This is really very promising. I have read alternative reports that
describe doing something like this and it is also exactly the type of
technology that can be mounted on a Magnetic field Exclusion Vessel
or MFEV. A focus fusion engine should be able to provide the
necessary power.
I also suspect that real velocity of many times the speed of light
will be possible. Ten times is nice but it still insurmountable for
easy travel. Of course, if we figure out how to build wormholes,
then it is sufficient for the transport of one end to another star
system. Such wormhole ends need to be out in space just to allow
easy vector adjustment for objects exiting it. Recall that relative
velocity and local curvature will be radically different most of the
time if not all of the time and will often determine the amount of
energy needed to get back on a useful trajectory.
The point now is that real experiments can be tried out as a proof of
concept.
Warp Drive May Be
More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say
by Clara Moskowitz,
17 September 2012
A ring-shaped warp
drive device could transport a football-shape starship (center) to
effective speeds faster than light. The concept was first proposed by
Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre.
HOUSTON — A warp
drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized
in television's Star Trek — may not be as unrealistic as once
thought, scientists say.
A warp
drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship,
taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent
anything from moving faster than light. A concept for a
real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist
Miguel Alcubierre; however, subsequent calculations found that such a
device would require prohibitive amounts of energy.
Now physicists say
that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would
enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially bringing
the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science.
"There is hope,"
Harold "Sonny" White of NASA's Johnson Space Center said
here Friday (Sept. 14) at the100 Year Starship Symposium, a meeting
to discuss the challenges of interstellar spaceflight.
Warping space-time
An Alcubierre warp
drive would involve a football-shape spacecraft attached to a large
ring encircling it. This ring, potentially made of exotic matter,
would cause space-time to warp around the starship, creating a region
of contracted space in front of it and expanded space behind.
Meanwhile, the
starship itself would stay inside a bubble of flat space-time
that wasn't being warped at all.
"Everything
within space is restricted by the speed of light," explained
Richard Obousy, president of Icarus Interstellar, a non-profit group
of scientists and engineers devoted to pursuing interstellar
spaceflight. "But the really cool thing is space-time, the
fabric of space, is not limited by the speed of light."
With this concept, the
spacecraft would be able to achieve an effective speed of about 10
times the speed of light, all without breaking the cosmic speed
limit.
The only problem is,
previous studies estimated the warp drive would require a minimum
amount of energy about equal to the mass-energy of the planet
Jupiter.
But recently White calculated what would happen if the shape of
the ring encircling the spacecraft was adjusted into more
of a rounded donut, as opposed to a flat ring. He found in that case,
the warp drive could be powered by a mass about the size of a
spacecraft like the Voyager 1 probe NASA
launched in 1977.
Furthermore, if the
intensity of the space warps can be oscillated over time, the energy
required is reduced even more, White found.
"The findings I
presented today change it from impractical to plausible and worth
further investigation," White told SPACE.com. "The
additional energy reduction realized by oscillating the bubble
intensity is an interesting conjecture that we will enjoy looking at
in the lab."
Laboratory tests
White and his
colleagues have begun experimenting with a mini version of the warp
drive in their laboratory.
They set up what they
call the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer at the Johnson Space
Center, essentially creating a laser interferometer that instigates
micro versions of space-time warps.
"We're trying to
see if we can generate a very tiny instance of this in a tabletop
experiment, to try to perturb space-time by one part in 10 million,"
White said.
He called the project
a "humble experiment" compared to what would be needed for
a real warp drive, but said it represents a promising first step.
And other scientists
stressed that even outlandish-sounding ideas, such as the warp drive,
need to be considered if humanity is serious about traveling to other
stars.
"If we're ever
going to become a true spacefaring civilization, we're going to have
to think outside the box a little bit, we're going to have to be a
little bit audacious," Obousy said.
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