NASA discusses its warp drive research, prepares to create a warp bubble in the lab

Late last year, it emerged that a small team of NASA researchers were working on warp drive technology in the lab. Led by Harold “Sonny” White, the team devised a variation of the Alcubierre warp drive that could almost be feasibly produced — if we can work out how to produce and store antimatter. Now, White is ready to discuss some other facets of his warp drive, such as the energy requirements, what a spacecraft with a warp drive would look like, and what it would be like to travel at warp speed.
When it comes to interstellar travel, due to the massive distances involved, the only feasible solution for reaching other planets and stars is a method of transport that travels at close to or faster than the speed of light. The nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, is just over four light years away — at a speed of 62,136 kmh (the speed at which Voyager-1 is flying through space), it would take roughly 67,000 years for a spacecraft to reach it. There are a variety of proposed propulsion systems, such as ion drives, but none of them really get close to the speeds necessary to enable the exploration of other planets in under a few thousand years. Warp drives, while years away from even small-scale testing — if they’re even possible at all — are one of the few exceptions that would allow same-lifetime space travel.

More at http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/164326-nasa-discusses-its-warp-drive-research-prepares-to-create-a-warp-bubble-in-the-lab

You got my hopes up for nothing

This is possible. Imagine the 3d representation of space-time where planets and suns and other massive objects create 'dents' along a 2D plane (like that Simpsons episode). The drive would warp space time to appear like a 'slope' with the ship midway up (I think)

There's more info here. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/ideachev.html

heckler73 said:

You got my hopes up for nothing

Click to expand...

If they can get a tiny bubble of warp, I would really be impressed.

Doer said:

If they can get a tiny bubble of warp, I would really be impressed.

Click to expand...

So would I, but this is still way down in the dumps of theoretical at the current phase. I sincerely doubt anything practical will come out of this in my lifetime.
But maybe in another two or three-hundred years...?

heckler73 said:

So would I, but this is still way down in the dumps of theoretical at the current phase. I sincerely doubt anything practical will come out of this in my lifetime.
But maybe in another two or three-hundred years...?

Click to expand...

do you think this technology may be making headway in the black/SCI projects world?

Didn't I read you worked at nasa? any insider tips heckler?

The thing about folding space is not new of course. Di-Lithium has that property, if we could ever find some.

The Star Trek Engines were space tractor/compactor/ejectors. And the shape of the ships was critical for the "bubble."

Folding space is less of a problem, I imagine, than getting your local, not-folded, own damn self, across the gap.

echelon1k1 said:

do you think this technology may be making headway in the black/SCI projects world?

Didn't I read you worked at nasa? any insider tips heckler?

Click to expand...

Uh no, I don't work at NASA (I'd prefer working with the Cdn Space Agency anyway).
I am conducting experiments with rocketry, but its mostly for entertainment purposes.

Black projects? I doubt it... and to be frank, I think Doer is on to some better stuff in this dept. anyway.

Heck has a grasp of the math. But, as he says, no real math for this yet, beyond something like this: Let us postulate a black hole of "only'" 1 million of Solar masses.

OK.....then what? Plenty of answers there, very exciting. But, how did we get that tiny black hole, again?

AFAIK, there has been no direct measurement of gravity waves. So, no way to know yet, if space can "fold." We think we can see it lens, bent by gravity. And I don't know of anything remotely like a space folder or bubble wave gadget but a giant mass and skull crushing gravity.

That is not to say, that in quantum physics there is not this Ah-Ha just laying around for some person to just finally get it.

It could be part of the gravity mystery. We could find that space folds quite easily into one of these other dimensions. In fact we could find it is already well folded and we just need to mash it a bit more......somehow.

" I understand how the engines work now. It came to me in a dream. The engines don't move the ship at all. The ship stays where it is and the engines move the universe around it."―Cubert FarnsworthR.I.P. Futurama

Yeah, I liked Futurama.

I saw an interview with the guy that is head of the experiment research at NASA. He has a working experiment. Just no results yet.

It is a palm wide, ring of material, 1 inch thick, with a 3/4 inch hole through the middle. You can substitute new materials by just changing the ring.

Through that, he shines a laser from between a pair of Interferometer mirrors. If space is folded by the material, even the slightest fraction, he thinks this will show it.

So, he now, just needs some Unobtainium.

Make it so number 1

heckler73 said:

But we 'ave no dilithium crystals, cap'n. I'm givin'er all she's got!

Click to expand...

We need more power!!