Quote Originally Posted by Sornaensis View Post
What?

On a generation ship, everything would be built to be recycled. Meaning you aren't sitting on a million tons of rations that will be depleted. The ship simply becomes a miniature earth for a few hundred years.
AH, you meant for the ship itself. (I also suspect people wouldn't be mindless consumers aboard a generation ship, too. That would defeat the ship's ability to sustain life for that long.)

But still, fuel for a power source would be required, I'd assume nuclear power, but then again you need all of the resources to BUILD a ship with such an expanse and GET the pieces into outer space (that would take countless launches before assembly.) It's such a massive project we may not have sufficient resources on earth to accomplish it!