[boris]

"This new NASA working group adds an exciting dimension to the space program as we head into 21st century. One can only feel encouraged that the agency has chosen to go in this promising direction. It will take the kinds of breakthroughs discussed in this article, and soon to be studied in depth by the NASA working group, to get us to the stars. And one can feel confident that because of this, more startling theoretical and technological breakthroughs lurk right around the corner."

This new NASA working group has been dissolved and Mr. Millis reassigned.

===========================

My comment on "Starship Builders": If any of these schemes were feasible, intelligent aliens would have reduced them to practise thousands of years ago. We should observe their traffic (e.g., massive waves of Cherenkov radiation). We do not. Nor have they landed on the White House lawn and requested a private audience with the interns.

Hence either none of these schemes is feasible or there are no intelligent E.T.'s.

This is a version of the 'Fermi Paradox' (FP) and is easy to construct once you've understood the FP.

If UFOs are cruising our skys from, say, dozens of Starship Building alien cultures, it is curious that all of them are so shy and seem to be fixated on anal probes.

On the other hand, were I a shy alien in a UFO, the best way to appear unobtrusive would be to build my ship in the shape of a 747 and go flying around at 550 mph...

--Boris

[Brett66]

the best way to appear unobtrusive would be to build my ship in the shape of a 747 and go flying around at 550 mph

LOL! But where's the fun in that? I would keep the wierd saucer shape so I could spook people in trailer parks.

[Jonah Hex]

On the other hand, were I a shy alien in a UFO, the best way to appear unobtrusive would be to build my ship in the shape of a 747 and go flying around at 550 mph...

Yeah, but imagine how cool it would be if you built your ship to resemble a huge black monolith, especially with an external dimension ratio of 1x4x9....

[staytrue]

If any of these schemes were feasible, intelligent aliens would have...

The dinosaurs possessed some level of intelligence for 200 million years and developed no technology that we know of. Intelligence to create technology may be a very rare or even perhaps unique event.

[Frank_Discussion]

Question for you boris: Do we have Cherenkov-detectors placed around the planet, either on it or in near space? If not, perhaps such evidence just hasn't been collected. This is truly something to consider, and I'm asking in all seriousness.

However:

"Nor have they landed on the White House lawn and requested a private audience with the interns."

C'mon. Denegration isn't required here. I participate (lightly) on a YahooGroup that is looking at Alcubierre's work and subsequent refinements, and they are pretty well on track. They take it very seriously, get published, and don't surrender to hype or UFO cults.

That's reminds me of something I noticed about this paper. One of the frequent criticisms of papers that reference the Alcubierre breakthrough is that his idea requires more negative energy than the total (positive) energy of the universe! Certainly a show-stopper. However, the metric-engineering mentioned in the the article is a big focus of refinement of this field, and as researchers/theorists have moved forward new metric treatments have reduced the energy requirements to concievable levels.

My focus is on the engineering aspects of building the equipment involved, but I'm only recently looking into it. What I find interesting is that if the theories are systematically digested, they aren't that hard to understand. Eating the elephant one bite at a time, as it were.

[Quix]

It's plausible that even ET's would have limits placed on their options.

But, Von Braun insisted that after the Iraq war planned in 1970ish, we would be called on to fight the evil ET's--something he considered a hideous hoax--his being convinced all the ET's were benign.

[js1138]

Any usable warp drive implies the ability for time travel. Insert time travel into the universe and all hell breaks loose, literally. Perhaps among the infinite quantum multiverses we are one where neither warp drive nor time travel ever occurs, or both are impossible.

;^)