Living Starship for a Dying Planet

Many of us have grown up with the hit TV series Star Trek But if its premise seemed like impossible science fiction... well think again. Because something called Project Persephone is trying to create just that - a starship The point ISN'T to try and uncover new civilisations - but rather to eventually seek out new inhabitable worlds - if and when planet Earth becomes uninhabitable because of climate change or nuclear and biological warfare. The idea is that the star ship would carry a travelling population of humans away from a dying planet. The project is a collaboration between British scientists and architects, with colleagues in the US, Italy and the Netherlands.

Dr Rachel Armstrong is among them. She's a senior architecture and design lecturer at the University of Greenwich.