Winner of Project Hyperion design contest envisions polyamorous people thriving onboard cigar-shaped craft
Spaceships modelled on jellyfish, 3D-printed homes, polyamorous relationships and vegetarian diets are among the ways in which experts have envisaged making interstellar travel feasible.
The ideas from scientists, engineers, architects and social theorists came in response to a global competition to develop plans for “generation ships”, self-sustaining crafts capable of supporting up to 1,500 people on a 250-year journey to a habitable planet.
Entrants to the Project Hyperion design competition, launched last year, could only incorporate current technologies or those expected to emerge in the near future, such as nuclear fusion, into their proposals.
An expert panel, including Nasa scientists, judged the viability of almost 100 submissions, assessing how their habitats, architecture and social structures would allow the crew to not only survive but flourish as a society across multiple generations of space flight.
