What is Generation Ship Science Fiction?

What is Generation Ship Science Fiction?

When a space voyage would take a thousand years to make and there is no faster-than-light travel or time-bending technology a generation starship is a practical answer—another option is suspended animation. The idea is that as the ship journeys across the universe generations will live and die onboard. The original crew will never see the final destination. The final crew will have never set foot on Earth. There will be passengers that don't know either place.

The concept has been alive in science since 1928, but the first realization of the idea in Sci Fi was in Don Wilcox's “The Voyage that Lasted 600 Years ,” which appeared in Amazing in October 1940. This story is structured around a captain who is in a hibernation mode and wakes every hundred years or so to check on the ship's progress. He is witness to much social change.

The starship itself is usually pretty luxurious—it does have to sustain the equivalent of an entire ecosystem of generations and generations. The ship may be bolts and machines or it may be a fully-realized habitat with shrubbery and what not. Usually, the starship will have a destination, a distant planet to colonize or, to at least escape planet Earth. Sometimes the ship is a trade ship, connecting colonies or installing space highways. Regardless of the mission, the story tends to be about the crew, how the crew deals with extended periods of time in space, and social development.