Warp drive a realistic possibility now?

SkyHog

SkyHog

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http://news.yahoo.com/warp-drive-may-more-feasible-thought-scientists-161301109.html

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.
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:rockon:
 
Where would you go with warp drive? Any interstellar voyage would require an assessment of your destination. Mankind can barely survive on the Moon. Just imagine arriving at Alpha Centauri to find out planets the size of Saturn with gravity ten times that of Earth or as hot as Mercury. Not to mention the psychological impact of isolation which would be worse than that of an inmate in solitary confinement. Then there is the possibility of a rock the size of a bean impacting you. Which you can not detect by radar because you are travelling faster than radio waves. I still think that the best way to explore space is by telescope observation like the Hubble. These space observatories provide a wealth of information that no astronaut can provide. Space is a very hostile environment for humans. Just the mere fact that there is no air to breathe makes you think.

José
 
Piloto said:
Where would you go with warp drive? Any interstellar voyage would require an assessment of your destination. Mankind can barely survive on the Moon. Just imagine arriving at Alpha Centauri to find out planets the size of Saturn with gravity ten times that of Earth or as hot as Mercury. Not to mention the psychological impact of isolation which would be worse than that of an inmate in solitary confinement. Then there is the possibility of a rock the size of a bean impacting you. Which you can not detect by radar because you are travelling faster than radio waves. I still think that the best way to explore space is by telescope observation like the Hubble. These space observatories provide a wealth of information that no astronaut can provide. Space is a very hostile environment for humans. Just the mere fact that there is no air to breathe makes you think.

José
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Space exploration will require people who understand the benefits of exploration. The nervous nannys can stay stuck on Earth.
 
Sweet. I want one. I could get to the fly in breakfast before the pancakes got cold. :rofl:
 
So the Enterprise will be powered by VGER. Hmmmmmm
 
Piloto said:
Where would you go with warp drive? Any interstellar voyage would require an assessment of your destination. Mankind can barely survive on the Moon. Just imagine arriving at Alpha Centauri to find out planets the size of Saturn with gravity ten times that of Earth or as hot as Mercury. Not to mention the psychological impact of isolation which would be worse than that of an inmate in solitary confinement. Then there is the possibility of a rock the size of a bean impacting you. Which you can not detect by radar because you are travelling faster than radio waves. I still think that the best way to explore space is by telescope observation like the Hubble. These space observatories provide a wealth of information that no astronaut can provide. Space is a very hostile environment for humans. Just the mere fact that there is no air to breathe makes you think.

José
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Never tell me the odds!
 
Knowing that a device is theoretically possible and building it are two different things. Put another way, I don't think we've the technology to apply E=MC2 to something like the Voyager spacecraft.
 
steingar said:
Knowing that a device is theoretically possible and building it are two different things. Put another way, I don't think we've the technology to apply E=MC2 to something like the Voyager spacecraft.
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Since when must science and engineering converge?
 
Ultimately, I recognize that its a far fetched possibility, but still, its a possibility! We're only 50 years away from when we're supposed to do it, so this is lining up quite nicely.

Now we need to make sure we follow up on it.
 
The Con is at the right...no wait....which version of the Matrix is this....uh....
 
SkyHog said:
Ultimately, I recognize that its a far fetched possibility, but still, its a possibility! We're only 50 years away from when we're supposed to do it, so this is lining up quite nicely.
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We gave up moon operations in 1972.
We gave up the quite realistic possibility of Mars and Venus in the 1970's.
We quit flying into space until 1981.
We created Fred (spacestation freedom where the budget was so far cut that they couldn't afford the paint to finish the name of the station, thus Freedom = Fred)

Then there was the other tv shows that are far more realistic than star trek, hallucinations however far more realistic anyway:
Space 1999.
Several about Mars in the 1980's and 1990's.
What was the show going out to Saturn with forests?
A Space Odyssey 2001.
A Space Odyssey 2010.

It's now 2012 and we can't even limp into low earth orbit.
We have to yell and scream and have a temper tantrum to be allowed to run a few little robots in orbit or on mars and everyone with any say so wants to shut down spaceflight once and for all for good.

And now you want to turn a nonsense tv show into reality that will cost several times the national budget to sort out how to make any single bit of it work?

It's not a far fetched possibility. It's a full out reality disconnect.
 
fgcason said:
We gave up moon operations in 1972.
We gave up the quite realistic possibility of Mars and Venus in the 1970's.
We quit flying into space until 1981.
We created Fred (spacestation freedom where the budget was so far cut that they couldn't afford the paint to finish the name of the station, thus Freedom = Fred)

Then there was the other tv shows that are far more realistic than star trek, hallucinations however far more realistic anyway:
Space 1999.
Several about Mars in the 1980's and 1990's.
What was the show going out to Saturn with forests?
A Space Odyssey 2001.
A Space Odyssey 2010.

It's now 2012 and we can't even limp into low earth orbit.
We have to yell and scream and have a temper tantrum to be allowed to run a few little robots in orbit or on mars and everyone with any say so wants to shut down spaceflight once and for all for good.

And now you want to turn a nonsense tv show into reality that will cost several times the national budget to sort out how to make any single bit of it work?

It's not a far fetched possibility. It's a full out reality disconnect.
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In all fairness, I suspect the government will have absolutely 0 to do with any future relevant space exploration.
 
A realistic possibility?

Hell, no.

Mental masturbation, nothing else.

The mass-energy of something the size of Voyager is not a piddling amount.

When you see references to "exotic materials," that should peg your BS meter. That means there is a big hole in the concept that they don't know how to fill. And most likely, that's because it's impossible.

It reminds me of Dyson spheres. Interesting idea, thoroughly impractical.
 
MAKG1 said:
A realistic possibility?

Hell, no.

Mental masturbation, nothing else.

The mass-energy of something the size of Voyager is not a piddling amount.

When you see references to "exotic materials," that should peg your BS meter. That means there is a big hole in the concept that they don't know how to fill. And most likely, that's because it's impossible.

It reminds me of Dyson spheres. Interesting idea, thoroughly impractical.
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Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
That's a LOT of freaking energy.
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But y'all missed the important point - that is reduced from the need for mass energy the size of Jupiter.

That means it was significantly reduced. More research into ways to reduce this could provide fruitful. The good news is that we've already produced something the size of Voyager (obviously, since we created Voyager).

As for exotic materials? Yeah, that makes it a long shot - but if you can reduce the need to a point where the exotic materials are no longer needed...

Its a fun thought. Especially for me, who for the last 3 weeks have been thinking how sad it is that we won't see any significant advances in space exploration in my lifetime. I think this kind of news might actually spur the private sector into continuing where our own Government has failed.
 
Nope, didn't miss it. Didn't buy it either.

When you need to resort to exotic materials, you haven't really solved the problem. You just made it "magic."
 
SkyHog said:
But y'all missed the important point - that is reduced from the need for mass energy the size of Jupiter.

That means it was significantly reduced. More research into ways to reduce this could provide fruitful. The good news is that we've already produced something the size of Voyager (obviously, since we created Voyager).
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Yes, it's a big change. But the fact that we built something the size of V'Ger doesn't come close to finding a way to convert that kind of mass to energy. That's probably many times more energy than the entire human race has generated since day one.

Not trying to be a total downer - the fact that some people consider this sort of thing to be even theoreticly possible is interesting.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
That's a LOT of freaking energy.
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Are you talking Voyager as in the spacecraft on the edge of the solar system that weigh about the same as a Cessna 150 or some other science fiction thing?


But y'all missed the important point - that is reduced from the need for mass energy the size of Jupiter.
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And even if it required 10 times the mass of the sun converted directly to energy, they still couldn't make the damned thing work.

Once the 100% mass to energy conversion is sorted out magically, how do they control the energy to do whatever it is they want it to do? Piddling around with numbers and wearing star trek costumes pushing buttons isn't going to change how the universe actually operates.
 
fgcason said:
Are you talking Voyager as in the spacecraft on the edge of the solar system that weigh about the same as a Cessna 150 or some other science fiction thing?
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Yes. Converting that much mass to engergy would result in one honking big pile of energy.
 
Eddie's in the space time continuum?
 
SkyHog said:
But y'all missed the important point - that is reduced from the need for mass energy the size of Jupiter.

That means it was significantly reduced. More research into ways to reduce this could provide fruitful. The good news is that we've already produced something the size of Voyager (obviously, since we created Voyager).

As for exotic materials? Yeah, that makes it a long shot - but if you can reduce the need to a point where the exotic materials are no longer needed...

Its a fun thought. Especially for me, who for the last 3 weeks have been thinking how sad it is that we won't see any significant advances in space exploration in my lifetime. I think this kind of news might actually spur the private sector into continuing where our own Government has failed.
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I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down, Nick. I'm glad to see that someone out there is at least still trying to think of stuff. It might be fruitless, but at least not everybody has given up hope of trying to solve the 'impossible'.
 
CJones said:
I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down, Nick. I'm glad to see that someone out there is at least still trying to think of stuff. It might be fruitless, but at least not everybody has given up hope of trying to solve the 'impossible'.
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There is a fine line between impossible and nonsense. It's just a question of how far over that line they've gone.

For starters: All that energy packed away in the mass. 1500lbs, convert mass to 100% energy and control it while it's happening and do something useful with it. Do it for real, not pretend talk thinking a 40 year old tv show is reality.
 
fgcason said:
There is a fine line between impossible and nonsense. It's just a question of how far over that line they've gone.

For starters: All that energy packed away in the mass. 1500lbs, convert mass to 100% energy and control it while it's happening and do something useful with it. Do it for real, not pretend talk thinking a 40 year old tv show is reality.
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Right, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We all know for a fact that it's not possible to fly faster than the speed of sound, you'll be torn to shreds.
 
airguy said:
Right, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We all know for a fact that it's not possible to fly faster than the speed of sound, you'll be torn to shreds.
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or fly in space because there is nothing to push against.
 
airguy said:
Right, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. We all know for a fact that it's not possible to fly faster than the speed of sound, you'll be torn to shreds.
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I've never understood the claim that somebody (Who? (Other than reporters)) thought it was impossible to "break the sound barrier" in the 1950s.

The first supersonic wind tunnel was put into operation in the '20s or '30s, V2 rockets were flying at supersonic speeds in the '40s, supersonc projectiles had been around since I don't know when.

Who, exactly, was claiming it was impossible?
 
SkyHog said:
But y'all missed the important point - that is reduced from the need for mass energy the size of Jupiter.

That means it was significantly reduced. More research into ways to reduce this could provide fruitful. The good news is that we've already produced something the size of Voyager (obviously, since we created Voyager).
Click to expand...

Note, however, that converting the entire mass of an object that size to energy has yet to be achieved. IIRC, even a nuclear bomb only converts a small fraction of its mass to energy.

As for exotic materials? Yeah, that makes it a long shot - but if you can reduce the need to a point where the exotic materials are no longer needed...

Its a fun thought. Especially for me, who for the last 3 weeks have been thinking how sad it is that we won't see any significant advances in space exploration in my lifetime. I think this kind of news might actually spur the private sector into continuing where our own Government has failed.
Click to expand...

While it's not possible to predict which future advancements will come to fruition and which won't, it doesn't pay to underestimate the difficulties.

I agree that it's fun to think about.
 
Hey, baby steps first.

If VGER really is 1500lbs, that converts into 6.1150e+19 joules of energy.

What do we know that produces that much E ?

Shouldn't be that hard to find something to power it....

And "exotic materials"...not long ago, composites were considered exotic, now it's "ordinary".

Outside the box, people.
 
Jaybird180 said:
Outside the box, people.
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There is a massive difference between "outside the box" and "in another galaxy from the box."

If you have to resort to magic, it's not the former.

Composites were unusual materials, not nonexistent ones. The Spruce Goose is a composite aircraft, built in the 40s.
 
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