Author Topic: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)  (Read 16529 times)

Offline manboy

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100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« on: 05/05/2011 12:24 am »
Couldn't find a topic on this.

"DARPA is seeking ideas for an organization, business model and approach appropriate for a self-sustaining investment vehicle in support of the 100 Year Starship Study. The 100 Year Starship  Study is a project seeded by DARPA to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible. The genesis of this study is to foster a rebirth of a sense of wonder among students, academia, industry, researchers and the general population to consider "why not" and to encourage them to tackle whole new classes of research and development related to all the issues surrounding long duration, long distance spaceflight. DARPA contends that the useful, unanticipated consequences of such research will have benefit to the Department of Defense and to NASA, and well as the private and commercial sector. The information obtained will be used for planning and acquisition strategy development. DARPA will use the information obtained as a result of this RFI on a non-attribution basis. Providing data and information that is limited or restricted for use by the Government for that purpose would be of very little value and the inclusion of such restricted/limited data/information is discouraged. Responses as a single file in Adobe PDF electronic format can be submitted to [email protected] This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  by 12:00 pm (noon) Eastern Time, Friday, June 3, 2011."

http://100yearstarshipstudy.com/
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Offline Bubbinski

Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #1 on: 05/13/2011 02:04 am »
Very interesting.  I recall a discussion in these forums about the British Interplanetary Society's Daedalus study and a newer follow on study, but that was for an unmanned probe to the nearest stars. 

If DARPA is talking about a crewed starship to launch within 100 years....I thought about that and the first concept that comes to my mind is a hollowed out large asteroid (or enormous O'Neill colony?) with lots of space for the crew and an ion or nuclear engine(s) attached for continuous thrust, with the distant descendants of the crew actually making it to Proxima Centauri or wherever.  A large world ship, an ark.  I would not want to travel to the nearest star in anything less.
I'll even excitedly look forward to "flags and footprints" and suborbital missions. Just fly...somewhere.

Offline sanman

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #2 on: 05/13/2011 04:24 am »
I don't want to be awake on the voyage. I want to be in cryogenic sleep, with advanced AI piloting the craft to some already-known destination which we have already previously determined as inhabitable before starting out.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #3 on: 05/13/2011 04:29 am »
Why DARPA? Did we find non-friendly aliens at Alpha Centauri who are planning to invade us?  ;)

(Scenarios from Ender's Game are running through my mind, now...)

EDIT:Joking aside, I like this idea. With the recent discovery of soooo many exoplanets, the prospects of having somewhere relatively nice to travel to are increased.
« Last Edit: 05/13/2011 04:40 am by Robotbeat »
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Offline M_Puckett

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #4 on: 05/13/2011 04:33 am »
Has anybody notified Paul Kantner of this?

Offline Bubbinski

Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #5 on: 05/13/2011 05:40 am »
Regarding cryogenic sleep: has that ever been demonstrated?  Is it feasible now or does it need more development?  Are there any showstoppers that would prevent it?

(I am the furthest thing from a medical expert.  My medical experience is limited to visits to the doctor's office, watching Gray's Anatomy and other medical TV dramas very occasionally, along with applying the occasional bandaid or popping a Tylenol).
I'll even excitedly look forward to "flags and footprints" and suborbital missions. Just fly...somewhere.

Offline MickQ

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #6 on: 05/13/2011 08:48 am »
Regarding cryogenic sleep: has that ever been demonstrated?  Is it feasible now or does it need more development?  Are there any showstoppers that would prevent it?

(I am the furthest thing from a medical expert.  My medical experience is limited to visits to the doctor's office, watching Gray's Anatomy and other medical TV dramas very occasionally, along with applying the occasional bandaid or popping a Tylenol).

A medically induced coma looks like part way there at this stage.  Is there any time limit on this ?

(" In cryo you don't dream at all " )

Mick.

Offline QuantumG

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #7 on: 05/13/2011 08:57 am »
Only in the movies do people wake up from a coma and go off to play baseball the following afternoon.

Even 6 months in a coma will leave you debilitated and in need of physiotherapy.. and that's with a hospital staff to rotate you to prevent bedsores.

On the other hand, bears manage.. and every 6 months I hear something about rotten eggs.  First hit on google: http://www.livescience.com/2399-rotten-eggs-secret-ingredient-suspended-animation.html
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline sanman

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #8 on: 05/13/2011 02:46 pm »
Well, I didn't literally mean sleep - I meant being frozen like a popsicle, to keep you immune to the effects of cosmic radiation, aging, etc across the long voyage. Then you get revived on the other side.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #9 on: 05/13/2011 03:05 pm »
Well, I didn't literally mean sleep - I meant being frozen like a popsicle, to keep you immune to the effects of cosmic radiation, aging, etc across the long voyage. Then you get revived on the other side.
Being frozen doesn't make you immune to cosmic radiation (or the decaying radionuclides naturally occurring in your own body)... in fact, it makes that worse, since the damage is accumulated and can't be repaired until you're unfrozen. So even if you're unfrozen successfully, you may immediately die of radiation sickness! There may be ways around this (substantial shielding, separating out all the radioactive isotopes of your diet for years through VERY expensive isotope separation), but it's not really an easy idea, and we don't know how to freeze/unfreeze people and have them survive the process. Life extension (through extreme metabolic suspension? pseudo-coma?) may be more feasible.
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Offline QuantumG

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #10 on: 05/14/2011 12:11 am »
Science fiction tells me you need some nifty physics that literally blocks time (good luck with that) or nanobots :)
Human spaceflight is basically just LARPing now.

Offline Epis

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #11 on: 05/14/2011 08:56 pm »
in order to build starships for human travel humanity needs to deal first with 2 things:
1. build cheap super heavy High energy efficiency launch assist rocket cargo transport to LEO.
(something like my deep 2-3km miner shaft tube rocket launch assist combo)
energy efficiency will be most important thing for LEO huge cargo transfer rocket/launch assist system.

2. build moon base, moon mining industry and starship shipyard.
Mine fusion fuel, build starship carcass construction (from earth high tech parts could be delivered to moon for starship like electronic and etc.) and then assemble it on the moon and launch from moon low gravity, because it would be impossible something like that launch from earth. So giant starships (generation ships) must be built, fueled on the moon.

these are my thoughts :)

Offline Jim

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #12 on: 05/14/2011 09:02 pm »

1. build cheap super heavy High energy efficiency launch assist rocket cargo transport to LEO.
(something like my deep 2-3km miner shaft tube rocket launch assist combo)
energy efficiency will be most important thing for LEO huge cargo transfer rocket/launch assist system.


Why do you keep pushing this non viable concept.

launch assist is not required for economics or heavy or efficiency, nor do your concepts provide this. 

If you continue to post this on other threads, I notify the moderators about your spamming.


Offline Robotbeat

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #13 on: 05/14/2011 09:54 pm »
Would you like to supersize that? Curly or regular fries? ;)
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Offline grdja

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #14 on: 05/14/2011 11:00 pm »
Just don't carry any meat at all. AI or uploads doesn't matter; if any of it is possible at all we will have it by the time anything called a "crewed interstellar mission"  can be launched.

Not that "crewed interstellar mission" is what anyone will start with.

Assuming we get to a point where we can get any meaningful payload to 1% or 5% of C, those missions will likely be superfast flybys with total mission payload in hundreds of kilograms at best.  (Tip, you can't convert any energy into deltaV at 100% efficiency; still you get tremendous energy costs for accelerating 100kg payload to 5%C in such impossible ideal case). Assume a couple dozen kg paylaod (and that would have to be all instruments to survey entire solar system during relativistic flyby, survive centuries of flight time to get there, and phone results home...) and you might actually get energy budgets late 21st century prosperous and peaceful (yeah right) humanity could muster.

Offline 93143

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #15 on: 05/14/2011 11:37 pm »
Assuming we get to a point where we can get any meaningful payload to 1% or 5% of C, those missions will likely be superfast flybys with total mission payload in hundreds of kilograms at best.  Assume a couple dozen kg paylaod and you might actually get energy budgets late 21st century prosperous and peaceful humanity could muster.

Or use a fusion Orion with a 100,000-ton burnout mass (top speed 1/30 c with a mass ratio of 4), which the United States alone could have built and paid for with the technology and economy of 1968.
« Last Edit: 05/16/2011 01:15 am by 93143 »

Offline RanulfC

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #16 on: 05/18/2011 08:37 pm »
::::grin:::
Don't suppose anyone but the original poster actually read the RFI or the original post? :P

They ain't actually talking 'bout no "Starship" but looking for concepts for a self-supporting "100-year" (that's "Centuries" to you and me kids! :) ) oganization that would be able to fund SUCH 'long-range' programs and science as would be needed to build a starship...

Long-term survivability on an organizational level for a century (or-more) self-governance, self-sustainment, even "relevance" towards the goal of moving mankind towards a space-fairing and interstellar civilization....

Wow... I can hear how far DARPA is straining those "mandates" of theirs from here! You have to admit it's an interesting concept and RFI, I mean how many "100-year" organizations have there ever been that HAVEN'T been Churches or Religions? I'm drawing a blank... Anyone?

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #17 on: 05/18/2011 08:48 pm »
::::grin:::
Don't suppose anyone but the original poster actually read the RFI or the original post? :P

They ain't actually talking 'bout no "Starship" but looking for concepts for a self-supporting "100-year" (that's "Centuries" to you and me kids! :) ) oganization that would be able to fund SUCH 'long-range' programs and science as would be needed to build a starship...

Long-term survivability on an organizational level for a century (or-more) self-governance, self-sustainment, even "relevance" towards the goal of moving mankind towards a space-fairing and interstellar civilization....

Wow... I can hear how far DARPA is straining those "mandates" of theirs from here! You have to admit it's an interesting concept and RFI, I mean how many "100-year" organizations have there ever been that HAVEN'T been Churches or Religions? I'm drawing a blank... Anyone?

Randy
Free Masons. (maybe a bad example)

The Royal Society. (Founded 1660)

Academy of the Lynx-eyed, founded 1603 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accademia_dei_Lincei) is an Italian science academy, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy. It was the first academy of sciences to persist in Italy and a locus for the incipient scientific revolution. (though this did receive help from the Pope at some times, especially for its revival in the 1800s) Galileo was a member.

The Platonic Academy, founded in 387BC and lasted until 83 BC (but was later revived for a while). That's over 300 years.

I'm sure people can think of other examples of non-church institutions which lasted for hundreds of years.

EDIT:
Another example (non-scholastic) is the East India Company, which was founded in 1600 or so and lasted over 250 years. A very power entity.
« Last Edit: 05/18/2011 08:50 pm by Robotbeat »
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Offline strangequark

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #18 on: 05/18/2011 08:58 pm »
::::grin:::
Don't suppose anyone but the original poster actually read the RFI or the original post? :P

They ain't actually talking 'bout no "Starship" but looking for concepts for a self-supporting "100-year" (that's "Centuries" to you and me kids! :) ) oganization that would be able to fund SUCH 'long-range' programs and science as would be needed to build a starship...

Long-term survivability on an organizational level for a century (or-more) self-governance, self-sustainment, even "relevance" towards the goal of moving mankind towards a space-fairing and interstellar civilization....

Wow... I can hear how far DARPA is straining those "mandates" of theirs from here! You have to admit it's an interesting concept and RFI, I mean how many "100-year" organizations have there ever been that HAVEN'T been Churches or Religions? I'm drawing a blank... Anyone?

Randy

General Electric dates back to the 1890s. Granted their business is vastly different, but it has been a continuous corporate entity.

Also, the Red Cross has been around since the mid 19th century.

Plenty of Universities have been around for >100 years.

I think the organization should be set up as a not for profit, and given extended patents on some key basic technologies. These should be a basket of new technologies that look like they will be integral to more complex devices for some time to come. I'm thinking things like O-rings or photolithography (not these specifically, but inventions that will have the same widespread use and impact in the 21st century). Provide incentive to the original inventor to agree to this freely by giving them a better deal than the original patent. Maybe they get a 30 year patent, instead of the usual 20, and the rights get turned over the the starship foundation afterwards.
« Last Edit: 05/18/2011 09:04 pm by strangequark »

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #19 on: 05/18/2011 09:03 pm »
Another example: IBM. Made from the merger of 4 companies in 1911 which were around in the late 1890s, some of which did tabulating of the US census of 1880 and 1890.
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Offline Proponent

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #20 on: 05/19/2011 12:46 am »
It's claimed that some Japanese firms can trace their existences back to the eighth century.

ISTM that if DARPA wants to talk about hundred-year organizations and interstellar travel in the same breath, the obvious starting point is the the British Interplanetary Society, which has been around for about 80 years and is probably one of the first organizations most people interested in interstellar flight would think of.

Offline khallow

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #21 on: 05/19/2011 02:34 am »

ISTM that if DARPA wants to talk about hundred-year organizations and interstellar travel in the same breath, the obvious starting point is the the British Interplanetary Society, which has been around for about 80 years and is probably one of the first organizations most people interested in interstellar flight would think of.

Or the National Geographic Society, which still indulges in exploration of many sorts, is over 120 years old.
Karl Hallowell

Offline RanulfC

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #22 on: 05/19/2011 07:52 pm »
Good examples and thank you... I'd leave out the "company" models actually though since they don't TEND to stay as focused on as diverse subjects as described in the RFI.
The Royal Society and National Geo are probably both really good examples though both have access (IIRC) to government funding and therefore have some government over-sight which is trying to be avoided in the concept for the RFI.

Hmm, now that I think on it though both RS and NGS had funded early stratospheric research and such. I wonder why the never got involved with Space in the same manner?

BIS seems more of an example of what is now "space-advocacy" rather than a funding source or "engineering" organization. Funny but a LOT of the early "hands-on" groups seem to have gone from doing to something closer to PACs.

Randy
From The Amazing Catstronaut on the Black Arrow LV:
British physics, old chap. It's undignified to belch flames and effluvia all over the pad, what. A true gentlemen's orbital conveyance lifts itself into the air unostentatiously, with the minimum of spectacle and a modicum of grace. Not like our American cousins' launch vehicles, eh?

Offline manboy

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #23 on: 09/30/2011 09:46 pm »
100 Year Starship Study Symposium is going on right now.

http://hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=32806

I don't understand the reasoning behind this quote from Twitter.
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Terraforming another planet is like people who take expensive trips to Paris & eat at McDonalds - Andreadis
"Cheese has been sent into space before. But the same cheese has never been sent into space twice." - StephenB

Offline mlorrey

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #24 on: 09/30/2011 10:59 pm »
100 Year Starship Study Symposium is going on right now.

http://hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=32806

I don't understand the reasoning behind this quote from Twitter.
Quote
Terraforming another planet is like people who take expensive trips to Paris & eat at McDonalds - Andreadis

The reasoning I believe has to do with a typical luddite idea that if the ecosystem of a terraformed planet is "manufactured" that it is therefore substandard and not comparable to a "real" ecosystem....
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Offline Cinder

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #25 on: 10/01/2011 12:10 am »
Sounds like he means we ought to adapt and "appreciate" rather than terraform to suit our expectations.

Sounds like very twitter-friendly byte rather than real wisdom.
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Offline Moe Grills

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #26 on: 10/03/2011 07:31 pm »
 ;D
Well, I didn't literally mean sleep - I meant being frozen like a popsicle, to keep you immune to the effects of cosmic radiation, aging, etc across the long voyage. Then you get revived on the other side.
  ;D   ;D  ;D

That former baseball player, Ted Williams, may become the first interstellar
traveller by such means....Well...at least his still frozen head might get the privilege.

Offline Arthur

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #27 on: 10/04/2011 12:27 pm »
::::grin:::
 I mean how many "100-year" organizations have there ever been that HAVEN'T been Churches or Religions? I'm drawing a blank... Anyone?

Randy
You mean besides the Illuminati? (wink)

Actually, every government agency ever created seems to grow and survive well past any useful life ... like the Rural Electrification Administration (why terminate a perfectly good bureaucracy just because it achieved the goal for which it was created?)
« Last Edit: 10/04/2011 12:34 pm by Arthur »

Offline aquanaut99

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #28 on: 10/04/2011 12:38 pm »
Just don't carry any meat at all. AI or uploads doesn't matter; if any of it is possible at all we will have it by the time anything called a "crewed interstellar mission"  can be launched.

I agree. The only way the human race is ever going to "conquer space" and expand beyond the confines of the Earth is if we do away with all our organic baggage.

Uploads (if feasible) would be the best way to conquer the galaxy.

It would also make us essentially immortal.

So we could even then even expand by slow-moving (hitching rides on ultra-long period comets for example), all that is required is minimal energy and self-repair of the system.

It would also make us essentially immortal.

Offline IsaacKuo

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #29 on: 10/04/2011 02:50 pm »
I just came back from the 100YSS Symposium.  It was an awesome experience and the level of advancement in some of the practical technologies required surprised me.

In particular, Benford's demonstration of multi-gee acceleration of carbon sails from photon pressure alone was a real eye-opener!  While I have been doing theoretical calculations on the sort of multi-gee laser sails suitable for relativistic propulsion, I had no idea that we have actual physical demonstrations.

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #30 on: 10/04/2011 04:54 pm »
I just came back from the 100YSS Symposium.  It was an awesome experience and the level of advancement in some of the practical technologies required surprised me.

In particular, Benford's demonstration of multi-gee acceleration of carbon sails from photon pressure alone was a real eye-opener!  While I have been doing theoretical calculations on the sort of multi-gee laser sails suitable for relativistic propulsion, I had no idea that we have actual physical demonstrations.
Have a link or picture or video?
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Offline IsaacKuo

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #31 on: 10/04/2011 08:05 pm »
In particular, Benford's demonstration of multi-gee acceleration of carbon sails from photon pressure alone was a real eye-opener!  While I have been doing theoretical calculations on the sort of multi-gee laser sails suitable for relativistic propulsion, I had no idea that we have actual physical demonstrations.
Have a link or picture or video?

Not yet.  100YSS haven't published the papers yet (several weeks, at least).

I haven't yet had the chance to browse through Benford's web site, which should have these demonstrations.  It's one of many, many things which are now on my plate.

Offline bolun

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Re: 100 Year Starship study (DARPA)
« Reply #32 on: 01/06/2012 09:03 pm »
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16427876

Quote
The Pentagon's premiere research agency has chosen a former astronaut to lead a foundation that is designed to take humanity to the stars.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and Nasa are sponsoring the project, known as the 100-Year Starship.

Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to go into space, was notified last week that she had won, according to a copy of a Darpa letter obtained by the BBC.

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