Warp One Engage!

[leafman]

http://www.space.com/17628-warp-driv...aceflight.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 bringing the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science.

This sounds awesome! It says farther down in the article that they have begun lab tests to try to produce micro warp jumps. They are looking at going ten times the speed of light (warp one) which would be enough to make traveling outside of the solar system a 3-4 hour trip.

[Morph Bark]

Now, this is... interesting.

[pendell]

Coolest thing I've read this year.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[The Succubus]

I'll see your Warp Drive and raise you a Planet Destroying Wave of Death:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03...er_warp_drive/

[Anxe]

Expletiveing amazing is what it is. I shall now refer to this,

[Tonal Architect]

While in and of itself great news... Ok, energy requirements are a go, but do we actually have the stuff with which to build this thing, or are we talking of unobtanium (no, not the blue-interstellar-pocahontas-rippoff thing)?

[Form]

I'll see your Warp Drive and raise you a Planet Destroying Wave of Death:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03...er_warp_drive/

It's been weaponized already! Neat!

[Mando Knight]

So, we might make the April 5, 2063 date after all...

[Eldan]

While in and of itself great news... Ok, energy requirements are a go, but do we actually have the stuff with which to build this thing, or are we talking of unobtanium (no, not the blue-interstellar-pocahontas-rippoff thing)?

From what I understand of Alcubierre drives, it involves creating bubbles of more or less compressed space-time and then shoving them around. Sounds like Unobtainium to me.

[Morph Bark]

So, we might make the April 5, 2063 date after all...

Just in time for my 73rd birthday presents!

[lesser_minion]

So, would you like the engineers to concentrate on building a black hole machine to power this thing, or should they concentrate on devising a method for telling the laws of physics to **** right off so we can come up with a way to produce 360 kg of antimatter in a timely fashion without having to face down an armed revolution from our accountants?

Snark aside, while I'm happy to hear that we won't need to blow up Jupiter in order to begin our interstellar colonisation drive, the energy requirements for the improved design are still going to be prohibitive for the foreseeable future.

Even if we had fusion reactors, we'd still have trouble slinging around that kind of juice -- and there's little to suggest that we'll see a commercially viable fusion reactor in any of our lifetimes (go Murphy, don't fail me now).

[Traab]

I would kill all of the kittens to make warp 1 a physical reality. (meaning it works and is on our ships) No offense, but thats about how badly I want real space exploration to go. There HAS to be stuff out there we can use, for example, mineral deposits on asteroid belts, possible fuel sources, things of that nature, which with even as little as warp 1, we could farm and bring back to earth in a reasonable time frame. The biggest problems of sustainability of our natural resources and even the location of them would be dealt with, and it would shift to those nations which could go interstellar in reasonable numbers.

The sheer volume of job market openings this could create could virtually end unemployment since we would need everything from skilled techs and scientists to grunt labor and miners, and it could create the potential for colonies on other worlds, allowing us all to spread out and erase the problems of overpopulation. Obviously we would likely need to do better than warp 1 to get TRUE space exploration, but just by breaking the initial barrier we would likely be able to improve on it further. God I want this to happen in my lifetime so bad!

[Alefiend]

http://www.space.com/17628-warp-driv...aceflight.html

They are looking at going ten times the speed of light (warp one)

I hate to be Comic Book Guy, but this is wrong. Unless something has changed recently, Warp 1 = C. Warp 2 is around 10C, according to current Trek charts.

That said, my head would asplode with awesome if this happened in my lifetime. I am not counting on it, but dang would it be sweet.

[Heliomance]

So, would you like the engineers to concentrate on building a black hole machine to power this thing, or should they concentrate on devising a method for telling the laws of physics to **** right off so we can come up with a way to produce 360 kg of antimatter in a timely fashion without having to face down an armed revolution from our accountants?

Snark aside, while I'm happy to hear that we won't need to blow up Jupiter in order to begin our interstellar colonisation drive, the energy requirements for the improved design are still going to be prohibitive for the foreseeable future.

Even if we had fusion reactors, we'd still have trouble slinging around that kind of juice -- and there's little to suggest that we'll see a commercially viable fusion reactor in any of our lifetimes (go Murphy, don't fail me now).

From what I've heard, useful fusion is about 20 years away. Unfortunately, it's been about 20 years away for a very long time, and probably will continue to be about 20 years away for some time yet.

[Mynxae]

This would be fracking awesome, to say it quite frankly. Also, I thought this picture was funny. Came up when Ele clicked on the link about this

[Ravens_cry]

Well, I doubt this will ever be practical, and even if it is I almost certainly won't see it, but I hope we do or find something better.

[The Succubus]

From what I've heard, useful fusion is about 20 years away. Unfortunately, it's been about 20 years away for a very long time, and probably will continue to be about 20 years away for some time yet.

It's rather vexing isn't it, given that we've been orbiting useful fusion for the past several billion years.

[lesser_minion]

From what I've heard, useful fusion is about 20 years away. Unfortunately, it's been about 20 years away for a very long time, and probably will continue to be about 20 years away for some time yet.

Exactly.

If you could convert light of any wavelength perfectly into antimatter, and you could capture every last drop of sunlight to reach this planet, you'd be able to harvest less than five kilos of antimatter every month.

The Voyager I spacecraft was 720 kg, so you'd need 360 kg of antimatter -- over six years' worth -- even with a perfect warp drive and a perfect warp core.

If this is the best we can do, we'll have colonised much of our Solar system before we're likely to see any kind of FTL.

[Yora]

While in and of itself great news... Ok, energy requirements are a go, but do we actually have the stuff with which to build this thing, or are we talking of unobtanium (no, not the blue-interstellar-pocahontas-rippoff thing)?

It says "potentially made of exotic matter". That's unobtanium.

[Ravens_cry]

It says "potentially made of exotic matter". That's unobtanium.

Depends. Exotic matter can also be hypothetical particles that are predicted by present physics, but have not been spotted in the wild and woolly world of reality, and even stuff we do find, just not often, like Bose–Einstein condensates.
Calling it unobtanium makes it sound like they are saying "Well, if we had magic, we could do it."

[Emmerask]

I'll see your Warp Drive and raise you a Planet Destroying Wave of Death:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03...er_warp_drive/

Well if one could somehow harness this "wave of death" energy that is timelocked in the outer bubble... that would
a) solve this problem and
b) could recharge the warpcore for free

[lesser_minion]

b) could recharge the warpcore for free

I just got a message from the second law of thermodynamics. It says 'Hi.'

[Absol197]

I just got a message from the second law of thermodynamics. It says 'Hi.'

Well, it wouldn't be able to recharge the entire thing, but it would at least give it a little bit back. Sort of like a car battery, in a way - The battery expends some charge in order to get the car started, then driving around helps to recharge the battery. Only a lot more complicated than that .

[pendell]

So, would you like the engineers to concentrate on building a black hole machine to power this thing, or should they concentrate on devising a method for telling the laws of physics to **** right off so we can come up with a way to produce 360 kg of antimatter in a timely fashion without having to face down an armed revolution from our accountants?

This reminds me of a comment in a Terry Pratchett novel. The standin for Da Vinci is discussing his design for a flying machine.

"Would it work"? Asks the Patrician.

"It would if you could get someone who could spin a propeller at several thousand revolutions a minutes".

Today, of course, we can.

The principles of flight, or armored cars and submarines were all known at the time of Leonardo Da Vinci but the power source was lacking. We now know what is theoretically feasible; a solution to provide the power needed will come along eventually.

So I do not scorn this achievement but praise it in a step in the right direction. It may not bear fruit in our lifetimes, any more than Da Vinci saw flying machines in his lifetime, but if we can keep from exterminating ourselves we will get there eventually.

It's an exciting time to be alive.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Chen]

So, would you like the engineers to concentrate on building a black hole machine to power this thing, or should they concentrate on devising a method for telling the laws of physics to **** right off so we can come up with a way to produce 360 kg of antimatter in a timely fashion without having to face down an armed revolution from our accountants?

Snark aside, while I'm happy to hear that we won't need to blow up Jupiter in order to begin our interstellar colonisation drive, the energy requirements for the improved design are still going to be prohibitive for the foreseeable future.

Even if we had fusion reactors, we'd still have trouble slinging around that kind of juice -- and there's little to suggest that we'll see a commercially viable fusion reactor in any of our lifetimes (go Murphy, don't fail me now).

This new paper only made it so that the energy requirements were not impossible.

The problem was the impossible energy requirements were only ONE of the problems with the original Alcubierre drives. The much larger problem is the exotic matter (matter with negative mass or equivalent negative energy density) needed to warp space time in the appropriate manner.

The problem we have is that currently we have the Casimir effect that does show the possibility of producing a net negative energy density between two parralel plates. This is a quantum mechanical effect. However, this negative energy density is not consistent with at least two of the energy conditions in General Relativity. This is somewhat to be expected. General Relativity is a classical theory and is not consistent with quantum theory. This warp drive metric is based of general relativity, but the theory that posits the exotic matter is possible is a quantum theory. Hence the problem with knowing if this is actually possible or not.

[lesser_minion]

So I do not scorn this achievement but praise it in a step in the right direction. It may not bear fruit in our lifetimes, any more than Da Vinci saw flying machines in his lifetime, but if we can keep from exterminating ourselves we will get there eventually.

I know that. I'm simply pointing out that the amount of energy this is expected to require is a hell of a lot by human standards.

Aside from the problem that we don't have anything available today that can pull it off, there are also serious political issues. Who would you trust with the keys to a planet-killing bomb?

[The Succubus]

Me.

I'd absolutely trust me with the keys to a space ship capable of travelling to distant stars and WIPING OUT HUMAN LIFE AT MY WHIM.

Also, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a jerk.

[Emmerask]

I just got a message from the second law of thermodynamics. It says 'Hi.'

I didn´t mean recharge in recharge to the initial full capacity
And yes the car battery example is quite a good analogy.

[Ravens_cry]

Me.

I'd absolutely trust me with the keys to a space ship capable of travelling to distant stars and WIPING OUT HUMAN LIFE AT MY WHIM.

Also, the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a jerk.

c is a bigger one. I could live with the laws of thermodynamics if c weren't so slow.

[Lateral]

Exactly.

If you could convert light of any wavelength perfectly into antimatter, and you could capture every last drop of sunlight to reach this planet, you'd be able to harvest less than five kilos of antimatter every month.

The Voyager I spacecraft was 720 kg, so you'd need 360 kg of antimatter -- over six years' worth -- even with a perfect warp drive and a perfect warp core.

If this is the best we can do, we'll have colonised much of our Solar system before we're likely to see any kind of FTL.

You're talking about antimatter fuel, not useful fusion.