion plant to a replacement machine that is larger than the original machine.

One positive outcome is that, since all manufacturing will be to order, everybody will be able to get clothes and shoes that fit in whatever style they want. On the downside, what happens if the software that runs the machine gets corrupted?

The scope and scale of the manufacturing required for a generation ship must be a major issue. It's a bit like the ark. We just need two of every animal, and then you realise just how many different animals there actually are.

I don't believe a generation ship could viable. The travellers would have to sleep through the journey and consume the minimum.

 

[Algr]

Part way through the journey, the crew realize that they can't afford the royalties that Strato Incendus owes Physics Forums.

 

[pinball1970]

I don't believe a generation ship could viable. The travellers would have to sleep through the journey and consume the minimum.

At rest, bed ridden, asleep, coma your cells still require energy for repair /replace, cell division, peristalsis involuntary muscle movements, brain activity etc etc
8 hours sleep is ok, years travelling near light speed would require a huge amount of O2 water and nutrients for a crew.
Freezing them removes all of that. Not impossible as some species of fish manage can manage a near frozen state.
The on board computer thaws them out them in time for reaching the next star.

The timing would have pretty good.

 

[Dr Wu]

Quite possibly Dias, Vasco da Gama, Magellan and other mariners from the late mediaeval period would have found themselves reflecting on the many things likely to go wrong while planning their oceanic voyages into the unknown: for them the deep space continuum of their times. Plenty of naysayers back then, of course, cultural distinctions notwithstanding.

 

[Vanadium 50]

One can argue it's realistic today, but one should not use as evidence a web site that hopes to have the technology by 2050. Further, it's hard to argue that it is realistic today, but we can't come up with a list of risks and hazards today.

 

[Algr]

Quite possibly Dias, Vasco da Gama, Magellan and other mariners from the late mediaeval period would have found themselves reflecting on the many things likely to go wrong while planning their oceanic voyages into the unknown: for them the deep space continuum of their times. Plenty of naysayers back then, of course, cultural distinctions notwithstanding.

 

[Algr]

one should not use as evidence a web site that hopes to have the technology by 2050

No matter how far into the future you start, the first interstellar voyage is not going to be a spur of the moment thing.

 

[PeroK]

Quite possibly Dias, Vasco da Gama, Magellan and other mariners from the late mediaeval period would have found themselves reflecting on the many things likely to go wrong while planning their oceanic voyages into the unknown: for them the deep space continuum of their times. Plenty of naysayers back then, of course, cultural distinctions notwithstanding.

They already had ships and were experienced sailors. What they didn't do was go to the Moon. If someone in the days of Magellan had suggested going to the Moon, that would have been impossible.

The logic of "nothing is impossible" demands that those you mention could not only have sailed the oceans but sailed their ships to the Moon and back.

 

[pinball1970]

Why do you think that is a deal breaker?

Ionising radiation is a deal breaker for your DNA.

 

[phinds]

The same things that can go wrong anywhere else. Everything.

this

 

[Jarvis323]

Ionising radiation is a deal breaker for your DNA.

Obviously you would want to shield it.

 

[pinball1970]

Obviously you would want to shield it.

With? Lead? Boron and sand? (I watched Chernobyl)
Mass is an issue in terms of acceleration and a shield would add mass.
If this is going to be realistic.