Warp Factor 10! Star Trek warp drive in the works

[Mechromancer]

This news is certainly XTREME! Now somebody has to figure out how to make Inertia Dampeners to keep people from splattering against the back wall from 150,000+G acceleration. We can have all this figured out by the 22nd century for sure.

Read and enjoy:
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/s...leID=217400471
http://www.firingsquad.com/news/site...?searchid=4542

Researchers at Baylor University think they may have found a way to deliver a real warp drive similar to the one featured in Star Trek. According to this article at EETimes, researchers believe that dark energy could be harnessed to fuel a warp drive. In theory the warp drive would expand the fabric of space behind a starship while also contracting space ahead of it:

"In modern string theory, dark energy [also called the cosmological constant] is the energy stored in empty space, where pairs of matter and anti-matter particles are spontaneously created and annihilated," said Baylor researcher Gerald Cleaver.

"When the cosmological constant is positive, dark energy is literally pushing space itself apart. When it is negative, then space is contracting. So by arranging the cosmological constant to be positive behind the ship and negative in front of the ship, it should be possible to travel distances that would ordinarily need faster-than-light speeds, even though the ship itself does not exceed the speed of light."

The only downside? The amount of dark energy needed to power such a device is equivalent in size to the mass of the planet Jupiter. In time though researchers believe they can reduce the amount of energy needed to warp space. "Early calculations indicated that a warp drive would require more mass energy than was available in the entire universe," Obousy said. "Later, a more ingenious calculation demonstrated that it would require about the mass energy contained within an entire galaxy. What is exciting about our warp drive paradigm is that we have further reduced the energy requirement to the total mass energy contained in a typical gas giant--the planet Jupiter, for example."

[perkam]

This news is certainly XTREME! Now somebody has to figure out how to make Inertia Dampeners to keep people from splattering against the back wall from 150,000+G acceleration. We can have all this figured out by the 22nd century for sure.

Read and enjoy:
http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/s...leID=217400471
http://www.firingsquad.com/news/site...?searchid=4542

Do you really believe that if the Vulcans were watching us from outer space waiting for us to achieve warp technology, that they would land in our world?

Look around m8, we hate each other and are always 1-2 hours from WW3.

This is nice, but useless.

Perkam

[DeltZ]

just a technicality, but you're wrong about the inertial dampeners. Warp drives bend time around the spaceship, so the locally it can be done without the spaceship moving at all in a local sense. Inertial dampeners are only needed for ...fast but not "faster than light" speed warp drive fast. .e.g. having a car crash and not feeling the impact =D Other propulsion methods which actually do the bog standard acceleration.

Star trek did it using antimatter reactions not dark energy =D.
And this is about as far fetched theory as any of the other existing ones. Physics wise, no actual reason why it isn't possible...but like.. converting the whole worlds mass into antimatter and mutually destroying with matter to release energy would only create enough energy (by some calculations) an event horizon 3cm in diameter =D. Much much uncertainty in the energy requirement calculations though.

Either way, we need to be able to harvest stars before we have enough energy to do that. Faster than light travel isn't a necessary first step either. Intergalactic travel for definite. But off something <speed of light we can still get to a couple of places. Work our way out from there =D

And Perkam, it's not useless in the future These are difficult times in a society which struggles to evolve as fast as technology. But there are signs...globalising, WW3 is pointless as is stalemate. There's more chance of destroying ourselves by global warming (and from what I can tell this forum is fairly against the idea that we're damaging the environment with C02 etc).

Give or take a several hundred years and national barriers will be a thing of the past

[highoctane]

Well we have cloaking in the works and now warp drives, I wonder when they'll announce starfleet academy!!

[Mechromancer]

Do you really believe that if the Vulcans were watching us from outer space waiting for us to achieve warp technology, that they would land in our world?

Look around m8, we hate each other and are always 1-2 hours from WW3.

This is nice, but useless.

Perkam

It will take WW3, a cataclysmic event, or the return of God to Earth as prophesied in Revelations to bring humanity together. I personally believe one of these three events will be accomplished sooner than we think .

Either way, to get away from the philosophical debate, MATH SAYS WE CAN GO TO WARP SPEED WITHOUT THE MASS/ENERGY OF AN ENTIRE GALAXY! We only need the mass/energy of a Jupiter sized planet. Moore's Law seriously does not apply to Warp Theory LOL. We just lessened the energy requirements trillions of times. That alnone is worthy of note.

[ownage]

The way I see it is that it could be usefull to harvest gasses from other gas planets (gas giants) and metals. Screw other habitable planets, because the risk to travel 25 or more lightyears is just to big. We could solve the overpopulation by making a huge spaceship in space next to our home planet where the spaceship is save from meteors and stuff like that. We could expand the spaceship and make it bigger and bigger. Problem is that you have to build something small to something big in space. When cargo space ships could get the materials we need from other places in our galaxy, we can actually live outer space. Give a human materials, and he will make its own ground to stand on.

[JamesBong420]

@perkam jees negative nancy.. lol... can't we all just, get along..


engage!!! i cannot wait for space travel.... but i almost think warp is not fast enough to do it well.. teleporters FTW!!! it is actually getting worked on as well.. here is just a more recent article..
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,482264,00.html

[Dragy2k]

hey i smell geeks .......lol

[Talonman]

It will take WW3, a cataclysmic event, or the return of God to Earth as prophesied in Revelations to bring humanity together. I personally believe one of these three events will be accomplished sooner than we think .

Your not alone on that...

[Mats]

Just wait for the test run where they forgot to disable UAC that just happened to kick in in the middle of the process, sending the new Yuri Gagarin to.. where?

[hollo]

but i almost think warp is not fast enough to do it well.. teleporters FTW!!! it is actually getting worked on as well.. here is just a more recent article..
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,482264,00.html

once they get zero latency data transmission sorted http://www.onlive.com/ could actually work (and i'd be able to play on american game servers with sub-100 ping)

[saaya]

like perkam, i think we have bigger things to do than spread our messy aggressive civilization through space ^^

another thing though, if you contract and expand space... dont you kinda mess up everything on your path?

[nn_step]

I have never understood this fascination with warp drive when worm hole drive has been calculated to use less energy and leaves a permanent accelerated path between the two destinations....

[Speederlander]

Look around m8, we hate each other and are always 1-2 hours from WW3.

This is nice, but useless.

Perkam

So why do anything at all, any research whatsoever? It's all just a waste yes?

[orangekiwii]

in a sense yes...

especially if it brings about ww3 sooner O_O

[Lightman]

It is very wired that a lot of Star Trek hypothetical devices are becoming reality or soon will became reality

Take for instance Tricoreds, high power laser weapons, cloaking devices, power shields, etc.

I'm personally waiting for food materializing and teleport!

[twilyth]

I wouldn't get too excited about anything based on any flavor of string theory. Results from the Planck satellite will either put the final nail in string theory's coffin or help to validate it. I'm betting on the former possibility. It seems that quantum loop gravity and similar theories are getting more face time with the physics community and looks more promising for the unification of quantum physics with relativity.

[Vit^pr0n]

Why are some people so negative towards this? It's not like we don't have other researchers researching other things. If we focused all our research on select few things, technology would not be where it is today.

Also, while I think it's great that they're working on this and things in Star Wars/Star Trek are becoming a reality ( Alot of the simpler things in it already have ), unfortunately none of us here will be alive to see it work. That's why I'm jealous of future generations. All of us here were born in the generation where technology just started taking off to more advanced levels ( The internet is only decade or so old )

Shame though.. I would have loved to travel to other galaxies and meet other civilizations that have mastered the art of the Jedi

[Talonman]

I have never understood this fascination with warp drive when worm hole drive has been calculated to use less energy and leaves a permanent accelerated path between the two destinations....

You can pick your destination with warp drive...

[Mechromancer]

It is very wired that a lot of Star Trek hypothetical devices are becoming reality or soon will became reality

Take for instance Tricoreds, high power laser weapons, cloaking devices, power shields, etc.

I'm personally waiting for food materializing and teleport!

Read what God says about humanity in Genesis 11:6 -"Look, they are one people, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them."

God, himself, says that mankind is not limited in what we dream up and try to do. What we know about physics today says the limits are a lot higher than we originally though....A LOT HIGHER. If you can dream it up, you can probably do it, eventually.

[Speederlander]

I wouldn't get too excited about anything based on any flavor of string theory. Results from the Planck satellite will either put the final nail in string theory's coffin or help to validate it. I'm betting on the former possibility. It seems that quantum loop gravity and similar theories are getting more face time with the physics community and looks more promising for the unification of quantum physics with relativity.

The final nail? What were the first nails?

[Speederlander]

Read what God says about humanity in Genesis 11:6 -"Look, they are one people, and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them."

God, himself, says that mankind is not limited in what we dream up and try to do. What we know about physics today says the limits are a lot higher than we originally though....A LOT HIGHER. If you can dream it up, you can probably do it, eventually.

But what did Odin say about humanity in the Völuspá?

[Mechromancer]

Why are some people so negative towards this? It's not like we don't have other researchers researching other things. If we focused all our research on select few things, technology would not be where it is today.

Also, while I think it's great that they're working on this and things in Star Wars/Star Trek are becoming a reality ( Alot of the simpler things in it already have ), unfortunately none of us here will be alive to see it work. That's why I'm jealous of future generations. All of us here were born in the generation where technology just started taking off to more advanced levels ( The internet is only decade or so old )

Shame though.. I would have loved to travel to other galaxies and meet other civilizations that have mastered the art of the Jedi

You're right. We were born into a time where even my older brothers and sisters (19 years older than me) didn't even grow up with computers! I was born in 1982, the year of the Intel 8088-2 (I think) and it, coincidently, was my first CPU in 1987, along with an ATI EGA Wonder. Our children will probably grow up in to see people interface physically with technology. They, or our grandchildren, will be the first cyborg generation (i.e. Ghost in the Shell). I hope descendants of mine will see other worlds in person, or even live there.

You can pick your destination with warp drive...

Wormhole tech, the folding of space-time, theoretically can be controlled. You fold two points in space-time together in a controlled manner and you have the ultimate transportation. That is probably a tech to be discovered after a Warp technology infrastructure is created and mastered. The power required to fold space-time is theorized to be enormous. Sun or galaxy amounts of power. If we can Warp with the mass/energy of a Jupiter sized gas giant, we are in good shape.

[saaya]

But what did Odin say about humanity in the Völuspá?

we shouldnt travel faster than light? ^^

[trans am]

Just watch out for Romulens.