Not Sure, But... FTL!!

[Australis]

I'm way behind on the science so I thought I'd put this up and get a more informed opinion.

IF correct... I dunno... maybe in our lifetime after all?

Big IF, though.

http://io9.com/heres-nasas-new-design-for-a-warp-drive-ship-1588948192

 

[Robert Comsol]

Thanks for the link, that's a rather interesting ship design although it reminds me a lot of a painting Andrew Probert did visualizing the command module from the original "Planet of the Apes" film docked to an FTL-ringship.

The whole issue looks like a big hoax to me. Anyway, first they need the infrastructure to construct a vehicle in orbit, because the one in the link doesn't look like it took off from Earth.

Bob

 

[Robert Maxwell]

It's not so much a hoax as it is deeply, deeply speculative. This is a variant on the Alcubierre drive, which requires "exotic matter" that has a negative energy density. Even though the math is being done by people who really, really want FTL to be real, they have a hard time making the numbers fit so that we could move a warp ship out of our solar system without needing energy on the order of Jupiter's mass on up to several suns. In other words, under the best guesses of people who desperately believe this is possible, the numbers show it's laughably impractical.

 

[HIjol]

^^yeah, but! Way. Too. Cool.

...this would be a reason to live a couple of hundred years to see if it really can be done...

...still, it is that pesky E=MC^2...

 

[Robert Comsol]

This is a variant on the Alcubierre drive, which requires "exotic matter" that has a negative energy density.

Curious, at the SciFi Worldcon 1990 I attended a lecture of Professor Forward, addressing the issue of negative matter.

What I understood was that you put an equal amount of negative matter mass behind your spaceship and the repelling effect will drive the ship forward. Halfway to Alpha Centauri, you'd have to relocate the negative matter to the bow of the ship to deccelerate.

None of that remotely sounded that any form of FTL was involved.

Bob

 

[Metryq]

None of that remotely sounded that any form of FTL was involved.

No, just entirely fictitious "negative matter." That's not available at every corner drug store, but one might be able to trade some from terrorists for used pinball machine parts.

 

[Robert Comsol]

The more I think about, the more realistic the fictitious "space energy" properties of the Starship Enterprise look to me:

The navigational dish emits emits a dark "matter" beam to contract space and the nacelles emit dark energy to pump it back into its original shape.

Bob

 

[Metryq]

The navigational dish emits emits a dark "matter" beam to contract space and the nacelles emit dark energy to pump it back into its original shape.

That would make the ship's engines the most potent weapon on board. (Gee, kinda like the "Wave Motion Engine" and gun from SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO, or the first Man-Kzin encounter.)

Then some wet-behind-the-ears newbie in the navigator's seat plots a course to rendezvous with the ambassador's ship, thus causing the consular ship to implode.

"D'oh!"

 

[sojourner]

I'd recommend watching the full video on youtube regarding the science involved instead of just making fun of the pretty pictures guys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M8yht_ofHc#

It's actually very interesting.

 

[HIjol]

I'd recommend watching the full video on youtube regarding the science involved instead of just making fun of the pretty pictures guys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M8yht_ofHc#t=2770


It's actually very interesting.

As I said above, way cool, and how I wish I could hang around to see it to possible fruition...workable or not, I agree...interesting...and fascinating...

 

[Deckerd]

Well I watched it and I have to say that it was, from a layman's point of view, scientific conjecture the same way as all discussions of this topic are. Perhaps some of the astrophysicists on the board could say whether anything new is being put forward here.

 

[sojourner]

I think the fact that they are actually performing tests takes it a step beyond "conjecture".

 

[Deckerd]

What are they testiing, exactly? I'm all for pushing envelopes but what the speaker was talking about on that movie was smarter propulsion which, unless I completely missed the thrust of the argument, is not going to be close to 1% of light speed.

 

[Metryq]

Handwavium

I'd recommend watching the full video on youtube regarding the science involved instead of just making fun of the pretty pictures guys.

The Daedalus study was at least "threshold" engineering that one might expect within a century. The Alcubierre/warp drive is complete fantasy since space doesn't warp. Calculating how much energy or planetary masses is a nonsense exercise masquerading as science, like the Drake equation.

But the renderings were very nice.

 

[Awesome Possum]

It's not so much a hoax as it is deeply, deeply speculative. This is a variant on the Alcubierre drive, which requires "exotic matter" that has a negative energy density. Even though the math is being done by people who really, really want FTL to be real, they have a hard time making the numbers fit so that we could move a warp ship out of our solar system without needing energy on the order of Jupiter's mass on up to several suns. In other words, under the best guesses of people who desperately believe this is possible, the numbers show it's laughably impractical.

Recently some scientist at NASA who is working on this project said that they didn't need that much energy because they worked out a better way of using a warp bubble that required less energy. So instead of something with the mass of a star, it's something with the mass of the Voyager probe. I think that was the exact one he choose in the article.

They still don't know where to get that energy, so we won't be making it to Vulcan in time for dinner anytime soon.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Never mind that shit. Fucking magnets, how do they work?

Seriously, you can't go outside the light cone and screw your own grandmother.

 

[sojourner]

What are they testiing, exactly? I'm all for pushing envelopes but what the speaker was talking about on that movie was smarter propulsion which, unless I completely missed the thrust of the argument, is not going to be close to 1% of light speed.

Did you watch the full video I linked? Not sure what you mean by "smarter propulsion" as nothing like that was mentioned.

space doesn't warp. Calculating how much energy or planetary masses is a nonsense exercise masquerading as science

Oh brother.

 

[Deckerd]

That's what I was trying to say( to RobMax) only less coherently. The whole new configuration of a warp bubble to be ovoid instead of circular etc etc still hinges on 'exotic material' and some means of managing the whole espansion/contraction of space behind and in front of the bubble without turning everything inside to a very nasty mess.

eta: everything in that video was about propulsion

 

[Metryq]

space doesn't warp. Calculating how much energy or planetary masses is a nonsense exercise masquerading as science

Oh brother.

Did you watch the video, or are you commenting on the pretty pictures, only? (By that, I mean the video I linked; underlines indicate hyperlinks on the Web.)

 

[sojourner]

underlines indicate hyperlinks on the Web.

Really!?!?! Holy Shit! I never realized!!!!!!!! Damn, I gotta lot of web surfing to do now!

To add, just realized the link in my original post did not start at the beginning of the video. It's now been corrected. Again, worth watching the entire thing.