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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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To: Chode

True true.


21 posted on 11/29/2013 9:07:53 PM PST by GrandJediMasterYoda (What do we want? Time travel. When do we want it? It's irrelevant.)
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To: Star Traveler

Didn’t the French do this exact same thing seven or eight years ago to show that paired photons remain quantum-bound even if they travel different distances? They produce the same interference pattern as paired photons which arrive at the same time.

Why would we be spending all this money to show the French were right?


22 posted on 11/29/2013 9:10:37 PM PST by VanShuyten ("a shadow...draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence.")
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To: Star Traveler

Don’t put any money into it until we see whether he actually DOES go away in January 2017.

As slick as the ‘rats changed the senate rules recently, I’ll be surprised if they don’t change some more and if he isn’t declared President in perpetuity and NEVER leaves.


23 posted on 11/29/2013 9:15:26 PM PST by Tucker39
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To: GrandJediMasterYoda
stooopid travels at Ludicrous speed...
24 posted on 11/29/2013 9:17:28 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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To: Star Traveler

So, If we already know the speed of light…What then is the speed of darkness?


25 posted on 11/29/2013 9:23:05 PM PST by FDNYRHEROES (It's 3 AM. Let me sleep on it. I'll get back to you in 16 hours.)
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Comment #26 Removed by Moderator

To: FDNYRHEROES

dat’s racist!


27 posted on 11/29/2013 9:33:28 PM PST by bigbob (The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. Abraham Lincoln)
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To: sickoflibs

It will happen—but it might take another 300 years.


28 posted on 11/29/2013 9:34:32 PM PST by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll)
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To: cloudmountain
Bussard Ramjet.
29 posted on 11/29/2013 9:35:28 PM PST by Toddsterpatriot (Science is hard. Harder if you're stupid.)
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To: Forward the Light Brigade
RE :”It will happen—but it might take another 300 years.”

Wanna bet ? Three hundred years from today....

30 posted on 11/29/2013 9:36:37 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: VanShuyten

Spooky action at a distance.


31 posted on 11/29/2013 9:39:56 PM PST by Slicksadick (We accept the love we think we deserve.)
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To: Star Traveler

No dilithium crystal?


32 posted on 11/29/2013 9:52:12 PM PST by Keli Kilohana (Editor, ZARR CHASM CHRONICAL [sic], Sore, WV)
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To: sickoflibs
Can the US even send an human into orbit anymore?

Look up 'Falcon 9'.

33 posted on 11/29/2013 10:24:28 PM PST by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: sickoflibs
" Can the US even send an human into orbit anymore? "
Yes, a ride on the debt bounce.
34 posted on 11/30/2013 12:39:03 AM PST by American Constitutionalist
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To: Chode

“Nothing travels faster than the speed of light except for bad news which obeys rules of it own”
Douglas Adams


35 posted on 11/30/2013 1:51:44 AM PST by Fai Mao (Genius at Large)
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To: Star Traveler

NASA’s budget had been cut to the bone, then Sequestration cut it even further. We do not pursue greatness through research or space exploration any longer. Americans worship at the altar of Medicaid, Food Stamps, Social Security Disability, Medicare, ObamaCare, EITC cash refunds, Section 8 housing vouchers, TANF Welfare, and Unemployment checks.


36 posted on 11/30/2013 3:04:25 AM PST by SkyPilot
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To: Pox

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

Humans as we know them will never live unprotected on another world. We developed and live in a soup of microorganisms. Our defenses were evolved to allow us to survive in THAT soup. Add one new organism to that soup and our defenses will not recognize it in time to stop it from giving us terminal Vegan Foot Rot.


37 posted on 11/30/2013 3:14:58 AM PST by Gen.Blather
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To: SkyPilot

Can’t have anything that shows American Exceptionalism.


38 posted on 11/30/2013 3:54:12 AM PST by Dr. Ursus
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To: Star Traveler

Space is a convenient word used for the absence of things. Space is not something. Space can not be expanded.


39 posted on 11/30/2013 3:58:47 AM PST by I want the USA back (Media: completely irresponsible traitors. Complicit in the destruction of our country.)
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To: Star Traveler
I had heard that NASA’s prime mission had become to prove global warming through Muslim outreach.
40 posted on 11/30/2013 4:17:22 AM PST by Hiryusan
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