Obviously we're talking about a fictitious drive (though NASA might have made one work using an existing drive by firing lasers through it), but I'm curious about even the theoretical concept.
Firstly: Defining the drive
Firstly: Defining the drive
- Say the drive works by
- 1. Constricting the fabric of space in front of the ship allowing it to traverse more distance in the same time; the constriction also "pulls" the ship towards it
- 2. Stretching out the fabric of space behind it, effectively pushing the ship along
- 3. Some thing is used to hold these two distortions together
- Yes, I'm describing something like the Miguel Alcubierre Drive
- Is there anything to suggest the bubble would take a certain amount of time to form (i.e. form the bubble in the front and back, and cinch it together)
- Say, the instant the drive is turned off, the distortion goes away
- Say the ship can accelerate to a maximum speed in 15 seconds
- Provided the ship will stop accelerating the instant it turns away from a previous heading, yet will accelerate/maintain speed on a the new heading: Is there any formula that could be used to determine how quickly it would either
- 1. Do a 180 turn provided no speed change occurred based on acceleration and heading change
- 2. Slow down as it turns
- Say you have a vessel of 4,000 kg
- Say the vessel is moving at a real velocity of 8 kps (orbital velocity about)
- Say a "warp drive" was used to accelerate it up to just a mere 140 kps: Would impact force be 8 kps, 140 kps, or some in between figure
- Say a "warp drive" was used to accelerate it up to 0.25c: What would happen to impact forces?
- Would the front end of the field (which effectively constricts the fabric of space and acts like a gravity well) pull apart the object it ran into depending on the intensity of the bubble?
- Would this act like a deflector of some sort (parting objects out of the way).
