A bold new step for humanity could be a journey not to the Moon or Mars, but to an entirely new star system.<\/p>\n
This is the Chrysalis Project, an award-winning design for a hypothetical starship that could carry up to 2,400 people to Alpha Centauri\u2014our closest stellar neighbor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ultimate goal would be to reach and settle on the potentially habitable exoplanet Proxima Centauri b.<\/p>\n
However, the one-way trip would reportedly take around 400 years due to the immense distance.<\/p>\n
Because of the incredible duration, many of the passengers would live their entire lives aboard the spacecraft without ever knowing what life on our planet is like.<\/p>\n
The sci-fi-like project took home the top prize in the Project Hyperion Design Competition, a contest for designing hypothetical multigenerational ships for venturing into deep space.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe generational spaceship Chrysalis is named after the intriguing possibility of having a spaceship capable of keeping its inhabitants safe and united, generation after generation, until they arrive in the new solar system,\u201d the mission pitch noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n Multi-generational ship with all facilities <\/p>\n The proposed \u201ccigar-shaped,\u201d multi-generational ship would roughly measure around 36 miles (58 km).\u00a0Constant rotation would create artificial gravity, allowing life to thrive inside it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Before the journey, the first generations of passengers would live in an isolated environment in Antarctica for 70 to 80 years to prepare for life on the ship.\u00a0<\/p>\n The interstellar spacecraft<\/a> would take 20 to 25 years to build \u2013 or even more.\u00a0<\/p>\n As per the pitch deck, the Chrysalis spacecraft is planned to be built at the L1 Lagrangian point of the Earth-Moon system. This location is ideal because it may allow the project to access the Moon and Earth resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cL1 is also ideal as a launch point for a massive spacecraft several kilometres in length, to avoid the stresses caused by differential gravitational effects on the structure when placed in orbit too close to the Earth or Moon,\u201d it explained.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n