Project Hyperion Reveals Winners of Its Generation Ship Design Competition

On 1 November 2024, Project Hyperion, an international multidisciplinary group of architects, engineers, anthropologists and urban planners, opened a design competition focused on crewed interstellar voyages.

The competition was run by the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is), a UK non-profit organisation that supports robotic and human exploration of exoplanets orbiting nearby stars, with eventual settlement as a goal. Offering a prize fund of $10,000, it invited entrants to devise Generation Ship concepts, also known as worldships, using technologies available today or likely to become achievable in the near future.

On 23 July 2025, the organisation revealed its three leading entries from hundreds of concepts submitted by teams around the world. The winners were chosen for satisfying the full set of competition requirements, presenting substantial detail, and bringing together architectural, engineering and social-science design considerations.

Put simply, the three prize-winning proposals outlined ways for a society to support itself and prosper despite severe resource constraints during a journey lasting centuries to another habitable world.

The difficulties and risks of space exploration are widely recognised and extensively recorded. They include extended transit times, radiation exposure, the enormous volume of provisions required, and the hazards of living inside a pressurised vessel in confined proximity to fellow crew members.

As the saying goes, "space is hard," and interstellar travel is particularly challenging and hazardous. Missions travelling so far beyond Earth cannot be resupplied, while the time and energy needed to send a spacecraft even to the closest star are prohibitive.

Generation ships

As covered in an earlier post, reaching the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, would take between 1,000 and 81,000 years with propulsion systems that either exist today or are technologically feasible.

Currently, directed-energy propulsion is the sole means of travelling between star systems within a human lifetime. In this approach, gram-scale spacecraft fitted with lightsails are driven to relativistic velocities, meaning a fraction of light speed, by laser arrays. Suggested programmes include Breakthrough Starshot and Swarming Proxima Centauri, both of which developed from Project Dragonfly, an i4is feasibility study undertaken in 2015.

Since the beginning of the Space Age, a number of approaches have been suggested for dispatching crewed missions to nearby stars in a comparatively reasonable period, from a few years to a few decades. Yet these options are prohibitively costly, depend on major technological breakthroughs, require the discovery of new physics, or involve some combination of these factors.

The remaining option is to create vessels capable of housing crews throughout the prolonged voyage. Such spacecraft would need bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS), equipment for cultivating food and recycling air and water, and sufficient space for several generations to live and mature.

Science fiction and feasibility research have examined this idea since the early 20th century. Its earliest known appearance was Robert H. Goddard's 1918 essay The Ultimate Migration. Goddard was one of the "forefathers of rocketry", and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center bears his name.

In his proposal, the vessel would use atomic power or a mix of hydrogen-oxygen fuel and solar energy, while its crew would remain in suspended animation for the voyage.

Another "forefather of rocketry", Konstantin E. Tsiolkovsky, considered a multigenerational spacecraft in his 1928 essay The Future of Earth and Mankind. He envisaged a self-sufficient "Noah's Ark" whose crew remained awake until arriving at its destination thousands of years later.

J. D. Bernal, who invented the "Bernal Sphere", offered an early generation-ship description in his 1929 essay The World, The Flesh, & The Devil, which considered human evolution and humanity's future in space.

In 1946, Polish-American mathematician Stanislaw Ulam, a Manhattan Project contributor, proposed repurposing nuclear devices for space exploration. This approach became known as Nuclear Pulse Propulsion (NPP).

NASA initiated Project Orion in 1955, a joint investigation by Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study and General Atomics into NPP for interstellar travel. The project ended in 1963 following the Limited Test Ban Treaty, which imposed a permanent prohibition on nuclear testing in Earth orbit.

Dr Robert Enzmann followed with a proposal in 1964 that represented the most detailed generation-ship description produced to that point. His "Enzmann Starship" would be 600 metres long, accommodate an initial crew of 200 with capacity to expand, and use deuterium fuel and fusion reactions to attain relativistic speeds.

During the 1970s, the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) undertook an interstellar feasibility assessment called Project Daedalus. It proposed a two-stage spacecraft powered by fusion that could reach Barnard's Star, 5.9 light-years from Earth, within a single lifetime.

Although the concept described an uncrewed spacecraft, it later helped shape Project Icarus, a crewed version launched by the BIS and the Tau Zero Foundation in 2009.

More recently, the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) has studied antimatter propulsion for long-duration spaceflight. This technique relies on collisions between hydrogen and antihydrogen atoms, offering exceptionally high energy density alongside low mass.

From 2017 to 2019, Dr Frederic Marin of the Astronomical Observatory of Strasbourg completed a series of highly detailed investigations using HERITAGE, a new numerical software package they developed. The studies assessed all key generation-ship factors, including minimum crew numbers, genetic diversity and vessel size.

The winners

Competing groups were multidisciplinary and had to include at least one architectural designer, engineer and social scientist, such as a sociologist or anthropologist. Every team was asked to design a ship with a self-sustaining ecosystem, incorporating agriculture, accommodation and the other life-support systems needed to survive across generations.

Under the competition rules, the ships had to provide:

• Habitable conditions for 1,000 ± 500 people over centuries
• Artificial gravity generated through rotation
• A society that maintains good living conditions, including essential provisions such as shelter, clothing and other basic needs
• Resilient life-support systems for food, water, waste and the atmosphere
• Knowledge-transfer systems that preserve culture and technology

In addition, the spacecraft concepts had to show how they could potentially attain a top speed of 10% of the speed of light (0.1 c), enabling a journey of about 250 years to the nearest habitable exoplanet, Proxima b, roughly 4.25 light-years from Earth.

The following concepts received the three highest awards:

1st Place: Chrysalis

Chrysalis was developed by an Italian team comprising Giacomo Infelise, an architect and landscape designer; Veronica Magli, an economic scientist and innovator; Guido Sbrogio, an astrophysicist and engineer; Nevenka Martinello, an environmental engineer and freelance artist; and Federica Chiara Serpe, a psychologist, actress and artist.

Its proposed vessel is a modular cylindrical structure designed with a reduced frontal section. This arrangement lowers the risk of collisions with Micrometeoroids and Orbital Debris (MMOD) and eases structural stress during acceleration and deceleration.

The ship would extend 58,000 metres from end to end, have a diameter of 6,000 m, and possess a total mass of 2.4 billion metric tonnes (2.65 US tons). A Direct Fusion Drive (DFD) system, fuelled by Helium-3 (3He) and deuterium (2H or D), would deliver acceleration of 0.1 g (0.98 m/s2).

Following one year of acceleration, the designers expect the voyage to take at least 400 years. A further year of deceleration would begin once the vessel came within reach of Proxima b.

Located in the forward section, the habitat features a coaxial rotating arrangement of nested levels. From the outermost to the innermost, these contain food production and ecosystems, communal areas, homes and gardens, facilities, a warehouse level and the axial core.

Every shell would rotate continuously for the duration of the journey, producing Earth-like gravity and supplying the housing, infrastructure, energy and resources required by a crew of approximately 600 people. At the ship's front is the Cosmo Dome, where passengers could look out into the cosmos while spending leisure time in low gravity.

The proposal also allows for an alternative rotational layout intended to lessen perturbation: odd-numbered shells would turn clockwise, while even-numbered shells would rotate anticlockwise. As i4is stated in its news release:

Chrysalis impressed the jury with its system-level coherence and innovative design of the modular habitat structure but also overall depth of detail, which included, for example, in-space manufacturing and the value of pre-mission crew preparation in Antarctica.

Its modular shell design promotes flexibility and connectivity, supporting both functionality and scalability. The large Dome structure adds a dramatic, cinematic quality that evokes science fiction classics, while the overall system-level planning – covering not just architecture but also how to build the vessel – is notably strong.

2nd Place: WFP Extreme

Team WFP Extreme comprised architects, designers and scientists from the Design for Extreme Environments Studio at the Faculty of Industrial Design, Design for Extreme Environments Studio, in Krakow.

Dr hab. Michał Kracik mentored the team. He leads DEES and is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Design Methodology, and has undertaken spacesuit-design research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The proposed spacecraft has a central core with two counter-rotating rings, which generate simulated gravity while reducing Coriolis effects. Each ring is 500 metres in diameter and contains homes, work areas and social spaces arranged into six neighbourhoods, with three in each ring.

Hydroponic farms, power systems and control stations sit in the core, which connects to the rings through structural arms containing lifts. A running track and pedestrian route link the six neighbourhoods, while the lifts provide travel between the rings and core, enabling interaction and cultural exchange among the different communities.

The jury described the concept as "[c]ommended for overall excellence" for the following reasons:

WFP Extreme has a particularly strong focus on cultural and societal dimensions, including concepts like clothing and spiritual spaces. It excels in its cultural and societal considerations, offering some of the most thoughtfully developed ideas in this area.

The architectural design introduces advanced technologies such as radiation protection and demonstrates creative touches like the "taxi capsule" and personalized crew clothing.

3rd Place: Systema Stellare Proximum

The third-place team included Dr Philip Koshy, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at McMaster University; physician and medical specialist Jan Johan Ipe; and graphic designer Amaris Ishana Mathen.

Their proposal, Systema Stellare Proximum, is a starship containing two counter-rotating Stanford Torii inside a hollowed-out asteroid core. It would use a quantum-AI navigation system, beginning with Nuclear Pulse Propulsion and then changing to ion propulsion for its secondary stage. The team described the concept in its proposal as follows:

The year is 2320. Mankind has fully transformed [into] a space-based economy and has conquered the Solar System. Humans as a species have advanced science to the point that we are ready to embark on interstellar exploration.

The interstellar railroad would be more than just a technological marvel - it would mark a historic turning point in human migration, one that begins in earnest after 2080.

The first deep space missions involving sentient beings will commence, initially focusing on capturing or harvesting nearby asteroids for resources and developing waves of robotic probes to set towards Proxima Centauri-b.

The design employs "biomimicry" and draws loosely on the evolved characteristics of jellyfish to mitigate the dangers of deep-space travel. Its asteroid shell takes a bell-like form, resembling a jellyfish's head, or "bell", and serves as a protective barrier against radiation and impacts.

Materials of differing densities make up the asteroid's leading edge, mirroring jellyfish bells and helping to disperse impact energy. Self-healing technologies are included in the shield, along with surface robots that continually repair damaged areas.

A further biomimetic feature is the pulsed plasma ion propulsion system, inspired by the pulsating action of jellyfish tentacles. The ship would also use a swarm of tethered drones with electrostatic propulsion to manoeuvre the vessel or hold it in place when needed.

An integrated sensor network across the starship's surface would provide situational awareness, locate possible resources or technosignatures, and detect micrometeoroid strikes, radiation levels and other environmental threats. Adaptive navigation systems would supplement this network by using its sensor data to alter the craft's trajectory.

Inside, the habitat would use a modular arrangement comparable to those found in certain jellyfish species, allowing it to be expanded or reconfigured. Its life-support system would be closed-loop and bioregenerative, relying on algae or other microorganisms to transform waste into food and oxygen.

The starship would additionally use hydroponic and aquaponic systems to support fish stocks, a lean source of protein and fatty acids, while also purifying water. Finally, it would carry a laser defence system for targeting and vaporising micrometeoroids too small for the asteroid shield to stop. The jury's assessment stated:

Systema Stellare Proximum distinguishes itself by its immersive storytelling, seamlessly tying together technical, social, and cultural aspects. This concept delivers a rich and imaginative narrative that thoughtfully weaves together social, technical, and cultural aspects of long-term space habitation.

Its storytelling is engaging, with creative scenarios that explore community dynamics and even spirituality-emphasizing the role of shared values in building resilient, intergenerational societies.

The use of an asteroid as a radiation shield is a bold and compelling strategy, paired with a visually striking structure inspired by the form of a jellyfish.

Alongside the three winning entries, numerous other submissions received honourable mentions.

Visit the Project Hyperion website for the complete list of winning submissions.

This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.