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The name of the first interstellar ship

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They left out Wonder Woman because the boat, uh, yeah I've got nothing.
 
It'll probably be Enterprise if NASA has anything to do with it. That was the first Space Shuttle, should be the first Lightship.
 
How is the interstellar ship going to continue sending signal to earth? Will it be a relay of ships sent several years apart indefinitely?

That would make things easier, but no, not necessarily. Big ass radiotelescopes etc will be tracking its position throughout the journey and catch signals that it sends. Don't expect a high def video stream, though.
 
That would make things easier, but no, not necessarily. Big ass radiotelescopes etc will be tracking its position throughout the journey and catch signals that it sends. Don't expect a high def video stream, though.

I thought I remember one of my friends saying something about one of our ships/probes/whatever already going into interstellar space and the signals getting almost too weak to pick up. Maybe I just made that up though?
 
They either go to sleep with a drastically reduced metabolic rate or they rock a generation ship and have kids on board. There's also medical life extension that can mean people living on board for decades without aging, or at the extreme you have digital crews, where the crew didn't take their flesh bodies with them.

Some people are willing to do this out of a sense of wonder, a desire for prestige and glory, or in the pursuit of the extension of scientific knowledge. If you think it's FTL or bust then you're going to be disappointed since FTL travel isn't going to happen.

By the time the space coffin gets to the nearest star odds are far better space travel will be possible making the original effort a waste.
Space travel of those distances isn't worth it until the travel time is reasonable.
 
I thought I remember one of my friends saying something about one of our ships/probes/whatever already going into interstellar space and the signals getting almost too weak to pick up. Maybe I just made that up though?

Power of transmitter and device you're using to detect it make a big difference. I'm not familiar with what you're referring to here but I don't know everything either, so...

By the time the space coffin gets to the nearest star odds are far better space travel will be possible making the original effort a waste.
Space travel of those distances isn't worth it until the travel time is reasonable.

It's only a "waste" if the new ship could beat it there while factoring in the head start. Drive speed doesn't increase over time in the same way transistor count does, why should that be any different in the future? Unless something completely out of the blue happens and some radical new drive suddenly gets invented that nobody could have predicted, it's going to be trivial to calculate whether or not a trip is going to be wasted. The thinking will be "well, we're a few years away from blah blah drive, which has a theoretical top speed of whatever. Is this worth it now?" You can't just make sweeping declarations like the one you've just done.
 
it would be cool if it was "Enterprise."

But what it probably will be will be the existing shuttle names re-used first. Whatever came first, Atlantis or whatever.

some will be retired for good, though. Challenger and Columbia.
 
Came in here to suggest Sagan and was disappointed to see it wasn't the first and every single option.

As far as contributions to rocket science, Tsiolkovsky and Von Braun are both awesome/the best options, but for the first Interstellar? Sagan ftw.
 
USS Columbus.

I'd rather not perpetuate this legend of Columbus as some sort of "hero." If you're gonna name it after ANY Spanish explorer, it should be Cabeza De Vaca, but sadly his name doesn't roll of the tongue as well :/ Though maybe the USS Alvar would do. Either him or the USS Magellan.

I'd throw the USS Drake in there too, working both on the levels of Sir Francis Drake and the Drake equation.
 
pretty sure we'll have moved beyond rockets by the time we have an interstellar space ship, plus all the negative historical connotation rocketry will have, by then I figure the millions of deaths will outweigh our meger accomplishments in LEO/Lunar Orbit... I doubt Von Braun will be it.
 
I'd rather not perpetuate this legend of Columbus as some sort of "hero." If you're gonna name it after ANY Spanish explorer, it should be Cabeza De Vaca, but sadly his name doesn't roll of the tongue as well :/ Though maybe the USS Alvar would do. Either him or the USS Magellan.

I'd throw the USS Drake in there too, working both on the levels of Sir Francis Drake and the Drake equation.

Francis Drake was not better than Columbus, Magellan would be better imo.
 
What is an enterprise? A test. A long shot. A dice roll to adventure. The first interstellar ship that is part of a fleet, should be Enterprise.


VV: why not just name it the Titanic? What is wrong with you? Do you WANT to conjure up a portal into the Hell dimension?
 
What is an enterprise? A test. A long shot. A dice roll to adventure. The first interstellar ship that is part of a fleet, should be Enterprise.


VV: why not just name it the Titanic? What is wrong with you? Do you WANT to conjure up a portal into the Hell dimension?

>:)

Haha just messin
 
The names suggested here are all so....... US-centric. This is an internationally-funded right? I am going to assume that US will not be able to fund a project as massive as interstellar ship by its own without the rest of the world chiming in.
 
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