Star trek was wrong damn it. No Warp speed :(
Discussion
A US boffin has effectively put the mockers on Star Trek-style warp speed travel to the stars by warning that interstellar hydrogen gas would become deadly to humans as they approached the speed of light.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/17/star_trek_...
Pesty said:
A US boffin has effectively put the mockers on Star Trek-style warp speed travel to the stars by warning that interstellar hydrogen gas would become deadly to humans as they approached the speed of light.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/17/star_trek_...
[trekkie]Except, warp speed is not the same as travelling at the speed of light. The ship moves at non relativistic speeds, it is spacetime itself which is warped, allowing vast distances to be travelled by moving at low speeds [/trekkie]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/17/star_trek_...
Well obviously all you would need to do would be to whack on the deflector shields. And I quote wikipedia (so it must be true 
)
The idea for a starship shield may not be completely beyond the realm of reality. In 2008, Cosmos Magazine reported research into creating an artificial replica of Earth’s magnetic field around a spacecraft to protect astronauts from dangerous cosmic rays.
)The idea for a starship shield may not be completely beyond the realm of reality. In 2008, Cosmos Magazine reported research into creating an artificial replica of Earth’s magnetic field around a spacecraft to protect astronauts from dangerous cosmic rays.
We're trapped unless worm holes / folding time and space is possible 
Warp drives in star trek are about travelling faster than the speed of light.
If we could travel at the speed of light wouldn't help much anyway, it'd still take 2,500,000 years to reach the closest galaxy to ours. Even travelling from earth to the edge of our galaxy would take years 25,000 years.
Space "does my head in"
Warp drives in star trek are about travelling faster than the speed of light.
If we could travel at the speed of light wouldn't help much anyway, it'd still take 2,500,000 years to reach the closest galaxy to ours. Even travelling from earth to the edge of our galaxy would take years 25,000 years.
Space "does my head in"
Rusty Arches said:
We're trapped unless worm holes / folding time and space is possible
There's nothing in the laws of physics that says they aren't.The devil's in the details. The amounts of energy required to power an Alcubierre drive are rather large, and likely to exceed that provided by a pair of AA Duracells.
CommanderJameson said:
Rusty Arches said:
We're trapped unless worm holes / folding time and space is possible
There's nothing in the laws of physics that says they aren't.The devil's in the details. The amounts of energy required to power an Alcubierre drive are rather large, and likely to exceed that provided by a pair of AA Duracells.
All you do is suck the hydrogen in and burn/fuse it for extra power - think ramjet.
But yes, the whole point of 'warp' is that you warp space, bringing the destination closer to you so you reach it in less time, possibly without exceeding the speed of light (which is theoretically impossible)
CommanderJameson said:
The amounts of energy required to power an Alcubierre drive are rather large, and likely to exceed that provided by a pair of AA Duracells.
Unless you convert their mass to energy of course...But yes, the whole point of 'warp' is that you warp space, bringing the destination closer to you so you reach it in less time, possibly without exceeding the speed of light (which is theoretically impossible)
Edited by Simpo Two on Monday 22 February 22:07
Simpo Two said:
All you do is suck the hydrogen in and burn/fuse it for extra power - think ramjet.
Not really - the amount of energy you'd need for this type of drive would be equivalent to the amount of mass you'd need in front of the spacecraft for its gravitational force to accelerate the spacecraft meaningfully towards it.CommanderJameson said:
The amounts of energy required to power an Alcubierre drive are rather large, and likely to exceed that provided by a pair of AA Duracells.
Unless you convert their mass to energy of course...In other words, the amount of energy needed to warp space in such a way as to accelerate your spacecraft at a decent rate is enormous, because it must be equivalent to the mass required to create a gravitational field of the required strength. Which really means planet or sun-sized masses - and the energy equivalent of a planet-sized mass is huge.
Alcubierre drives and other 'space-warping' concepts are great in principle but unless we determine another way to change the curvature of spacetime that doesn't require planetary masses (and hence preposterous energies), we're f
ked.Put it this way - if you had a battery on your spaceship that had enough energy to 'create' a mass substantial enough to warp spacetime in front of your ship to accelerate towards (a highly simplified description of the Alcubierre drive), you'd be better off using it with an ion drive and basic impulse acceleration. The energy required for manipulating spacetime is immense, along the lines of exploding an entire planet and converting all the mass to energy. The only benefit over using all this immense energy in conventional reaction-mass rocket designs is the potential for faster-than-light travel by stretching spacetime itself towards you and therefore travelling without moving, so to speak - and Alcubierre's design is still theoretical and may not necessarily work.
Bottom line is that space is bloody big and you need immense amounts of energy to move meaningful distances - whether humans will ever build the technology required to *control* solar-mass-energy quantities is an open question.
Certainly it'd make for spectacular fireworks if your engine containment systems failed
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