Institute for Interstellar Studies

The Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) was founded in London in 2012 as a not-for-profit unincorporated organisation. Its stated objectives are education and research into the challenges of Interstellar Travel. i4is was incorporated in the UK in May 2014 as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee (Companies House number:09062458). Its original title of Institute for Interstellar Studies reflects the stated ambitions of the company.

Several of its principals were involved in the 100 Year Starship winning team originated by NASA and DARPA.

The Vision Statement of the i4is is : “We aspire towards an optimistic future for humans on Earth and in space. Our bold vision is to be an organisation which is central to catalysing the conditions in society over the next century to enable robotic and human exploration of the frontier beyond our Solar System and to other stars, as part of a long-term enduring strategy and towards a sustainable space-based economy.”.

Although practical studies of interstellar travel date back as far as the JBIS red cover editions in the early 1950s and the BIS Daedalus Project in the 1970s, there has been a resurgence of interest in the 2010s and a number of initiatives and institutions have paid attention to the subject. These include the 100 Year Starship project of NASA and DARPA, the Tau Zero Foundation, the Global Starship Alliance, Star Voyager, and Icarus Interstellar.

The first of a planned annual series of symposia inspired by the i4is took place on 29 May 2013 at the British Interplanetary Society(BIS). Titled The Philosophy of the Starship it included contributions on self-replicating Von Neumann probes, the Fermi Paradox, developments since the British Interplanetary Society Project Daedalus of 1975, interstellar discovery as an antidote to intellectual stagnation citing the views of John Locke and Francis Fukuyama, science fiction as a vehicle for discussion of the ethics and cultural impact of alien contact and geopolitical influence on deep space exploration.