Chapter 8: Starships - Class 1

One day, five billion years into the future, humanity will have its last peaceful day on this planet. The sun's life span will expire and the Earth will be faced with a raging inferno of fire and heat. Temperatures will be so high that the oceans will evaporate and mountains will melt into giant puddles of lava. This apocalyptic scenario is inevitable according to the laws of physics. One day, civilization will have two options: escape Earth or die. To escape this galaxy we will need some sort of a star ship. The idea of a star ship taking us to the vast corners of space does seem impossible. however, a Ramjet Fusion Engine might be our eventual saviour.

Hydrogen is one of the most abundant gasses found in our universe, and is the essential ingredient to a Ramjet Fusion Engine. This engine would theoretically scoop hydrogen as it travelled in outer space providing the engine with an inexhaustible source of rocket fuel.

Physicist Robert W. Bussard calculated that a ramjet engine weighing about 1000 tons would theoretically be able to maintain a steady thrust of 1 g of force, comparable to standing on the Earth's surface. If this engine could maintain 1 g acceleration for one year, it would reach 77% of the velocity of light, which would make space travel a serious possibility. The main requirement of this engine would be the size of its hydrogen collecting scoop. Since we know the average density of hydrogen gas in the universe and the amount needed to sustain 1 g acceleration, scientists have calculated that the scoop would have to be 160km in diameter (could be possibly constructed in weightless outer space).

In principle this type of engine could propel itself indefinitely, one day reaching distant star systems. According to Einstein, since time slows down inside the rocket, reaching astronomical distances without putting the crew into suspended animation may very well be possible. After eleven years of acceleration at 1 g, according to clocks in the spaceship, the crew would have reached the Pleiades star cluster, which is 400 light-years away and in twenty three years it would reach the Adromeda galaxy, two million light-years from earth. Theory would conclude that in one human lifetime, a crew member may be able to reach the end of the visible universe even though billions of years would have passed by on earth.

The Ramjet Fusion Engine is an essential discovery for human survival in the post-Earth era. If scientists can iron out the glitches with burning the right kind of hydrogen gas, we may one day be able to travel the galaxy with ease and enjoyment.