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Faster Than the Speed of Light?
The New York Times ^ | July 22, 2013 | Danny Hakim

Posted on 11/29/2013 7:58:18 PM PST by Star Traveler

HOUSTON — Beyond the security gate at the Johnson Space Center’s 1960s-era campus here, inside a two-story glass and concrete building with winding corridors, there is a floating laboratory.

Harold G. White, a physicist and advanced propulsion engineer at NASA, beckoned toward a table full of equipment there on a recent afternoon: a laser, a camera, some small mirrors, a ring made of ceramic capacitors and a few other objects.

He and other NASA engineers have been designing and redesigning these instruments, with the goal of using them to slightly warp the trajectory of a photon, changing the distance it travels in a certain area, and then observing the change with a device called an interferometer. So sensitive is their measuring equipment that it was picking up myriad earthly vibrations, including people walking nearby. So they recently moved into this lab, which floats atop a system of underground pneumatic piers, freeing it from seismic disturbances.

The team is trying to determine whether faster-than-light travel — warp drive — might someday be possible.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aerospace; alcubierredrive; astronomy; aviation; fasterthanlight; ftl; haroldgwhite; haroldsonnywhite; houston; interstellarflight; nasa; space; speedoflight; stars; stringtheory; warpdrive; xplanets
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Fat chance ... :-)
1 posted on 11/29/2013 7:58:19 PM PST by Star Traveler
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To: Star Traveler

Perhaps, but such research is worthwhile if it could translate to the proliferation of our species across the galaxy.


2 posted on 11/29/2013 8:01:30 PM PST by Pox (Good Night. I expect more respect tomorrow.)
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To: Star Traveler

” Space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mindbogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space. “ - H2G2


3 posted on 11/29/2013 8:07:16 PM PST by ctdonath2 (Making good people helpless doesn't make bad people harmless.)
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To: Star Traveler

No space travel because we don’t have enough fuel.


4 posted on 11/29/2013 8:09:27 PM PST by cloudmountain
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To: Star Traveler
Re: Fat chance

Make it... so!

http://kenleykristofferson.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/captain-picard-1.jpg

5 posted on 11/29/2013 8:10:37 PM PST by Bender2 ("I've got a twisted sense of humor, and everything amuses me." RAH Beyond this Horizon)
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To: ctdonath2

What a great flick.


6 posted on 11/29/2013 8:10:43 PM PST by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
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To: Star Traveler

Can the US even send an human into orbit anymore?


7 posted on 11/29/2013 8:10:51 PM PST by sickoflibs (Obama : 'If you like your Doctor you can keep him, PERIOD! Don't believe the GOPs warnings')
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To: ctdonath2

Classic.


8 posted on 11/29/2013 8:11:01 PM PST by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: sickoflibs

NASA now teaches the astronauts how to properly stick out their thumb and “hitch a ride” from the Russians ... LOL ...


9 posted on 11/29/2013 8:14:20 PM PST by Star Traveler (Remember to keep the Messiah of Israel in the One-World Government that we look forward to coming)
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To: Star Traveler; 04-Bravo; 1FASTGLOCK45; 1stFreedom; 2ndDivisionVet; 2sheds; 60Gunner; 6AL-4V; ...
Aviation and Aerospace ping

Click here to view: Highlights in the History of Aviation and Aerospace - The Past, The Present, and The Future

Please ping me to aviation and aerospace articles. Thank you.

If you want added to or removed from this ping list, please contact EveningStar or Paleo Conservative.

10 posted on 11/29/2013 8:15:51 PM PST by EveningStar
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To: Star Traveler

How much faster than the speed of light.. ?
And once you’ve measured it..

How can you be sure you’ve not been injected with...
BULL SPERM..


11 posted on 11/29/2013 8:23:22 PM PST by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole..)
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To: Star Traveler

I guess it it will be a while before we send a spaceship out to space at near the speed of light as in the original 1968 movie Planet of the Apes, as we gave up on sending men into orbit.

We got better investments for our $$$.
Afghanistan and Obamacare.


12 posted on 11/29/2013 8:32:04 PM PST by sickoflibs (Obama : 'If you like your Doctor you can keep him, PERIOD! Don't believe the GOPs warnings')
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To: Pox

Hope it’s ready before obozo f**ks up the entire earth. He’s nearly done with the United States.


13 posted on 11/29/2013 8:36:11 PM PST by Dick Bachert (Ignorance is NOT BLISS. It is the ROAD TO SERFDOM! We're on a ROAD TRIP!!)
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To: sickoflibs
Can the US even send an human into orbit anymore?

If there were an emergency we could probably do it in a matter of weeks. Within the next couple of years we'll have more man-launching capability than we've ever had.

14 posted on 11/29/2013 8:40:47 PM PST by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: Star Traveler

I can think of one thing that is traveling at twice the speed of light.


15 posted on 11/29/2013 8:43:25 PM PST by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: ShadowAce

Ummm ... you must be referring to the increase in our National Debt!


16 posted on 11/29/2013 8:44:52 PM PST by Star Traveler (Remember to keep the Messiah of Israel in the One-World Government that we look forward to coming)
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To: sickoflibs

Yep, I say just go do it. Maybe offer a prize for the first manmade vehicle to exceed 1/10 the speed of light! If mass increases with velocity, then those propellants ejected will have more impulse as well, or so it seems to me.


17 posted on 11/29/2013 8:47:49 PM PST by Errant
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To: Star Traveler

I thought NASA’s job these days was to emphasize the contributions of Islam to science.


18 posted on 11/29/2013 8:54:50 PM PST by Rocky (The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it. George Orwell)
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To: Rocky

What a DORK Obama is. I’ll sure be glad when he’s gone. I’m thinking that a special t-shirt would be in order for that time ... saying ... “I survived Obama!”


19 posted on 11/29/2013 8:58:30 PM PST by Star Traveler (Remember to keep the Messiah of Israel in the One-World Government that we look forward to coming)
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To: Star Traveler
the only thing i know of faster than the speed of light, is stooopid... stooopid is faster that anything known or imagined
20 posted on 11/29/2013 9:04:29 PM PST by Chode (Stand UP and Be Counted, or line up and be numbered - *DTOM* -vvv- NO Pity for the LAZY - 86-44)
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