Interstellar Propulsion Technologies - RANKED!

Many of you wanted me to talk about the different interstellar propulsion ideas out there so we figured a fun way to compare them all would be in a tier list! Today we take a look at 14 different methods proposed to explore the stars. Let us know your rankings down below in the comments.

Written & presented by Prof. David Kipping. Edited by Jorge Casas.

THANK-YOU to T. Widdowson, D. Smith, L. Sanborn, C. Bottaccini, D. Daughaday, S. Brownlee, E. West, T. Zajonc, A. De Vaal, M. Elliott, B. Daniluk, S. Vystoropskyi, S. Lee, Z. Danielson, C. Fitzgerald, C. Souter, M. Gillette, T. Jeffcoat, J. Rockett, D. Murphree, M. Sanford, T. Donkin, A. Schoen, K. Dabrowski, R. Ramezankhani, J. Armstrong, S. Marks, B. Smith, J. Kruger, S. Applegate, E. Zahnle, N. Gebben, J. Bergman, C. Macdonald, M. Hedlund, P. Kaup, W. Evans, N. Corwin, K. Howard, L. Deacon, G. Metts, R. Provost, G. Fullwood, N. De Haan, R. Williams, E. Garland, R. Lovely, A. Cornejo, D. Compos, F. Demopoulos, G. Bylinsky, J. Werner, S. Thayer, T. Edris, F. Blood, M. O'Brien, D. Lee, J. Sargent, M. Czirr, F. Krotzer, I. Williams, J. Sattler, B. Reese, O. Shabtay, X. Yao, S. Saverys, A. Nimmerjahn, C. Seay, D. Johnson, L. Cunningham, M. Morrow, M. Campbell, B. Devermont, Y. Muheim, A. Stark, C. Caminero, P. Borisoff, A. Donovan, H. Schiff, J. Cos, J. Oliver, B. Kite, C. Hansen, J. Shamp, & R. Chaffee.

REFERENCES

MUSIC
0:00 Tamuz Dekel - Quiet Pull
2:55 Joachim Heinrich - Horizon
4:17 Joachim Heinrich - Stjärna
6:40 Hill - World of Wonder
7:46 Chris Zabriskie - The Oceans Continue to Rise
8:17 We Dream of Eden - Discovery
9:48 Chris Zabriskie - The Oceans Continue to Rise
11:11 Hill - Arctic Warmth
13:50 Hill - Northern Boards
17:25 Hill - Fragile
21:02 Hill - The Meek

CHAPTERS
0:00 Intro
1:33 Chemical Rockets
3:31 Nuclear Thermal Rockets
5:55 Nuclear Pulse
8:20 Incogni
9:48 Solar Sails
12:15 Fission Sails
13:05 Laser Sails
14:47 Alcubierre Drive
15:24 Wormholes
16:09 Antimatter
17:28 Mind Upload
18:02 Negative Mass
18:42 Halo Drive
19:46 Ion Engine
20:32 Bussard Ramjet
21:03 Outro
22:51 Credits

#InterstellarPropulsion #TierList #CoolWorlds

[J]

Where is 'ludicrous speed' from Space Balls? That's gotta be S-tier

[Particleman]

Step 1. Capture Alien
Step 2. Copy Their Tech.
Step 3. Explore The Virgo Supercluster

[maxliani]

You should have added to your ranking criteria the ability to decelerate. It’s worth nothing if a system can accelerate a payload to a fraction of C, if the system cannot slow down to reach and stop at the destination…

[CelestialVenerableValinor]

"A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit."

Everything good about my life was made by the overall contributions of many people over decades, centuries and millennia. From all the technologies I'm using write know to the language I'm speaking, the knowledge and entertainment that fuels my imagination: it's not my work, its origin is clearly other people, most whom never had me in mind.

Maybe I could be somebody's reason for happiness just by being the influence of the influence that led some to wonder or puzzle some ideas and create something that generations later would be enjoyed by folks lacking all concept in the worse of the cases or proudly enjoy being human in the best of the scenarios.

[Inugmi]

This is definitely one of the best “tier” videos I’ve ever seen. 👍

[CartoonrBOY]

My wife and I were watching The Three-Body Problem, and I suggested that the best way to reach the Trisolarans before their invasion would be with a laser sail. I’m thrilled you agree!

[mckirkus]

When it's clickbait because the content is actually good

[acarrillo]

No Nuclear Salt Water rocket? Do you know about the website Project RHO?

[Glydaire]

A huge advantage of laser sails and beamed power is that your "engine" stays comfortably in your home system. If one laser station breaks the ship may not even notice while a replacement is built. It opens up the option of building more stations after the ship has launched to keep pushing the acceleration and make up for losses as distance to the ship increases. Compared to carrying ludicrous masses of fuel and being dependent on your own engine it seems almost a no brainer. But you have to trust the home system will keep the laser arrays on line all that time, you need them for braking as well!

You also have to trust nobody starts to wonder what else you could do with an extremely powerful laser array in the solar system. Or in the case of nuclear pulse how you plan to sell the idea of manufacturing potentially hundreds of thousands of gigaton range bombs without raising any eyebrows. Basically any remotely interesting interstellar drive is also a weapon, more than rockets already are.

This does lean into the "wait calculation" which might be a good follow up. We might have the tech to launch something at a few % of c, but that might be overtaken by something launched later using better propulsion. And so on. There's a very tired scifi trope where a generation or sleeper ship reaches its destination and finds it's already been colonised by FTL ships millenia earlier. You might argue against any interstellar mission until we have beamed power or antimatter production online, otherwise we're wasting resources on slow ships that will get overtaken later.

[Matthew.Morycinski]

17:30 Even if "mind upload" were possible, it is not a way to travel. The person whose mind is being uploaded would not experience anything special, least of all being transferred to another planet. The person sent is a separate human being, sharing the memories of the original, but not affecting the original's future experiences at all. If we do a two-way transfer, we have to eliminate - the K word - one of the individuals. If we transfer the original destructively, we eliminate two people.

[jones]

Love seeing the Enterprise D on your desk, gave me a chuckle thank you

[Yattayatta]

Nice tier list you have there sir, Laser sail won out as I thought it might! Huge congratulations on the time on Webb by the way, I look forward to the results!

[XShaneX]

3:36 Ah yes. I knew what that stands for

[gavinmorey]

5:17 I’ve been working part time on DRACO right now and I’m so excited about what this technology could open up to us in the near term!

[Wooterkins]

Been Watching you for years now. My daughter has grown up watching your videos and you have in part influenced her intense love for the stars. Thank you for what you do.

[AruSharma]

You explain things so perfectly, I could listen to you explain nursery rhymes for hours on end

[toogoodu]

You’re the best dr.kipping! Great video! Thank you for doing what you do, keep it up

[carterpochynok]

This is a great content format. I'd be way down for more tier lists from you!!

[KingBritish]

Best YouTube notification is always one from Cool Worlds 😎

[JoeCensored]

Surprised nuclear pulse wasn't higher. Between it and laser sails, these seem like the two where the problems are largely solved, and we just need the will to start construction.