Deep space travel is difficult for many reasons. In previous blogs, I’ve talked about logistics and communication, the issue of gravity (too much or too little), as well as on the ff chance you find a planet with life the risk of microbes and disease.
Today, however, I would like to discuss an issue related to the sheer size of space and what that would mean for autonomy in space.
If we are considering the realities of deep space travel beyond our solar system to other galaxies, we’re talking light years. As ships move away from Earth, communication delays wouldn’t just be minutes, they would be months, years, or even longer. Without some type of “instant space magic” communication chip, captains and crews would be entirely alone.
It would be something closer to the 1800s, sailing off to find Australia without a radio. But worse.
The Realities of Deep Space Travel
We live in a world, at least in the industry I work in, that is very accustomed to instant, near-constant monitoring and reporting. Gone are the days when you sent off a team and waited a few months to hear back about what they did.
Today, you are expected to report in daily, if not multiple times, to different senior management teams. They are always checking, always suggesting, and often insisting on a specific direction. I imagine this is the same in many industries. I’m not going to comment on whether that is good or bad, but I do know one thing: if we expand into space, this will have to change. At least for the ships and crews that go.
As a ship moves away from Earth, time delays will extend further and further. waiting for orders will just become impractical. The Captain and crew will be forced to grow independent and self-reliant.
So, what does the isolation of deep space travel mean for the crew, and for the companies or organizations that paid for them to go?
Floating Governments in Space
For short hops or small ships this might be simple, but deep space travel is a different beast. I doubt small ships will be the ones doing the long hauls required for deep space travel. If you aren’t going to see a planet you can walk on for a few years, maybe decades, the ship might be a bit bigger than a shuttle.
Let’s focus on generation ships, vessels comparable to modern-day supercarriers, with a crew of 250-plus.
How are they governed?
- Does it become a rigid, militaristic structure of command and control, agreed upon before departure?
- Does the ship have an elected representative government that reflects the one they left back at home?
- Does the ship operate under the laws of the country that sent it, carrying lawyers and politicians on board to manage legal issues?
- Or do they just note the crimes down to deal with when they go home?
The Investor’s Dilemma
I think the real barrier here is less likely to be the crew, and more likely to be whoever sent them.
They would not only have to trust whoever they picked to crew the mission, and I really mean trust, but they would also be blind. The investment costs would be astronomical (no pun intended), yet the investors would be blind to the mission for extended periods, waiting for little blips of messages sent back.
Even if the ship sent a status update every day, Earth would eventually end up with a time lag of years. Investors would sit in silence, never knowing if their investment has paid off or if the ship is even still there.
Caravans to the Stars
This dynamic would likely change the composition of crews. If you can’t communicate with your family, let alone see them for years, then surely the crew would include your family. That would fix many morale issues.
This implies that deep space travel ships would start to look closer to the “Old West” caravans: groups of families heading into the unknown together.
I raise all this because it was an interesting element to consider for plot points in my latest book. I have a crew sent on a vital mission for humanity to an unknown anomaly light-years away. I had to ask myself:
- How could they let Earth know what they found?
- If the news was bad, would it be years before humanity found out and could act?
- How would the ship interact with events outside the hull without guidance from home?
It was fun to work through the benefits and challenges of communication in space. Though, as always, I eventually resorted to a bit of “space magic,” grounded in at least some logical real-world science of quantum entanglement!
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