[1] The study explored development of a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make interstellar space travel practicable and feasible.
[3][4][5] The study culminated in a $500,000 grant awarded to a consortium under the lead of the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence, which led to the creation of an independent organization inheriting the name 100 Year Starship from DARPA.
[8] The 100 Year Starship study was conceived in the summer of 2010 by the director of the DARPA Tactical Technology Office, David Neyland, as an effort seeded by DARPA to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible.
[10] This was similar to how science fiction spurred generations of scientists and engineers to follow the career paths they did, as an avenue to capture the imagination of people who normally wouldn't think of doing research and development and tag them with something they would be excited about.
[10] The inspiration for 100YSS was the Robert Heinlein 1956 science fiction novel, Time for the Stars, in which the Long Range Foundation created technologies that took generations to deliver, but eventually benefited the entire species.
[13] DARPA intended to begin the yearlong 100YSS study on 1/11/11, with a gathering of visionaries for strategic planning, followed by a commercial request for proposals in the summer of 2011, then an international symposium in the fall of 2011 and finally an award of a research foundation grant in late 2011.
[9][13] However, Worden preempted DARPA and prematurely announced the nascent study prior to internal government coordination, at San Francisco's Long Conversation conference in October 2010.
[14] This caused considerable issue within government circles and forced DARPA to immediately follow-up with an early press release from Eremenko.
[1][15] On January 10 & 11, 2011, DARPA gathered 30 scientists, entrepreneurs and science fiction writers in a two-day by-invitation-only brainstorming session in northern California, at Cavallo Point, near San Francisco, to chart the course for the 100 Year Starship study.
[17] On May 3, 2011, DARPA released a Request for Information (RFI) seeking ideas for an organization, business model and approach appropriate for a self-sustaining investment vehicle in support of the 100 Year Starship Study.
[26][27] By design, DARPA invested in the instruments of intellectual property to support the eventual selection of an organization to carry the 100YSS vision forward.
The 100 Year Starship study was the name of the one-year DARPA project to explore development of a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make interstellar space travel practicable and feasible.