Warp Drive

Originally posted by CaptainIraq

Originally posted by XphilesPhan
Well, if we travel faster than light it wont be in a state of matter as that is impossible, it will be in a state of energy which would negate colliding with objects in space.

Incorrect. No matter how fast you travel, you are still matter. Matter does not dissappear into thin air, so says the Law of Conservation of Matter.

no but it can be converted E=MC^2, and anything with mass CANNOT travel faster than light. the mass becomes infinite thus requiring infinite energy to propell it.

Originally posted by sardion2000

....................
A wormholes isn't a black hole. One has been confirmed, while the other is still mostly in the realm of science fiction. If a wormhole does exist, then who's to say what types of properties it will have.

It's a bit arrogant to even assume we have even a fraction of all the answers...

......................."

I realize that wormholes are not black holes.

One would assume that any type of interstellar passage would require a structure similar to a railroad tunnel. (Distance unknown). Colliding with a entrance , exit , or any mass contained within would cause a high level of destruction. Even if it was made entirely of energy those forces alone might crush/destroy a ship. If a submarine goes too deep then...........
Possible molecular disintegration would not be fun at all either.

Even if such holes exist, finding an accurate aiming point of entry would be extremely difficult. The problem also is that if you do manage to make it through without destruction of the ship you may enter a sub/maxi dimension that would cause you to either shrink (crush), or expand (explode).

Also..................if a wormhole exists, and we do find it, and it happens to be 100 light years away, then we are still screwed in the amount of distance to get to it.

Also to address the hop and stop approach of navigation. Using telescopes to navigate requires that you have to spend enormous amounts of energy to accelerate, and then decelerate in order to scout a clear path. One thing about it is that you are not going to be able to dodge any space puppies running across the galactic highway at warp speed. You might send unmanned "Pave way" ships then send the manned ship behind it.

Who knows?

Heres my theory. if your traveling faster than light but arent moving faster than it, your not going to travel in time (I think).

Einstein's "law of physics" are mostly theories, not facts. Theories are unproven and must be contemplated. Question everything relating to science. Why?
CAUSE I SAID SO!HAHAHA

I have absolutely no understanding as to why there are so many biased skeptics on ATS.

going back to the navigational problem in hyerspace for a moment. taking that the force of gravity is instantaneous, and that the only things you will need to avoid while travelling are gravity wells, what you would need is a device that detects and plots the intesity and poisition of gravity wells. thus in an age old fashion your ship will navigate by the stars.
this gets you around the speed of light as a navagational issue. although some theories say that gravity acts at the speed of light, and if thats true, then ur fufed.

Fuel, shielding, navigation, life support, maintenance, weapons and hardware.

1. We don't have the fuel. Even if we did we have none of the others.

2. At the speed of light, or above (Warp), nothing can "project" forward from the hull of the ship, or even surround the ship to protect it. (Force field).

3. Navigation in 3 dimensional space at the speed of light won't work for the same reason. What you are aiming at is the position of the object 4-4000? light years in the future. It might be there, then again it might not. At the speed of light you have to go perfectly straight. At a hypothetical warp speed how will you insure that?

4. Food, water, oxygen.......Takes up a lot of weight. Long distance travel over a period of years would require that you carry more than 4 times the mass on the ship, than that what would not be used on a robotic ship.

5. Maintenance would be a large problem. An aircraft carrier requires over 5000 people to operate. Think of all of the P.O.L. alone. Then add spare parts. Where are you going to get those things in the middle of a "wormhole" if you need them?

6. Weapons wouldn't work either. No lasers, phasers, nothing would be able to project forward from the ship. How would you even aim at a target that is flying faster than light?

7. Hardware is the most critical. This is the ship and all of it's sum parts. Where do you build it? Out of what? How do you fuel it? Where do you launch it?


Solve any of those 7 problems and then you only have 6 more to go.

Think of the 1000's of problems inherent in each of those 7 problems. Millions of parts. Millions of calculations.

You only have one shot at getting it right the first time.

You think a ship, designed and built by the lowest bidder, will fly like the Starship Enterprise?

It COULD move faster than light?
If it "moves" the universe, in a sense, would it really be moving faster?
Or would this bubble it's in, somehow slow time for the occupants and vehicle, allowing time around it to continue on. And as the universe moves, continue on as though nothing was happening (aside from the ship moving it. Though, I guess it wouldn't be noticed since the universe as a whole would move?)
And if the universe as a whole wouldn't move, would it mean we'd be stretching certain places in our universe? As in, creating more distance between things and shorter distances? By "pulling" this Alpha Centauri (sp?) closer to us, would we distant it from things it's closer too?
Hard to explain my point, but; maybe someone will get it and explain better than I could.
Egh..Idunno. If it went wrong, it would go wrong on a monumental scale.

Originally posted by MozartSeason
It COULD move faster than light?
If it "moves" the universe, in a sense, would it really be moving faster?
Or would this bubble it's in, somehow slow time for the occupants and vehicle, allowing time around it to continue on. And as the universe moves, continue on as though nothing was happening (aside from the ship moving it. Though, I guess it wouldn't be noticed since the universe as a whole would move?)
And if the universe as a whole wouldn't move, would it mean we'd be stretching certain places in our universe? As in, creating more distance between things and shorter distances? By "pulling" this Alpha Centauri (sp?) closer to us, would we distant it from things it's closer too?
Hard to explain my point, but; maybe someone will get it and explain better than I could.
Egh..Idunno. If it went wrong, it would go wrong on a monumental scale.

I don't really understand what you are trying to point out but I'll give it a try.

Nothing is at complete rest. Everything that we know of moves. In order for things (mass) to move it requires energy input. At the atomic scale atoms move due to collision with other atoms. Or.... (A bat hits a ball and it changes direction).

Larger scale objects require more energy to move them due to their increased mass. (You need a much bigger bat to hit the larger ball).

This principal is call a "transfer of momentum".

The idea of any form of "space ship" having a noticeable effect upon an object of equal or greater size depends upon the opposing masses and the velocity (energy) contained and the angle of impact or near miss.

A large body such as a star could attract an alter the course of a ship due to gravity. You might out run gravity at a warp speed, but then again you might also run through it. (Imagine running through a creek in a jeep at 3000 mph ).

I don't think warp would affect any objects on a planetary scale unless there was a direct collision causing the planet to move in it's orbit slightly. Or a brush with an oxygen rich atmosphere which could ignite the whole planet in a fire ball.

The idea of a warp ship "moving" a planetary body any appreciable distance is negligible. It would require such a collision as to eliminate one or the other.

There is no "wake" in space, nor wind turbulence to move things. Energy and gravity are about it. A ship 10 times the size of the moon might move the moon a little over eons, but just blowing right on by will not necessarily make the moon follow in the "wake" of the ship. You cannot believe how hard it would be to accelerate something the size of the moon to warp speed.

You can't lift off a planet at warp speed because the instant acceleration would kill the crew and destroy the ship in any atmosphere.

Look at what one piece of foam did to the space shuttle.

At such a hypothetical speed it is conceivable that you and the ship would hit a barrier that would convert you both into a very long string of photons smeared across the universe.

Originally posted by RecDude

1. We don't have the fuel. Even if we did we have none of the others.

True. But what do you mean by "even if we did we have none of the others"?

Originally posted by RecDude

4. Food, water, oxygen.......Takes up a lot of weight. Long distance travel over a period of years would require that you carry more than 4 times the mass on the ship, than that what would not be used on a robotic ship.

That is a rather simple problem and should not be much of an issue considering we should have some form of suspended animation or a way to preserve the occupants with minimal resources by the time we're working on a warp drive ship.

Originally posted by RecDude

5. Maintenance would be a large problem. An aircraft carrier requires over 5000 people to operate. Think of all of the P.O.L. alone. Then add spare parts. Where are you going to get those things in the middle of a "wormhole" if you need them?

Simple answer. By the time warp drive is in progress, we should have computers/robots to do that for us. Spare parts would be an issue, but backup systems and meticulous testing prior to launch should eliminate mechanical failure. Although it is possible, as in everything else.

Originally posted by RecDude

6. Weapons wouldn't work either. No lasers, phasers, nothing would be able to project forward from the ship. How would you even aim at a target that is flying faster than light?

We're talking about the very foundation of intergallactic travel. weapons would not be high on my priority list just yet.

Originally posted by RecDude

7. Hardware is the most critical. This is the ship and all of it's sum parts. Where do you build it? Out of what? How do you fuel it? Where do you launch it?

Space. Don't know yet. Don't know yet either. Space.

I answered some of the issues mentioned. Feel free, anyone, to answer the others.

Originally posted by CaptainIraq

Originally posted by RecDude

1. We don't have the fuel. Even if we did we have none of the others.

True. But what do you mean by "even if we did we have none of the others"?

I meant that we don't have the other means of using such a fuel. (Engines, shielding, vectoring.....ect).

Originally posted by RecDude

4. Food, water, oxygen.......Takes up a lot of weight. Long distance travel over a period of years would require that you carry more than 4 times the mass on the ship, than that what would not be used on a robotic ship.

That is a rather simple problem and should not be much of an issue considering we should have some form of suspended animation or a way to preserve the occupants with minimal resources by the time we're working on a warp drive ship.


Like "warp drive"; "suspended animation" is not feasible yet. We may be able to place crew members in SA for short periods of time, but over long periods it is debatable on whether you could revive a person to an effective state.

Originally posted by RecDude

5. Maintenance would be a large problem. An aircraft carrier requires over 5000 people to operate. Think of all of the P.O.L. alone. Then add spare parts. Where are you going to get those things in the middle of a "wormhole" if you need them?

Simple answer. By the time warp drive is in progress, we should have computers/robots to do that for us. Spare parts would be an issue, but backup systems and meticulous testing prior to launch should eliminate mechanical failure. Although it is possible, as in everything else.

You are increasing the mass of the ship by adding more items that could cause problems on their own.

Originally posted by RecDude

6. Weapons wouldn't work either. No lasers, phasers, nothing would be able to project forward from the ship. How would you even aim at a target that is flying faster than light?

We're talking about the very foundation of intergallactic travel. weapons would not be high on my priority list just yet.

Maybe not, but if we are venturing into the unknown, I would feel much better with having some sort of defense if needed.

Originally posted by RecDude

7. Hardware is the most critical. This is the ship and all of it's sum parts. Where do you build it? Out of what? How do you fuel it? Where do you launch it?

Space. Don't know yet. Don't know yet either. Space.

Space is a very difficult environment to work in. Imagine how many launches it would require just to transfer work crews. Things get damaged in transit. People screw up. We can't even finish the international space station. Now imagine trying to build an aircraft carrier in space .

I answered some of the issues mentioned. Feel free, anyone, to answer the others.

I wish we could travel the stars, but we will likely never see it happen. The closest star (other than our own) is 4 light years away. That is 8 years (longer if you add acceleration and deceleration periods).

A hypothetical "warp drive" is too impractical; in that even if you could go faster than light, then none of the objects meant for a sub light universe would work.

A lot of young folks raised in the "Star Wars" generation believe that such things are possible if we only work hard enough at the problem.

It never hurts to at least give it our best shot.

In the meanwhile I am getting my gear together for my annual search for "The Great Pumpkin".

It is good that we have skeptics like you, CaptainIraq whom keep our heads out of the upper atmosphere where we are likely to suffocate and or freeze, but I don't think you give humanity enough credit.

Humans are too heavy to fly, but they do.

The challenges posed by interstellar travel are immense, but I personally don't think they're unsolvable. I know I know, that's a poor scientific position to hold... but it really isn't scientific. So far anything we've immagined we've made a reality.

When man first dreamed of going to the moon he considered using a ship made of bricks suspended by a hot air balloon. Later he thought of firing men in a capsule from a large artillery cannon...

Men often dream of things far before their time, they dream of them while they are impossible. However so far it hasn't stayed that way.

Regardless... I'm in no rush to travel to other stars. Getting around our own solar-system is challenging enough... it should be sufficient to occupy us for a few millenia yet.

It is a good topic but not very likley to be seen in very many of our life times. The fun part is very simple. It is the key word theoretical. And that word means "guess" taken from people who are geniuses. Though I would rather take a educated guess from someone brilliant versus an idiot the risks in that endever would be lets say more than any of us could imagine. Say the volitility of dark mass, no one knows. And compressing space time, oops space time fracture. Next thing you know our neighbored paralell universe is converging with our own. Sounds like fun. Boom


Good Post Iraq

Well if we had the technology to actually move space/time, im sure that we would be able to control how fast or slow we move it, which means that we would not just go flying off or crash into a star, correct navigation of surrounding places in space would have to be observed, however i agree that it would be a diffcult task to make the bubble safe enought for operation. If a machine was created to act like a controlled black hole, and suck space from a certain point inward, and let it back out, it could bring the universe to you, in theory. This is a very intriguing topic to me. Space is the infinite possibility, essentially its not even really there, if we could fill this void possibility with the wrinkling of space, space/time travel would be possible. The universe is flat and homogeneous. We would need a device that could move space enough to wrinkle space/time on this dimension to a desired destination, and there is only one thing in theory that could do it, anti-matter, but thats neither here nor there. This theory of space travel directly correlates with time travel, in that the wrinkle would in theory change time for space "inside" the wrinkle, and for the places we travel to. however it would be much harder to control space and time long enough to actually travel through dimensions safely and observe anything.

[edit on 30-9-2006 by cityboy702]

Originally posted by RecDude
Fuel, shielding, navigation, life support, maintenance, weapons and hardware.

1. We don't have the fuel. Even if we did we have none of the others.

Antimatter is the best fuel for a wrap drive.

2. At the speed of light, or above (Warp), nothing can "project" forward from the hull of the ship, or even surround the ship to protect it. (Force field).

Nope. A wrapped ship moves in its own universe. By creating a wrap bubble around the ship, effectively creating a special universe for the ship, the ship can move anywhere in FTL speed without colliding with anything.

3. Navigation in 3 dimensional space at the speed of light won't work for the same reason. What you are aiming at is the position of the object 4-4000? light years in the future. It might be there, then again it might not. At the speed of light you have to go perfectly straight. At a hypothetical warp speed how will you insure that?

Computers can easily calculate the future positions of bodies taking into account the relativistic effects.

4. Food, water, oxygen.......Takes up a lot of weight. Long distance travel over a period of years would require that you carry more than 4 times the mass on the ship, than that what would not be used on a robotic ship.

Nope. First of all, the trips will not take years but weeks. Secondly, matter will be reused to create the necessary materials.

5. Maintenance would be a large problem. An aircraft carrier requires over 5000 people to operate. Think of all of the P.O.L. alone. Then add spare parts. Where are you going to get those things in the middle of a "wormhole" if you need them?

What you say is valid for previous generations of aircraft carriers. New generations will have much less people. Furthermore, a ship like the USS Enterprise does not have 100 fighter planes to maintain.

6. Weapons wouldn't work either. No lasers, phasers, nothing would be able to project forward from the ship. How would you even aim at a target that is flying faster than light?

There is no need to fire to anyone when all the local universe is dedicated to you.

7. Hardware is the most critical. This is the ship and all of it's sum parts. Where do you build it? Out of what? How do you fuel it? Where do you launch it?

If antigravity is found (and IT will be found) then building such a ship would be very easy.

Solve any of those 7 problems and then you only have 6 more to go.

Think of the 1000's of problems inherent in each of those 7 problems. Millions of parts. Millions of calculations.

You only have one shot at getting it right the first time.

You think a ship, designed and built by the lowest bidder, will fly like the Starship Enterprise?

He he problems solved!

Warp, as being described by some of you, is about creating an artificial universe in which an independent crew, and ship, could survive within.

Mucho problemo there folks.

1. Anti-matter fuel - While anti-matter may indeed posses the energy potential to propel ships at great speeds, it still is not enough. Einstein's work has shown that a ship cannot carry enough fuel to reach the speed of light. Even if you were to use successive nuclear detonations as propellant you would run out of fuel long before you ever reached light speed. Shielding is a large problem also. Megaton after megaton of explosions require massive shielding to protect the crew from radiation. Even the weight of the fuel itself would be so great as to run out before you could reach FTL. Think of a dragster. It goes fast, but if you have to carry more fuel to go further than a 1/4 mile then you start to go slower then you eventually run out of fuel at some point.

Anti-matter by it's very nature is very difficult to obtain and contain. Building an engine that would convert the energy into propulsion would require heat resistant materials that are unavailable to us. Using magnetic fields to contain the anti-matter fuel would alone require enormous amounts of energy. A slight shift in such a containment field, that allowed contact with any containment vessel, and your astronauts become "tomato gravy".

It is even unlikely that you could carry enough anti-matter to reach FTL.

2. Warp as a separate "universe"- You might generate enough power to create such a "bubble" for the ship, but that does not insure propulsion. You cannot accelerate to FTL then hit the "warp button" and go faster. By creating a universe outside of the Standard Model of physics you have BIG problems. Electrons may have a positive charge, in such an artificial universe, thus destroying the ship and crew. You might end up with a "Philadelphia experiment" type situation with insane crew members, or people sticking half in and out of floors and walls.

Our universe is a very narrow balance to allow life in one small pocket(s). By changing that pocket(s) you eliminate or modify those rules that sustain life and the structure of the ship.

OK how about a warp bubble around the ship you ask?

Still not possible. The interaction between the artificial "warp universe", and the standard universe physics needed for life would be like a corrosive. Imagine a submarine that sits in the ocean for a 100 years. Eventually it will rust, develop holes, then sink.
Now imagine that happening in a nano-second to your "warp" ship.

There is no way to create a barrier between an artificial "warp universe" and the Standard Model to protect the ship and crew.

Even if you miraculously did surmount these problems you would be flying in a blind box. Nothing moves FTL. No sensors, computers, nothing.

You would be flying blind even if you could move.

Your "warp bubble ship" would also have to contact Standard Model particles upon re-entry into the standard universe. The probability of colliding with atoms of any kind is a certainty. These collisions could cause either multiple nuclear detonations due to nuclear fission, or the heat density could be so great that atomic fusion would melt the ship, or create molecular disruptions leaving the ship inoperable (space barnacles ?).

There are two probabilities at play here.

1. We were created to live and die in this universe, on this world, with no way out of the "play pen".

2. We evolved in a very small niche of the universe that allows us to survive and travel a small distance from the "oasis" but the "cosmic wasteland" is so vast that none of our "camels" will ever cross it.

I wish I were wrong, but for the foreseeable future, We are stuck here on Earth, and in our own solar system.

Most likely forever.

You all have one problem: By "opening" a portal to a new universe or in short removing yourself from this universe so you can travel faster than light... where the heck did you go in the mean time? Unless you achieve a level where you are in between 2 different times then you would either be: in your own universe, time OR you would be in a DIFFERENT universe, time and thus not know WHERE you are. Then again that could be a good thing if you figured out how to manipulate that.

You would have to take the propulsion energy out of the quantum vacuum. This poses a few problems.
-After your space time bubble (no alternate unvierse according to Richard J. Gott) is disabled you would have to pay this "virtual" energy back to the universe.
-Paying back unlimited amounts of energy seems to be a huge problem and until now it is unclear how the universe would react to that. Most likely this kind of warp travel is impossible.

However there is a possibility hidden in the uncertaincy principle and relativity.
For the uncertaincy principle. If you succed in creating a spacetime for your Spacecraft which is smaller than than the planck length the universe there is no way in which the universe could tell whether you are part of the universe itself or the quantum vacuum.

As you might know a electron travels to any possible place in the universe at the same time before it "decides" which route to take, usually it takes the shortest route (remember that you can "fool" photons with the tunnel effect and make them decide to suddenly jump to another place). So if your space time bubbles' location is unknown to the universe (smaller than planck length), your spaceship could appear everywhere because there would be no such thing as shortest or longest route. So you have to "tell" your spacecraft which path it should chose. As Sergej Krasnikow showed you would have to build a "route" in spacetime using negative energy tunnels constructed by starships moving slower than light. You'll first have to slowly build the road before you can travel to Alpha centauri in 1 second.

Reminder: What I've said is based on ONE variant of the M-theory and ONE (of many) interpretations of relativistic spacetime and the quantum foam on the planck scale. There is no way of telling if this could work or not, it just seems to be the most likely solution.

If something of the above sounds strange or logical wrong it might be a spelling or grammar mistake (German problems with english). If I made any mistakes, please inform me.

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Greetings from Germany

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Greetings from Germany

The problem I see is that in working with something as small as the Planck length you would run into Heisenberg's (sp?) Uncertainty Principle.

You cannot compress the mass of the ship to the small size needed, and then direct it, due to the fact that by observation alone you would deflect the particles that would make up the ship, thus sending it into an unknown direction. You would then end up with a "pinball effect" as the ship collided with atoms or free electrons. If the ship has a positive or negative charge then you would start to increase mass as you contact opposite particles.

The possibility of building a nano robot ship though....................

[edit on 21-10-2006 by RecDude]

sorry...

[edit on 22-10-2006 by XphilesPhan]