Having reviewed what is known about the engineering concept from the literature, and under the assumption it is constructed by an advanced interstellar society with sufficient space infrastructure, the authors of this paper conclude that the Enzmann Starship would work in theory. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Enzmann of the Raytheon Corporation proposed an interstellar ark driven by eight nuclear pulse rockets. The mechanical strength of deuterium is very low – it’s like warm butter – so it need to be enclosed, not “netted” or wrapped in “mesh”. That same day came the disheartening news that the Kepler mission has been stopped in its tracks by an equipment malfunction.

It lived the length of its prime mission, and was extremely successful during that time at achieving this goal. And, by the way, I am also wondering if the De ball is used as shield for incoming obstacles/radiation due to interstellar protons. A possible explanation is the lack of fuel tanks – this may decrease the dry mass fraction considerably.A common feature was that the crew area was replicated 3 times for redundancy, and a common core pillar ran the length of the spacecraft and through the center of each habitation unit. I mentioned at the outset of this series on 1970s starship projects that among some designers, at least, it was a time of immense optimism. I spoke with Rick Sternbach and Don Davis, both of whom helped depict and design Dr Enzmann’s concepts. To Stine, the 1970s in relation to starflight looked like a time that paralleled the 1930s, when the first experiments in rocketry were producing results and we were learning how to reach into the stratosphere. While Hubbard wrote and Campbell encouraged him, a scientist-engineer named Robert Duncan-Enzmann had designed an interstellar drive in the late 1940s that could have realized Hubbard's compelling story.

But take heart — a vast amount of data already gathered by Kepler remains to be studied, meaning we’ll be getting Kepler discoveries for some time to come. It could securely latch on (glue, snakebot, insert wild idea here) in the most appropriate configuration and without having to hack into Kepler’s innards, independently correct for the broken reaction wheel. As a fan of Science I decided to do some calculations to determine if the claims of the book are within our technological capabilities today, and the answer I have reached is yes!

The detail and intricacies about the design and application of this Starship is perspective altering. I don’t know how many neutrons it takes to get started, but I do not think it is a given that only a fission primary can generate them. He also worked on the project alongside William Borucki, the Kepler science principal investigator at Ames and the driving force behind the effort, for the decades leading up to formal approval of the mission. Even more impressive is that all of this information was available back in (at least) the 80s, but was shut down.

Whether or not it could function as a detector for asteroids is something that would have to be studied, but since it wasn’t built as a camera, I would say that I’m skeptical. If that was really possible, that seems to me to be starting to get into the realm of the possible, rather than fantastic. Would it also not be better to have the crew compartment contained within the tank to act as a cosmic radiation shield, or is the crew compartment mass sufficient for that already?The Empire State Building, New York’s iconic symbol, would fit lengthwise easily enough with just its top tower sticking out the end.

This book has a detailed review of people who were in the forefront of the space effort, spanning the entire 20th century and into the 21st. Of course, as discussed in the paper, Enzmann had been thinking about that design since at least 1949.The other scheme, and this has never been tried, involves using thrusters and the solar pressure exerted on the solar panels to try and act as a third reaction wheel and provide additional pointing stability. They can even take selfies with passing stars, although the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot might be a few light-years away. Introducing the Enzmann Echolance, the spaceship that promises to make interstellar travel not only possible but also a one-way ticket to quasi-immortality. The Enzmann vessel is distinctive, as the illustration below shows, a long cylinder capped by a 1000-foot sphere made up of 12 million tons of frozen deuterium, the fuel for its eight Orion-style propulsion modules. While the Enzmann Echolance might not offer true immortality or even a guarantee that we’ll be able to take that intergalactic joyride anytime soon, it does provide a fascinating glimpse into the future of space travel.