This week, Futures is delighted to welcome David Gullen with his story Fermi’s zookeepers. David is an award-winning writer based in south London, and you can find out more about his activities at his website or by following him on Twitter. Here, he reveals the origins of his latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Fermi’s zookeepers

Ideas often come out of the blue, or in this case out of the black. November last year, I took part in a two-day Starship Engineer workshop run by I4IS, the Initiative for Interstellar Studies. We were a mixed bunch, as someone who trained as a botanist and works in an archaic part of IT, I thought I was one of the least relevantly qualified people there.

It didn’t really matter. When you’re designing a generation starship there’s plenty of things to think about apart from building the vehicle and engines or worrying about fuel mass and Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation. As an intellectual exercise, starship design really does have something for everyone, every area of expertise and experience. If human beings are going to visit other star systems travelling at sub-light speeds, many things beyond simple engineering need to be taken into account. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say everything needs to be considered. Think about it. It’s fun, and rather brilliant.

Of course, you could just send a robot. I4IS has its origins in the British Interplanetary Society (BIS), Back in 1975 the BIS ran Project Daedalus, the first (and possibly still the only) comprehensive engineering study of a starship design based on current-at-the-time technology.

Daedalus showed how phenomenally difficult it is to build a starship, what vast resources are required, the daunting challenges of interstellar distances and relativity. 54,000 tonnes of engine and fuel were needed to deliver 450 tonnes of payload after a 46-year journey at 12% the speed of light. These days interstellar probe designs are much smaller. Yuri Milner’s Project Starshot aims to send a fleet of 1,000 light-propelled micro ships each weighing just a few grams. The technology is there — almost. In both cases these probes are single-use fly-bys. Despite the differences in scale there are similar problems with data transmission and guidance.

At the end of the first day we went to the pub. The whole event had been energizing and stimulating, our minds buzzed with the complexities and challenges of starships and the thrill of possibilities. Would there ever be a crewed flight to another star? When this might be? And what about Fermi’s paradox: why is there no sign of intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe? I wondered what an alien civilization might think of 1,000 probes whipping through their system at 100 million miles an hour.

Ideas come out of the blue: when I’m walking, working in the garden, or having a good conversation. I thought what a tragedy it would be if we sent a probe like Daedalus roaring through space on a quest for life and our aim was a fraction off.

Some ideas work better when you stand them on their head. My next thought was: what if someone had done that to us?