The Warp Drive

[PhoenixRising]

It could become something scientifically plausible in the near future

http://news.discovery.com/space/war...aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

 

[Architect]

I've been seeing that article pop up recently, haven't paid much attention. You know I was about to dismiss it, but in doing my due diligence read up on his solution

Alcubierre Drive

My GR is out of date but I did solve the field equations at one point - this solution looks OK. Novel in fact; flat space time inside a highly distorted field.

The practical engineering problems - energy required to distort space time like that, are the real difficulty. Gravity is the weakest force, so to manipulate it takes enormous amounts of energy/mass. EM fields are so much easier, which is why we have such wonderful computer technology, cell phones, radar etc.

Original Paper

The basic idea can be more easily understood if we think for a moment in the inflationary phase of the early Universe, and consider the relative speed of separation of two comoving observers. It is easy to convince oneself that, if we define this relative speed as the rate of change of proper spatial distance over proper time, we will obtain a value that is much larger than the speed of light. This doesn’t mean that our observers will be travelling faster than light: they always move inside their local light-cones. The enormous speed of separation comes from the expansion of spacetime itself.

The previous example shows how one can use an expansion of spacetime to move away from some object at an arbitrarily large speed. In the same way, one can use a contraction of spacetime to approach an object at any speed. This is the basis of the model for hyper- fast space travel that I wish to present here: create a local distortion of spacetime that will produce an expansion behind the spaceship, and an opposite contraction ahead of it. In this way, the spaceship will be pushed away from the Earth and pulled towards a distant star by spacetime itself. One can then invert the process to come back to Earth, taking an arbitrarily small time to complete the round trip.

 

[PhoenixRising]

I've been seeing that article pop up recently, haven't paid much attention. You know I was about to dismiss it, but in doing my due diligence read up on his solution

Alcubierre Drive

My GR is out of date but I did solve the field equations at one point - this solution looks OK. Novel in fact; flat space time inside a highly distorted field.

The practical engineering problems - energy required to distort space time like that, are the real difficulty. Gravity is the weakest force, so to manipulate it takes enormous amounts of energy/mass. EM fields are so much easier, which is why we have such wonderful computer technology, cell phones, radar etc.

Original Paper

Thank you for the paper, it was quite an interesting read. It would be fantastic indeed if this technology succeeds. However, with the sate of the human race as-is I'm not so sure we're ready for interstellar travel. That, though, is more of an ethical/philosophical question.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

Thank you for the paper, it was quite an interesting read. It would be fantastic indeed if this technology succeeds. However, with the sate of the human race as-is I'm not so sure we're ready for interstellar travel. That, though, is more of an ethical/philosophical question.

Not ready in what way(s)?

 

[Meer]

Yeah but the problem is that when you stop, a giant laser beam shoots out from the front of your spaceship and obliterates the planet you're trying to go to. Or something like that.

 

[PhoenixRising]

Not ready in what way(s)?

Human beings in general are too primitive to prevent themselves from using this technology for destructive purposes. Most prevalent in my mind is war. If successful, this technology will probably be sold to the highest bidder, i.e. the government that forks out the most money. Then other governments will get a hold of the technology. Then everybody will get paranoid because they think the Russians (or potentially the Germans.. or even the "terrorists") are developing a weapon with it, so everybody will follow suit. Then we'll have some type of crazy, black hole forming attack ray things...

Sure, it's a slippery-slope fallacy, but this is the kind of crap humans seem to do. Especially the totalitarian types who run governments and armies.

And think about if we do meet a sentient alien species on a planet orbiting another star. If people commit hate crimes because they don't like other humans who have a different color of skin, then what will they do to people that aren't human? Sure there may be a formal sort of respect at first, but you know that the same bigots that run the industrialized countries are going to find some reason why they think it's a good idea to kill alien species. The real reason will probably be because they want their technology...

I think humans as a species need at least another couple hundred years of evolution before they're ready for technology that would allow interstellar space exploration.

 

[Felan]

Human beings in general are too primitive to prevent themselves from using this technology for destructive purposes. Most prevalent in my mind is war. If successful, this technology will probably be sold to the highest bidder, i.e. the government that forks out the most money. Then other governments will get a hold of the technology. Then everybody will get paranoid because they think the Russians (or potentially the Germans.. or even the "terrorists") are developing a weapon with it, so everybody will follow suit. Then we'll have some type of crazy, black hole forming attack ray things...

Sure, it's a slippery-slope fallacy, but this is the kind of crap humans seem to do. Especially the totalitarian types who run governments and armies.

And think about if we do meet a sentient alien species on a planet orbiting another star. If people commit hate crimes because they don't like other humans who have a different color of skin, then what will they do to people that aren't human? Sure there may be a formal sort of respect at first, but you know that the same bigots that run the industrialized countries are going to find some reason why they think it's a good idea to kill alien species. The real reason will probably be because they want their technology...

I think humans as a species need at least another couple hundred years of evolution before they're ready for technology that would allow interstellar space exploration.

Well I think the negative of humanity is a little overblown. We always have flawed individuals and societies. If there (and I think there is) other life in the universe the odds are almost 0 that they will be a better people than us.

So yeah there would be conflict, culture exchange, hate crimes (both ways), trade, idea exchange, and so on. I think as whole humanity is actually pretty amazing and worthy. We are what we are, scars and beauty all. Just because you have a scar on your arm doesn't mean you should yourself away in a closet. Likewise just because humanity isn't perfect doesn't mean that we be ashamed of who we are. Work to improve things, yes, but despair and malign is just today's blah blah blah.

 

[TriflinThomas]

And think about if we do meet a sentient alien species on a planet orbiting another star. If people commit hate crimes because they don't like other humans who have a different color of skin, then what will they do to people that aren't human? Sure there may be a formal sort of respect at first, but you know that the same bigots that run the industrialized countries are going to find some reason why they think it's a good idea to kill alien species. The real reason will probably be because they want their technology.

The problem here is that you assume that we're going to be more advanced/powerful than the aliens we encounter.

 

[PhoenixRising]

Well I think the negative of humanity is a little overblown. We always have flawed individuals and societies. If there (and I think there is) other life in the universe the odds are almost 0 that they will be a better people than us.

So yeah there would be conflict, culture exchange, hate crimes (both ways), trade, idea exchange, and so on. I think as whole humanity is actually pretty amazing and worthy. We are what we are, scars and beauty all. Just because you have a scar on your arm doesn't mean you should yourself away in a closet. Likewise just because humanity isn't perfect doesn't mean that we be ashamed of who we are. Work to improve things, yes, but despair and malign is just today's blah blah blah.

I completely support the idea of sending intelligent, respectful, logical, caring (evolved) individuals to other solar systems. The same sort of people could be trusted with warp technology as well. There is definitely a lot of good in humanity, a lot of positive potential. My point was that the people who usually end up controlling things like this new technology are the selfish, hateful, corporate nationalists (cavemen) that run governments. Perhaps you have evidence that would prove otherwise?

 

[PhoenixRising]

The problem here is that you assume that we're going to be more advanced/powerful than the aliens we encounter.

That wasn't really what I meant. When constructing that argument, I was imagining a more technologically advanced, but peaceful society of aliens.