Possible warp drive may allow Alpha Centauri to be reached "in a mere two weeks"

[aelf]

How NASA might build its very first warp drive

The idea came to White while he was considering a rather remarkable equation formulated by physicist Miguel Alcubierre. In his 1994 paper titled, "The Warp Drive: Hyper-Fast Travel Within General Relativity," Alcubierre suggested a mechanism by which space-time could be "warped" both in front of and behind a spacecraft... It takes advantage of a quirk in the cosmological code that allows for the expansion and contraction of space-time, and could allow for hyper-fast travel between interstellar destinations. Essentially, the empty space behind a starship would be made to expand rapidly, pushing the craft in a forward direction — passengers would perceive it as movement despite the complete lack of acceleration.

White speculates that such a drive could result in "speeds" that could take a spacecraft to Alpha Centauri in a mere two weeks — even though the system is 4.3 light-years away.

...

"Remember, nothing locally exceeds the speed of light, but space can expand and contract at any speed," White told io9. "However, space-time is really stiff, so to create the expansion and contraction effect in a useful manner in order for us to reach interstellar destinations in reasonable time periods would require a lot of energy."

And indeed, early assessments published in the ensuing scientific literature suggested horrific amounts of energy — basically equal to the mass-energy of the planet Jupiter (what is 1.9 × 1027 kilograms or 317 Earth masses). As a result, the idea was brushed aside as being far too impractical. Even though nature allowed for a warp drive, it looked like we would never be able to build one ourselves.

"However," said White, "based on the analysis I did the last 18 months, there may be hope." The key, says White, may be in altering the geometry of the warp drive itself.
...

"My early results suggested I had discovered something that was in the math all along," he recalled. "I suddenly realized that if you made the thickness of the negative vacuum energy ring larger — like shifting from a belt shape to a donut shape — and oscillate the warp bubble, you can greatly reduce the energy required — perhaps making the idea plausible." White had adjusted the shape of Alcubierre's ring which surrounded the spheroid from something that was a flat halo to something that was thicker and curvier.

He presented the results of his Alcubierre Drive rethink a year later at the 100 Year Starship conference in Atlanta where he highlighted his new optimization approaches — a new design that could significantly reduce the amount of exotic matter required. And in fact, White says that the warp drive could be powered by a mass that's even less than that of the Voyager 1 spacecraft.

...

Theoretical plausibility is all fine and well, of course. What White needs now is a real-world proof-of-concept. So he's hit the lab and begun work on actual experiments.

"We're utilizing a modified Michelson-Morley interferometer — that allows us to measure microscopic perturbations in space time," he said. "In our case, we're attempting to make one of the legs of the interferometer appear to be a different length when we energize our test devices." White and his colleagues are trying to simulate the tweaked Alcubierre drive in miniature by using lasers to perturb space-time by one part in 10 million... And it's through these experiments, hopes White, that NASA can go from the theoretical to the practical.

Link

This sounds pretty awesome. I'm surprised not to find any threads on this yet.

Thoughts? Will the USA win a space victory after all?

 

[Leoreth]

Isn't all the article says "we might need less of the exotic matter we haven't even found yet"?

But this comment is golden:

Hate to spoil the party here, but there's every indication that our own military has already developed warp drive by rapidly spinning a metal-particulate, high-density, mercury plasma which generates a substantial torsion field with frame dragging effects, and does so without the old-world concepts of how to disturb space. For more information on what I'm discussing here, go to my website, Barry [Taff.net] and read my blog entitled "Building A Warp Drive Engine". How do you think the world respond if it discovered that our military, with the assistance of Lockheed Martin and Ben Rich, had reverse engineered an "Alien Reproduction Vehicle" (ARV) that flies via warp drive? In fact, you might also want to look into a vehicle called the TR3-B, which also uses a similar method to effectively negate the aircraft's mass, thereby allowing it to accelerate and maneuver is the most extraordinary ways. While Ben Rich lay on his deathbed, he admitted to many very interesting aspects related to this discussion. Bottom line, we know much more about warp drive that is being acknowledged,

 

[kochman]

Sign me up, I'm doing a massive land grab in another system, natives be damned (unless they are hot)...

 

[peter grimes]

Sign me up, I'm doing a massive land grab in another system, natives be damned (unless they are hot)...

What if you wind up with District-9-style pests? Or StarshipTroopers bugs?

Also, there's a guy claiming to sell deeded lots on the moon. We at least already know how to get there!

 

[kochman]

What if you wind up with District-9-style pests? Or StarshipTroopers bugs?

2nd amendment dude!
Oh yeah!

 

[History_Buff]

Assuming it doesn't obliterate everything at the other end of course.

Space is not just an empty void between point A and point B… rather, it’s full of particles that have mass (as well as some that do not.) What the research team — led by Brendan McMonigal, Geraint Lewis, and Philip O’Byrne — has found is that these particles can get “swept up” into the warp bubble and focused into regions before and behind the ship, as well as within the warp bubble itself.

When the Alcubierre-driven ship decelerates from superluminal speed, the particles its bubble has gathered are released in energetic outbursts. In the case of forward-facing particles the outburst can be very energetic — enough to destroy anyone at the destination directly in front of the ship.

http://www.universetoday.com/93882/warp-drives-may-come-with-a-killer-downside/

 

[peter grimes]

What are some other not-outlandishly-implausible movie aliens? I guess I should remove the prawns from my list. They were bipedal, had manipulative handses, and primatoid eyes. Not plausible to me.

I read the i09 link.

Not impressed. That exotic matter that was obliquely mentioned? Turns out to be matter with Negative Mass. I don't understand that idea. How would something with -m be worked into the E=mc^2 relationship?

 

[peter grimes]

Assuming it doesn't obliterate everything at the other end of course.



http://www.universetoday.com/93882/warp-drives-may-come-with-a-killer-downside/

From your link:
Researchers from the University of Sydney have done some advanced crunching of numbers

Surrrre, there is a university in Australialand

Please, I'm not falling for yet another hoax this week

 

[kochman]

Not impressed. That exotic matter that was obliquely mentioned? Turns out to be matter with Negative Mass. I don't understand that idea. How would something with -m be worked into the E=mc^2 relationship?

I could be talking out of my ass here... but isn't that as simple as algebra?

 

[peter grimes]

I could be talking out of my ass here... but isn't that as simple as algebra?

I'm talking out my ass, too. Maybe it's not that difficult to understand.

But if it's simple algebra, then we would have matter that is a condensate of negative energy. WTH is negative energy??

To my mind it's nonsensical.

But then again, I've read that negative numbers were nonsensical to scholars for a long time. How can you own a negative number of sheep? You can't, obviously. If you own -5 sheep, and someone gives you 3, you will have 3 sheep - not -2. But once it was accepted that numbers can be separated from the things they measure, it was not a big leap to accepting negative integers.

Perhaps it's the same thing here.

I'll shutup now

 

[Formaldehyde]

It all sounds like the usual science fiction bordering on fantasy.

But the comment that Leoreth posted does highlight a major issue with much basic scientific research performed in the US. It is subject to being classified and turned into yet another way of killing others just to maintain our dominance in the use of military technology. As a result, all of humanity is frequently far better off if such discoveries are made in other countries that don't have such a pervasive warmongering culture as ours, so they won't be deliberately hidden from those who can apply that knowledge for the general betterment of all mankind.

 

[Truronian]

Isn't all the article says "we might need less of the exotic matter we haven't even found yet"?

...and have no reason to believe exists.

This is basically the same idea as my time machine that is powered by fairies and unicorns, just with slightly harder maths.

 

[kochman]

It all sounds like the usual science fiction bordering on fantasy.

But the comment that Leoreth posted does highlight a major issue with any basic scientific research performed in the US. It is subject to being classified and turned into yet another way of killing others just to maintain our dominance in the use of military technology. As a result, all of humanity is frequently far better off if such discoveries are made in other countries that don't have such a pervasive warmongering culture as ours, so they won't be deliberately hidden from those who can apply that knowledge for the general betterment of all mankind.

Another nonsensical statement...
So many medical advances came because of what? Wars... anatomy studies... learning to treat the wounded. This was going on in places other than the USA... Europe did a LOT of it. "Western medicine".

The USA is a militaristic society... clearly... but you don't have to just lump everything under USA bad...

 

[The_J]

Sign me up, I'm doing a massive land grab in another system, natives be damned (unless they are hot)...

Hurry, I want to sign up too .

This is basically the same idea as my time machine that is powered by fairies and unicorns, just with slightly harder maths.

Trolls would seem to be a better power source IMHO.

 

[Synobun]

This article has been around for months. I'm surprised it's only now getting huge public attention.

Since they're testing it on a miniature scale, I assume we'll hear something conclusive about this idea in the next five years. In any case, it's good news. Good news because it means there are some people out there dedicated to finding a way to expand our knowledge about space and being able to see our knowledge expand... face to face with whatever that may be.

 

[Crezth]

But this comment is golden:

This comment had me in stitches. Thanks for the share.

 

[Leoreth]

This is basically the same idea as my time machine that is powered by fairies and unicorns, just with slightly harder maths.

Pay me well and I'll devise a time machine that works without the fairies.

 

[Deaths Advocate]

We would be still short of unicorns sadly..

 

[WindFish]

As long as the Ship does not have a Puerto Rican security officer, we should be okay.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

Luckily, no humans need risk their lives in such a cosmic junker. Just have to shoot it in some random direction and the Vulcans will pick it up on their scans and come here to introduce us to the galactic block party.