Staircase Program Capsule
Item from deaths-end by Liu Cixin
Humanity's first interstellar mission — a tiny probe driven by sequential nuclear detonations, carrying Yun Tianming's frozen brain toward the Trisolaran fleet.
What They Know
- Designed and championed by Thomas Wade and the PIA
- Used a chain of orbital nuclear detonations behind a giant solar sail to accelerate to ~1% c
- Could only carry a single human brain — Yun Tianming's, after Cheng Xin's recommendation
- Capsule was lost mid-flight and presumed destroyed; in fact the Trisolarans intercepted and revived him
Connections
View full profile at Simulacra.Ink