>Will people still care about “the mission” 5 generations and billions of kilometers from earth?
How could you not? At whatever point a crew member become disillusioned, it'll likely be too late to turnaround. There'll be a high incidences of interplanetary depression/psychosis as people struggle to deal with leaving the Blue Dot behind, esp. when they see footage from the earth, rainforests, etc. But, nothing counselling won't be able to take care of.
Right now, state propaganda is powerful enough to make young people line up to kill and be killed. So, a little interplanetary panic can be taken care of. In extreme cases, you can have protocols for any crew members who attempts to munity to euthanatized to guarantee the success of the mission.
I enjoyed reading Peter Watts' "The Freeze-Frame Revolution" (and the accompanying online short stories "Hotshot"[1] and "The Island"[2]) about a sublight interstellar ship and its crew - in that example, they have cryogenic storage that allows the same crew that left Earth to live in short spurts and then sleep for eons, but the struggle with disillusionment with the mission is central to the plot.
It also features something like "state propaganda" in the form of the ship's AI which is also programmed to carry out the mission, but it needs the help of the crew. I won't spoil more, but it's one of my favorites!
I think a lot of sci-fi is really wrestling with the problem of getting old. As we age we have fewer and fewer cultural touchstones with the kids. They change the language. They drop all inside jokes and replace them with new. Places even stop existing.
Every time you wake up the language is different. Could you consume enough media to stay centered, but sleep enough to get there? Think how dire the end of Interstellar would be if Murphy had no kids. He doesn’t know anybody. He isn’t even related to anybody anymore. What’s the point?
I almost think if you sent people to another solar system, you’d have to send biologists, botanists, and gardeners. The link to earth isn’t human generations, it’s plant generations. You love oaks? Earthlings love oaks. We can bond over the slice we brought with us. And the ones we didn’t. What else can we really share?
> people struggle to deal with leaving the Blue Dot behind, esp. when they see footage from the earth, rainforests, etc.
5 generations on, the people on the ship didn't leave anything behind. They were born and will die on the ship, and that will be their baseline. Even in places where life is the hardest here on Earth, in the middle of scorching or freezing deserts, people don't get depressed en-masse seeing nice pictures from elsewhere.
How could you not? At whatever point a crew member become disillusioned, it'll likely be too late to turnaround. There'll be a high incidences of interplanetary depression/psychosis as people struggle to deal with leaving the Blue Dot behind, esp. when they see footage from the earth, rainforests, etc. But, nothing counselling won't be able to take care of.
Right now, state propaganda is powerful enough to make young people line up to kill and be killed. So, a little interplanetary panic can be taken care of. In extreme cases, you can have protocols for any crew members who attempts to munity to euthanatized to guarantee the success of the mission.
My .02.