Inspiration for 100 Year Starship came from the one-hundred year period between Jules Verne's publication of From Earth To The Moon and humankind's arriving to the moon. Using this formula, 100 Year Starship has us aiming for an interstellar trip—from earth to another star system—in 2012 in order to achieve this goal in, approximately, 2112.

Noting that the 100 year goal is a target not a dealing, and bearing in mind that in 1865 it would have been impossible to get to the moon, how are we in 2012 to prepare for a space adventure using technology or techniques we can only guess at and which are most certainly not yet invented or discovered?

Which leads to the real question: What can we do now in 2012 for the interstellar goal of 2112?

Let me start this off by stating my approach is as if we had come up with the idea of building the Great Pyramids. It would our job as the Living Ancestors of the actual pyramid builders to convey to the next generation their responsibility in this multi-generational endeavor, and to ready them for their role with open encouraging and discussion and training.

I am of the view that we start as the Holders of the (1st) Boulder, the living Ancient Ones who came up with the idea but who (more likely than not) will not be present for its fulfillment.

The inspiration for my own view comes from working with children as an astronaut teacher, an educator who encourages pre-teen students to consider astronautics as a career. I am further inspired by aspects of the stories of Card's Ender's Game and Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. I see pointing the way to the future out to children—"It's the stars!"—as the solution to the puzzle of achieving interstellar goals.

I'm a big advocate for developing interstellar capability, but from a project management perspective, initiation of the 100 Year Starship program was a disaster.

Example: Jules Verne was the inspiration for a 100 year timeframe, but the purpose of adopting it as a banner was to "emphasize" the difficulty of the goal, which runs directly opposite the stated goal to "inspire research".

A good, clear vision of success is needed for selecting near-term projects, and Project Management Institute guidelines for acceptance criteria of such a vision are the topic of the first Starship Vlog, premiering Dec. 14th.

> I'm a big advocate for developing interstellar capability, but from a project management perspective, initiation of the 100 Year Starship program was a disaster.

How so, Buck? Noting your example, why do you see the purpose of adopting the 100YSS timeframe as a banner was in emphasis of the difficulty of the goal.

I thought it was to set a target by which to set our aims.

>why do you see the purpose of adopting the 100YSS timeframe as a banner was in emphasis of the difficulty of the goal?

Because that's the justification presented by Neyland and Worden in their explanation for putting "100 Years" front and center.

>I thought it was to set a target by which to set our aims.

It was, but this does not impact what their justification was for choosing that particular target, nor if that target helps/hurts setting our aims.

...nor does it impact whether the Verne analogy is a appropriate for estimating a project schedule, which it doesn't appear to be.

Their guiding stories "of patronage and persistence" appear to be largely ideologically-driven neo-con mythology, "historically inaccurate" to say the least.

A reasonable guess might be that the number of significant deviations from good practices for project success during initiation of the 100YSS project up to deployment far exceed the number of steps involved in a competently executed phase, simply because there are so many ways to go wrong, and only a few ways proven successful.

They simply did not realize they were out of their depth, nor that relevant knowledge was available. Combined with ideological biases, available expertise in management and information organization design & delivery was actively rejected, the 100YSS organization regrettably appears on the same course, from a project management perspective.

I'm ignorant of the progress so far, so my comments may be out in left field, but I thought the point of the project was to raise awareness and inspire research?

Steam engines and the use of an abacus would have never got mankind to the moon. In the same way, we've got to be looking at a paradigm shift for 100YSS. The difference between Jules Verne and us is we know we need that shift, and the point of the 100YSS is to drive that innovation and highlight the promising lines of research that could lead to an 100YSS. At least, that's my take on the project.

Hi Peter,

The 100 Year Starship Study Project was the DARPA-NASA effort to develop a model for an organization completely separate from government support that would last 100 years.

An initially stated purpose from the : "to foster a sense of wonder", "ask why not?", and "tackle new classes of R&D".

Success at those goals is be trivial:
- Century-long lifespan: Invest $500k with no risk in a fund offering 2% annually, and allocate 1% ($5k) for annual corporate admin.
- Foster wonder: Already achieved simply by the DARPA announcement, but what many are wondering about is not perhaps what planners had in mind.

- Tackle new classes of R&D: Also already achieved in my case anyway, because I eat, drink, and breathe adaptation of good management standards to revolutionary paradigm development all day, every day now. Probably others are similarly motivated after the Houston event.

Peter, did you attend?

No. I live in Brisbane, Australia, so it was a wee bit too far to go.

It's an ambitious goal, with no obvious means of fulfilment, but Verne's day was very much the same. I suspect the breakthroughs necessary to achieve this will come from unrelated fields, like quantum mechanics, etc, that open up new possibilities. Exciting stuff to consider, and I'm looking forward to the innovative ideas that come out of the project.

Does anyone know of an announced, 100YSS goal that conforms to SMART criteria?

I'm interjecting here. First, I agree with this:

>Steam engines and the use of an abacus would have never got mankind to the moon. In the same way, we've got to be looking at a paradigm shift for 100YSS. The difference between Jules Verne and us is we know we need that shift, and the point of the 100YSS is to drive that innovation and highlight the promising lines of research that could lead to an 100YSS. At least, that's my take on the project.

That's my take as well. My whole imagined reality is built on an as yet uninvented or discovered "difference engine", something which is going to get us to another place—either literally or metaphorically—in a manner we are unable to imagine. And it is going to happen soon.

What more, I am betting the ranch on this. As an astronaut teacher, I am putting all my astronaut teacher eggs in this something-unexpected-which-will-change-everything basket.

I am betting that at this juncture in time something unexpected that will change everything is happening. And I am further outlaying that it will be to the benefit of moving human beings from one place in space (earth) to other places (worlds, space stations, etc) in the (relatively) nearby universe.

But wait. There's more.

I see it how you see it, Peter, that 100YSS is meant to inspire and drive research. And that's why I endorse Buck's SMART-based phenomenal project management approach: My take on evolution is that once you grok evolution you pick where you want to go.

The best way to get there after you choose your target is to have someone with some genius develop a project management approach for inducing radical phenomenon.

What I best like about Buck's approach is it is a proactive approach with deliverables and tangible results.

BTW Buck, Peter is one of the best. And Peter, Buck is one of the best.

That the Harold White variation on the Alcubierre warp drive was discussed already at the 100YSS means you're probably all over this like a rash, but I think it's exciting that there's theoretical warp-drive concepts that can be tested in a laboratory.

Seth Shostak from SETI recently made the point that a side effect of Moore's Law is that those processes that depend on computing power are also accelerating, riding the wave of technological advancement. In the same way, our capability for research into exotic physics is also surfing technological innovation.

It may have been 100 yrs between Jules Verne and man walking on the moon, but the Higgs Boson was theorised in 1964 and half a century later we found it. I think we'll see this lag between theory and practice continue to shrink as technology continues to advance.

Exciting times

Agreed. It is the diminishing lag time that makes everything so "futuristic": We are appearing to move faster because the speed of our communications (as well as the speed at which vast quantities can be moved) has factored. Moore's law is most certainly applicable in appreciating this phenomenon.

It is as if a critical mass or momentum is being realized. Based on what breakthroughs took place at this same juncture 100 years ago at the head of the 20th century, considering the speed of information movement now as well as the quantities of information being transferred, I hypothesize expressions of discovery analogous to the automobile, aeroplane, electric light, and radio are all manifesting as we even discuss them.

Is there any mechanism by which our opinions on an effective purpose of the 100YSS would make a cornflake of difference?

" I hypothesize expressions of discovery analogous to the automobile, aeroplane, electric light, and radio are all manifesting as we even discuss them."

This is almost certainly the case, and hopefully we will be able to recognize these advancements when they occur. It seems every year the level of academic achievement and scientific understanding needed to fully grasp the breakthroughs goes up. As we work towards the starship, I suspect we will need to find new ways of making the bleeding of science and technology more accessible to everyone. The rise of free, online university level courses takes us part way there, but I am certain we can do better.

> hopefully we will be able to recognize these advancements when they occur.

Speaking of which:

After almost 3 days of trying from Patagonia, the first (rough) video is uploaded and available at: youtu.be. Comment invited.

What I like about that video is it acknowledges some of the most interesting tools for managing interstellar achievements, namely project management and S.M.A.R.T. criteria, and radical scientific thought. What we must wrap our minds around and accept is the surprise of breakthroughs vs the predictability of breakthrough happening. While we cannot predict what breakthroughs will occur we can with certainty acknowledge breakthrough as a constant.

Of course, as a pattern of progress, the clip at which breakthrough is occurring increases as connectivity and communication becomes further integrated and more integrally developed: Everything is happening faster and at deeper, further intrinsic levels of understanding (Luke's point about level of understanding). levels of understanding (Luke's point about level of understanding).

By approaching the endeavor of interstellar achievement from the perspective of a critical thinker (project management) and as a child (guaranteed untold surprises), we are then allowed to set goals which are flexible enough to accommodate change and mistakes while anticipating opportunities to be derived from guessed-at and unguessed-at breakthroughs.

In fact, every other approach I can imagine is either a gross waste of resources, chasing after pie in the sky, or just bald-faced lie with intent to deceive.

Having set up the distance of time from Verne's speculative writing to actual lunar achievements, the 100YSS model inherently presupposes unexpected breakthrough and discovery.

I agree as Buck declares in his video, along with radical science and lofty aspirations it is bold project management practices which enable the 100 YSS goal.

A quick treatment of the purpose of the PMBOK and its adaptation for starship related projects is available at: youtu.be

What Buck has been proposing is spot-on:
Where money is best spent is in funding research for bleeding-edge science and mathematics, such as work having to do with warp drives and faster-than-light (FTL) transportation.

Every million we spend on math and science directly or indirectly having to do with space accomplishments, particularly FTL and "hard to imagine" science, may be of incalculable value. Like spending a dollar and earning one-day extensions to one's own life.

In fact, the maxim "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day; teach a man to fish, he eats for life" when applied to space travel funding could be reworked to go something like "Fund a rocket launch, we send a human to space. Fund FTL research, we send humankind to space."

I see the FTL research as the research equivalent of forming a critical mass. AFAICT, it is more transdisciplinary than has ever been attempted, by including math, physics, astronomy, cosmology, social sciences, history & philosophy, cutting edge project management and organizational science, etc.

The potential benefits for these fields and the potential to create new fields are off-the-charts.