Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

[Geriatrix]

http://news.yahoo.com/warp-drive-may-more-feasible-thought-scientists-161301109.html

HOUSTON — 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 brining 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.

Warping space-time

An Alcubierre warp drive would involve a football-shape spacecraft attached to a large ring encircling it. This ring, potentially made of exotic matter, would cause space-time to warp around the starship, creating a region of contracted space in front of it and expanded space behind. [Star Trek's Warp Drive: Are We There Yet? | Video]

Meanwhile, the starship itself would stay inside a bubble of flat space-time that wasn't being warped at all.

"Everything within space is restricted by the speed of light," explained Richard Obousy, president of Icarus Interstellar, a non-profit group of scientists and engineers devoted to pursuing interstellar spaceflight. "But the really cool thing is space-time, the fabric of space, is not limited by the speed of light."

With this concept, the spacecraft would be able to achieve an effective speed of about 10 times the speed of light, all without breaking the cosmic speed limit.

The only problem is, previous studies estimated the warp drive would require a minimum amount of energy about equal to the mass-energy of the planet Jupiter.

But recently White calculated what would happen if the shape of the ring encircling the spacecraft was adjusted into more of a rounded donut, as opposed to a flat ring. He found in that case, the warp drive could be powered by a mass about the size of a spacecraft like the Voyager 1 probe NASA launched in 1977.

Furthermore, if the intensity of the space warps can be oscillated over time, the energy required is reduced even more, White found.

"The findings I presented today change it from impractical to plausible and worth further investigation," White told SPACE.com. "The additional energy reduction realized by oscillating the bubble intensity is an interesting conjecture that we will enjoy looking at in the lab."

Laboratory tests

White and his colleagues have begun experimenting with a mini version of the warp drive in their laboratory.

They set up what they call the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer at the Johnson Space Center, essentially creating a laser interferometer that instigates micro versions of space-time warps.

"We're trying to see if we can generate a very tiny instance of this in a tabletop experiment, to try to perturb space-time by one part in 10 million," White said.

He called the project a "humble experiment" compared to what would be needed for a real warp drive, but said it represents a promising first step.

And other scientists stressed that even outlandish-sounding ideas, such as the warp drive, need to be considered if humanity is serious about traveling to other stars.

"If we're ever going to become a true spacefaring civilization, we're going to have to think outside the box a little bit, were going to have to be a little bit audacious," Obousy said.

 

[porchrat]

We better get to work tracking down some dilithium crystals.

 

[abandonallhope]

Why not just invent a new element ?

Nothing is impossible right ?

 

[AlphaJohn]

Shell, BP and the rest better get to work tracking down some dilithium crystals.

I think thats a minor issue, the bigger problem is manufacturing and storage of Anti matter. LHC can make em, but only very small quantities and can only store it in a magnetic field for so long.

The crystals are just used to focus the energy when recombining matter and anti-matter, and we can use other methods like the crystallized lithium that was used in the constitution-class starships. We can switch to Dilithium in 2260 to be more efficient.

 

[AstroTurf]

I think thats a minor issue, the bigger problem is manufacturing and storage of Anti matter. LHC can make em, but only very small quantities and can only store it in a magnetic field for so long.

The crystals are just used to focus the energy when recombining matter and anti-matter, and we can use other methods like the crystallized lithium that was used in the constitution-class starships. We can switch to Dilithium in 2260 to be more efficient.

Yep, for now anti-matter would be the solution.

Also, possibly using black-holes as a slingshot for getting up to speed (near light speed) would save a ton of energy.

 

[porchrat]

I think thats a minor issue, the bigger problem is manufacturing and storage of Anti matter. LHC can make em, but only very small quantities and can only store it in a magnetic field for so long.

The crystals are just used to focus the energy when recombining matter and anti-matter, and we can use other methods like the crystallized lithium that was used in the constitution-class starships. We can switch to Dilithium in 2260 to be more efficient.

Probably have to run a particle accelerator on board the ship to continuously generate fresh antiprotons or positrons or whatever they use in the Star Trek warp core. Particle accelerators get something like 3 antiprotons for every million collisions or so if what I have read on the subject is true. (still costs zillions to generate even small amounts)

Storage would be a problem. Didn't watch enough Star Trek to know how exactly they stored them in the show.

 

[Moosedrool]

It is possible to travel thousands of light years in short periods of time (hour's/days) without even going faster than the speed of light or manipulating space time. There is a down side though, apart from the massive amounts of energy required...

 

[Skydrops]

Stargate > Star Trek :erm:

 

[NomNom]

Stargate > Star Trek :erm:

Yeah all we need to do is find the Stargate, I wonder if the Russians have found the other one yet...

 

[Rands]

Top 10 'Star Trek' Technologies that Actually Came True

 

[chrisc]

That is how all those UFOs got here... This will silence the doubters at one fell swoop. I really believe that we will meet an alien life-form in due course, but it will be a non-event since it will be so completely different from us to be absolutely worthless.