100 Year Starship Management group picked

[MANT!]

Per MSNBC

The Pentagon's think tank has selected the group that will manage its 100 Year Starship project to explore what it would take for a multigenerational mission beyond the solar system, and sources say the leader will be Mae Jemison, who became the first black woman in space in 1992.
In the 20 years since then, Jemison has founded several ventures — including The Jemison Group, a technology design and consulting company; and the Houston-based Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence, which takes on educational projects. Jemison, a 55-year-old Alabama native who has experience as a physician and a Peace Corps worker as well as an astronaut, played a prominent role in facilitating the 100 Year Starship symposium organized by NASA and the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Florida last fall

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/07/10035158-skipper-chosen-for-starship-effort


So we can start building the thing then? or are we waiting for appropriate tech to be developed?

 

[sojourner]

The answer to your question is in the name of the thread.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

So we can start building the thing then? or are we waiting for appropriate tech to be developed?

see the
The DARPA 100 Year Starship thread

http://www.100yss.org/index.html

 

[publiusr]

This is a good site for options: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php

Smoother than the nuclear pulse orion concept is the Nuclear Salt Water Rocket
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php#id--Nuclear_Salt-water_Rocket

Its fringe-worthy--but look how well it does with a 90% solution on this graph:
www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/images/enginelist/rocketChart.jpg

Best yet: The advantage of NSWR is that this is the only known propulsion system that combines high exhaust velocity with high thrust.

Thrust 13,000,000 newtons with 4,700,000 m/s exhaust velocity--a one two punch!

NTR DUMBO looks more do-able
http://www.projectrho.com/public_ht..._Core_Nuclear_Thermal_Rocket--NTR-SOLID/DUMBO

This would provide 3,500,000 newtons thrust

Now imagine you use that in place of a Centaur upper stage, and have AIMSTAR as a payload:
http://www.engr.psu.edu/antimatter/Papers/AIMStar_99.pdf

This would provide 598,000 m/s exhaust velocity. This alone would allow a trip to 10,000 AU in 50 years. Couple this with DUMBO NTR to get most of its useful life extra-solar--NOW you have a souped up New Horizons.