Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

SPACE.com ^ | 2012-09-17 | Clara Moskowitz

[justlurking]

A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized in television's Star Trek — may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say.

A warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster than light. A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, however subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy.

Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially bringing the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science.

"There is hope," Harold "Sonny" White of NASA's Johnson Space Center said here Friday (Sept. 14) at the 100 Year Starship Symposium, a meeting to discuss the challenges of interstellar spaceflight.

[Neidermeyer]

[justlurking]

I'm all for warp drive...as long as they manage to find a planet full of those hot green chicks from Star Trek for me to warp to

Don't you remember the Enterprise (the prequel) episode?

The Orion "slave girls" were actually the masters.

[JRandomFreeper]

I didn't know for years that they were green. "Black and white TV is cheaper and more reliable than color" (channeling my departed father)..

/johnny

[Pontiac]

Life pushing a Cheerio through a bowl of milk. It'd push the other O's aside as it passed.

Of course, planets and stars would be more like trying to push an NFL linebacker out of the way of your Cheerio...

If we are talking interstellar space it is uncharted space for anything smaller than star.

Considering our starship will be smaller than a great many objects that could be in our path I think traveling at greater than light speed would be extremely risky.

Planet size objects could be in our path and we would have no way of knowing and traveling a greater than light speed we would never know.

It would be an interesting equation however an object of infinite mass striking an immovable object.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Maybe those unencountered particles will be ormus!

[Eepsy]

Did someone say 'space lawyers'?

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

Satire is just plain impossible anymore.

[SuperLuminal]

DUH! Could have told you that...

[dangerdoc]

bump

[Big Giant Head]

This thread has all the elements known to man for making it a classic. Good stuff!

[Syntyr]

“Nope, I get to rub the decontamination gel on any hot female science officers. “

Fine but I get to be “assimilated” by hot female borgs!

[justlurking]

Fine but I get to be “assimilated” by hot female borgs!

LOL, I had a great "collective" retort for that, but I think it might get me banned.

[justlurking]

Considering our starship will be smaller than a great many objects that could be in our path I think traveling at greater than light speed would be extremely risky.

Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star, or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?

[morphing libertarian]

Silly, everybody knows that’s not warp drive but you would use your transporter.

[EveningStar]

Aviation and Aerospace ping

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[Dallas59]

[Tallguy]

Unobtanium.

[UCANSEE2]

Scotty: [reads the equation] Imagine that! It never occurred to me to think of SPACE as the thing that was moving!

[UCANSEE2]

The problem with interstellar space travel is that by the time you get somewhere, it is no longer ‘there’.

[discostu]

That’s how Einstein said we could beat the infinite mass at the speed of light problem. When in doubt I believe him until somebody makes the tech to try it out and it doesn’t work like he said.