Space travel propulsion...

[Spock]

Discuss. If Humanity is to travel the cosmos what propulsion would be realistic, maybe antimatter-matter reactions, Nuclear fusion or perhaps a warp drive (physics get touchy here).

Maybe cyrogenic sleep trumps these. Please discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of space travel propulsion.

Feel free to add in new ideas and methods of space travel.

[LiquidBlue]

well the one that is most feasible at this time with our current technology would have to be nuclear, and with that i mean cold fusion. not what we are using now with power plants. right now scientist are using HUGE lasers to create nuclear fusion, just like we have in the sun, where hydrogen atoms are being forced together to fuse... into another element, giving off vast amounts of energy. this however is still in experimental stage. (it was said to have been done before many years ago, but no one has been able to replicate the results) if this is done, you would basically be flying around with a small star that is feeding you energy, all you need is Hydrogen.

i think warp would be something that is really touchy. so i am not going to jump in on that one unless someone brings it up.

[Spock]

Hmm. Interesting, I think that could work, mainly because collecting the hydrogen should statistically be easy considering its the most abundant element in the universe.

Now warp drives, otherwise known as a form of propellantless propellant work by sucking in space/time and blowing it out the back of the ship (from what I know). Look I don't even want to attempt to explain it so heres a link:

Alcubierre drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive)

[LiquidBlue]

that is one way to use warp drives, there is another. A man, currently trying to research a particle that apparently moves faster then the speed of light (this is where i stress "trying" because i don't like where its going) and it does this by "hiding" itself from the universe... Once he figures this out he said he will put it on space craft...

the other way is using light to create a vortex (wormhole) by using light bouncing around mirrors to create a gravity well. (this one also only works in theory.)

[Neytiri_love]

They should start Project Orion back up, if we would have kept with that project, we might be on Pandora by now.

[PandorahereIcome]

Quick question, does cryogenics actually freeze the aging process and not feel the time passing by or do you just not feel the time passing by? Hey if it's the first one, I'd go with it.

[LiquidBlue]

They should start Project Orion back up, if we would have kept with that project, we might be on Pandora by now.

that is what i was referring to with the cold fusion. (and what i plan on working on once i finish my degree)

and now to the cryo, in theory it stops time for you, including the ageing process, but that is in theory, because what happens right now, is crystals will from in your blood and organs and you die. Or if you are given a chemical that stops this, you still die from warming back up (well thats whats happening right now anyways in the labs)

[Spock]

that is one way to use warp drives, there is another. A man, currently trying to research a particle that apparently moves faster then the speed of light (this is where i stress "trying" because i don't like where its going) and it does this by "hiding" itself from the universe... Once he figures this out he said he will put it on space craft...

the other way is using light to create a vortex (wormhole) by using light bouncing around mirrors to create a gravity well. (this one also only works in theory.)

I believe the particle you are referring to is a Tachyon. :cool: They are the only theorised particle that travels at faster than light speeds without being compromised by the need for unlimited energy or the manipulation of space time. Also i've seen an interview from one of the lead scientists on project orion, but I can't remember where I found it...:angry:

[LiquidBlue]

I was thinking Tachyon but wasn't to sure. didn't want to give wrong information by mistake

i remember reading somewhere that one of the reasons it was scraped was because there was a problem with some people thinking that it was a big bomb flying over their heads...

[björne]

A technology that can be used right now is to use nuclear blasts. The idea is pretty simple: you bring a certain number of nuclear bombs with you and detonate them one by one behind the spacecraft :)
I think the theoretical speed was about 10% of the speed of light...

Otherwise I kinda like the idea of solar sails. This would of course require huge solar sails and a driveby near the sun to get a good push into interstellar space :)
I don't exactly remember the theoretical speed, but you could build up a respectable speed over time.

[Spock]

I was thinking Tachyon but wasn't to sure. didn't want to give wrong information by mistake

i remember reading somewhere that one of the reasons it was scraped was because there was a problem with some people thinking that it was a big bomb flying over their heads...

Don't worry about giving wrong information we're not haters.

Here is something on Tachyons.

Tachyon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon)

[Palulukan]

A technology that can be used right now is to use nuclear blasts. The idea is pretty simple: you bring a certain number of nuclear bombs with you and detonate them one by one behind the spacecraft :)
I think the theoretical speed was about 10% of the speed of light...

Otherwise I kinda like the idea of solar sails. This would of course require huge solar sails and a driveby near the sun to get a good push into interstellar space :)
I don't exactly remember the theoretical speed, but you could build up a respectable speed over time.

The problem with using nuclear explosions to power a ship is that it would never gain enough speed. 10% of the speed of light is nothing when you are talking about the distances in space. I read a great article in the Australian magazine New Scientists that the best form of engine would be a dark matter engine. Basically you capture/store dark matter (which cannot be done currently/no one know if it is real) and then you annihilate particles with the dark matter. If this could be done it would only take a matter of days to reach the speed of light apparently.... then you have another host of problems going that fast lol

Also another possible engine they listed was a black hole powerd spacecraft. Basically you bulid a huge laser in space (austin powers style :p) and wait for a couple of years for it to be charged by the sun. You then focus this lazer on one point and it creates a black hole. You can then use the hawking radiation to power the space craft (or something like that I can't remember totaly). The downside with this is that it would take 10 or so years to reach the speed of light

What do you know I found the article
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427361.000-dark-power-grand-designs-for-interstellar-travel.html
Great read guys you should check it out

[Prometheus]

Hmm. Interesting, I think that could work, mainly because collecting the hydrogen should statistically be easy considering its the most abundant element in the universe.

Now warp drives, otherwise known as a form of propellantless propellant work by sucking in space/time and blowing it out the back of the ship (from what I know). Look I don't even want to attempt to explain it so heres a link:

Alcubierre drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive)

Well, that's not exactly what happens. Instead what this method and others like it do, is bend spacetime around the spacecraft such that there is an energy gradient to the spacetime being bent. That gradient creates a wave like warp in spacetime in which the spacecraft travels. Within the warp the spacecraft itself is actually motionless in its own reference frame, which means compared to the immediate space around the ship it's at a standstill. Essentially, with reference to the space outside the warp, the craft is in freefall and doesn't experience any of the gravitational and tidal forces within the warped space. However the warp and the ship itself travel through the rest of space at speeds faster than c, relative to the rest of space itself. When the ship wants to stop, it just shuts down its engines and space around the ship snaps back to being normal, the ship comes to a complete stop without any inertial effects.

It's pretty much the same sort of engine that the Starship Enterprises uses. That's the non physics, non maths easy explanation:ntongue::nsmile:

[Exigo]

I saw a program on Discovery the other day about a company in Alaska(I think it was Alaska) that produced radios but have been contacted by NASA (yet again i think) to develop som sort of engine that would do Earth-Mars in 4 days.

Anyone know what this was, im trying to find it again but i can't. Anyone got a clue

[Prometheus]

I saw a program on Discovery the other day about a company in Alaska(I think it was Alaska) that produced radios but have been contacted by NASA (yet again i think) to develop som sort of engine that would do Earth-Mars in 4 days.

Anyone know what this was, im trying to find it again but i can't. Anyone got a clue

Nope, never heard of that. But I do know of two efforts, one Australian and the other American, that have both developed ion drives that using the appropriated energy source to power the engines could get you to Mars in 35-45 days.

[R-D-A]

Nuclear explosions are not a good enough propulsion system. They aren't efficient enough for us to reach an other system within our lifetime.
Ion drives can get us to Mars in 4 days. What do you guys think about anti-matter. Though producing even a small amount costs an exorbitant amount of credits..

[Human No More]

Fusion, ion or solar sails. Solar sails and ion propulsion are easier, but slower, particularly on acceleration.
Antimatter isn't really at all feasible so far, as we've yet to produce anything more than barely detectable amounts.

[R-D-A]

Maybe we'll find something that hasn't been discovered yet.. Then we may get to see Pandora :)

[Spock]

Well, that's not exactly what happens. Instead what this method and others like it do, is bend spacetime around the spacecraft such that there is an energy gradient to the spacetime being bent. That gradient creates a wave like warp in spacetime in which the spacecraft travels. Within the warp the spacecraft itself is actually motionless in its own reference frame, which means compared to the immediate space around the ship it's at a standstill. Essentially, with reference to the space outside the warp, the craft is in freefall and doesn't experience any of the gravitational and tidal forces within the warped space. However the warp and the ship itself travel through the rest of space at speeds faster than c, relative to the rest of space itself. When the ship wants to stop, it just shuts down its engines and space around the ship snaps back to being normal, the ship comes to a complete stop without any inertial effects.

It's pretty much the same sort of engine that the Starship Enterprises uses. That's the non physics, non maths easy explanation:ntongue::nsmile:

Thanks for the great explanation.:victory: I love Star Trek.

Umm... Ion drives, yes they use minute ammounts of propellant compared with most other things, actually they're the same engines that Imperial star destroyers use in Star Wars.:cool: But the problem is I don't think they are very powerfull. But i'm not sure.

[Keye'ung]

i have been thinking well its only in the not on paper yet stage what if you could exponentially increase the gravity of a light photon and have it expelled by an opposite but greater gravitational force and use that as a propulsion system ?

[Human No More]

Ion engines are powerful, but very slow to accelerate, and use relatively little power. Not something you'd use on a warship (but then, that was SW, which thought parsecs was a measure of time...), although good for probes.


i have been thinking well its only in the not on paper yet stage what if you could exponentially increase the gravity of a light photon and have it expelled by an opposite but greater gravitational force and use that as a propulsion system ?
Solar sails are similar to this, although not exactly the same thing. Similar disadvantages to ion engines, but with no power use.

[Keye'ung]

or a cascade ion drive?

[Souldful]

Suck it up

Instead of rockets that carry all their fuel with them, spaceships might scoop it up along the way. One design proposed by physicist Robert Bussard (who died last year) would employ giant electromagnetic fields to suck in hydrogen to fuel a nuclear rocket. Unfortunately, this "ramscoop" or Bussard ramjet, probably could not work. "The interstellar medium is not as dense as Bob Bussard thought it would be," Landis said. "And so far all attempts to design some kind of scoop had the unfortunate effect of producing more drag than you get back thrust, working kind of like parachutes."

Moreover, "we don't really have any notion of how to use the pure hydrogen we find in interstellar space as fusion fuel," Landis added. All of the proposals for fusion in the lab use deuterium-tritium (two isotopes of hydrogen) or deuterium with helium-3 (an isotope of helium) — "we don't have any suggestions for pure hydrogen in a fusion reaction," he said. "It was a clever idea, but the devil's in the details."

Sail away

Light sails might be another way to go — giant, thin, lightweight reflective sails that rely on the slight push provided by light beams. "The point is to not carry the energy you need for propulsion with you, but to get it transmitted to you," explained Jordin Kare, a Seattle-based technical consultant on advanced space systems. Instead of relying just on the enormous amount of light given off by the sun, light sails to Alpha Centauri could also ride laser beams that earthlings would fire carefully at those ships to give an extra boost, especially when sails were too far away to catch much light from our sun. The idea with a laser sail is that the sky is the limit in regards to speed.

You just keep accelerating, albeit gradually. The problem with interstellar travel with laser sails is that a lot of light needs to be used for a long time to get fast enough to get to Alpha Centauri within a human lifetime. This means very powerful and extraordinarily large lasers are needed in order to focus on sails that get farther and farther away, Kare explained. An idea similar to light sails that Landis helped come up with involved firing a particle beam at a spaceship that would ride that energy. "The problem with laser beams is that they disperse over distance, so we thought about particle beams," Landis explained. The beam would have to have a neutral electrical charge so as not to disperse itself over time. "It would be a feasible idea," he said.

Bombs away!

Another idea for space travel would involve riding explosions through space. Such "pulsed propulsion" would hurl bombs behind a ship, which is shielded with a giant plate. The explosions would push against the plate, propelling the ship. Project Orion suggested using nuclear bombs, while other proposals have since proposed smaller explosives. "Nuclear pulsed propulsion works best for really big systems. If you want to send a colony of 1,000 people to space, an Orion-type ship is definitely the way to do it," Kare said. "If you want to send a one-ton probe, I would say a laser system is the way to go."

A variant on both the laser sail and pulsed propulsion idea that Kare came up with was the "sail beam." Essentially, a laser would propel lots of miniature sails like bullets at a distant ship. The impact of these sails would propel the spacecraft. "The idea is to get a craft up to about a tenth of the speed of light that way," Kare said. "It could get you to Alpha Centauri in 60 to 70 years." So far no one has created technology that is widely agreed upon as capable of caring for or preserving humans across the lifetimes it might take to get to Alpha Centauri.

It might easily take more than one lifetime to reach the star system — one antimatter engine design would take 200 years to send humans there. If that proves so, mission designers might have to take sex and family into account so offspring of the original crew would be around at the end of the trip, unless someone successfully invents a technique for placing people in suspended animation. Then again, warp drives and similar far-out ideas might one day zip us faster than light to Alpha Centauri and beyond. "We don't know all the physics there is to know yet, and something we don't know yet might give us tremendous capabilities," Landis said.

[Spock]

Suck it up

Instead of rockets that carry all their fuel with them, spaceships might scoop it up along the way. One design proposed by physicist Robert Bussard (who died last year) would employ giant electromagnetic fields to suck in hydrogen to fuel a nuclear rocket. Unfortunately, this "ramscoop" or Bussard ramjet, probably could not work. "The interstellar medium is not as dense as Bob Bussard thought it would be," Landis said. "And so far all attempts to design some kind of scoop had the unfortunate effect of producing more drag than you get back thrust, working kind of like parachutes."

Moreover, "we don't really have any notion of how to use the pure hydrogen we find in interstellar space as fusion fuel," Landis added. All of the proposals for fusion in the lab use deuterium-tritium (two isotopes of hydrogen) or deuterium with helium-3 (an isotope of helium) — "we don't have any suggestions for pure hydrogen in a fusion reaction," he said. "It was a clever idea, but the devil's in the details."

Sail away

Light sails might be another way to go — giant, thin, lightweight reflective sails that rely on the slight push provided by light beams. "The point is to not carry the energy you need for propulsion with you, but to get it transmitted to you," explained Jordin Kare, a Seattle-based technical consultant on advanced space systems. Instead of relying just on the enormous amount of light given off by the sun, light sails to Alpha Centauri could also ride laser beams that earthlings would fire carefully at those ships to give an extra boost, especially when sails were too far away to catch much light from our sun. The idea with a laser sail is that the sky is the limit in regards to speed.

You just keep accelerating, albeit gradually. The problem with interstellar travel with laser sails is that a lot of light needs to be used for a long time to get fast enough to get to Alpha Centauri within a human lifetime. This means very powerful and extraordinarily large lasers are needed in order to focus on sails that get farther and farther away, Kare explained. An idea similar to light sails that Landis helped come up with involved firing a particle beam at a spaceship that would ride that energy. "The problem with laser beams is that they disperse over distance, so we thought about particle beams," Landis explained. The beam would have to have a neutral electrical charge so as not to disperse itself over time. "It would be a feasible idea," he said.

Bombs away!

Another idea for space travel would involve riding explosions through space. Such "pulsed propulsion" would hurl bombs behind a ship, which is shielded with a giant plate. The explosions would push against the plate, propelling the ship. Project Orion suggested using nuclear bombs, while other proposals have since proposed smaller explosives. "Nuclear pulsed propulsion works best for really big systems. If you want to send a colony of 1,000 people to space, an Orion-type ship is definitely the way to do it," Kare said. "If you want to send a one-ton probe, I would say a laser system is the way to go."

A variant on both the laser sail and pulsed propulsion idea that Kare came up with was the "sail beam." Essentially, a laser would propel lots of miniature sails like bullets at a distant ship. The impact of these sails would propel the spacecraft. "The idea is to get a craft up to about a tenth of the speed of light that way," Kare said. "It could get you to Alpha Centauri in 60 to 70 years." So far no one has created technology that is widely agreed upon as capable of caring for or preserving humans across the lifetimes it might take to get to Alpha Centauri.

It might easily take more than one lifetime to reach the star system — one antimatter engine design would take 200 years to send humans there. If that proves so, mission designers might have to take sex and family into account so offspring of the original crew would be around at the end of the trip, unless someone successfully invents a technique for placing people in suspended animation. Then again, warp drives and similar far-out ideas might one day zip us faster than light to Alpha Centauri and beyond. "We don't know all the physics there is to know yet, and something we don't know yet might give us tremendous capabilities," Landis said.

Thankyou for your contribution. :nsmile:

I've heard of a few of these methods but this is the first time i've seen them explained. :cool:

[Palulukan]

Just a few quotes from that article i posted that i thought were cool

very similar to Souldful's Suck it up idea

Fuel as-you-go

Take Liu's dark matter starship. Most astronomers are convinced of the existence of dark matter because of the way its gravity tugs on the stars and galaxies we see with our telescopes. Such observations suggest that dark matter outweighs the universe's visible matter by a factor of about six - so a dark matter starship could have a plentiful supply of fuel.


If dark matter particles do annihilate in this way, they will convert all their mass into energy. A kilogram of the stuff will give out about 10^17 joules, more than 10 billion times as much energy as a kilogram of dynamite, and plenty to propel the rocket forwards.

[Palulukan_Taronyu]

Here is an interesting fact the star system where Pandora is located is a real star system called Alpha Centauri its 4.4 Light Years away from Earth. The closest Solar System to Earth. Its the 3rd brightest star in the sky. In the movie it takes them almost 6 years to travel from Earth to Pandora so they would be going about 70% the speed of light.

[Spock]

Here is an interesting fact the star system where Pandora is located is a real star system called Alpha Centauri its 4.4 Light Years away from Earth. The closest Solar System to Earth. Its the 3rd brightest star in the sky. In the movie it takes them almost 6 years to travel from Earth to Pandora so they would be going about 70% the speed of light.

Nice little observation you've made there.

Alpha Centauri is made up of three stars Alpha Centauri A and B, there is also a red dwarf called Proxima Centauri that is part of this triple star system.

The Centaurus system is exactly 4.24 LightYears from earth. (also 1.30 parsecs)

Alpha Centauri A,B are 4.4 LightYears from earth.

Centaurus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurus)

[deamon5550]

In the movie they use anti-matter engines to propel their ships.


Here is an interesting fact the star system where Pandora is located is a real star system called Alpha Centauri its 4.4 Light Years away from Earth. The closest Solar System to Earth. Its the 3rd brightest star in the sky. In the movie it takes them almost 6 years to travel from Earth to Pandora so they would be going about 70% the speed of light.

Actually they would have to be going faster as you would be spending half the trip speeding up and half the trip decelerating (so you don`t over shoot your target)

As for project Orion, it is estimated to kill 10 people with each launch, from the radiation fall-out.

[eywa_devotee]

It would be a mix of conventional propulsion: chemical rockets, ion beam, and radiation beam accelerators, as well as reaction-less propulsion technologies.

Some of these more exotic technologies are:

Matter-energy conversion stargate devices, these would be somewhat dangerous to anything alive, as it requires the destruction and reassembly of atoms to and from energy to work in a way similar to a star trek teleporter, it works at light speed.

Direct warp field drives such as the potential well tachyon beam accelerator, in addition to requiring an anti-matter based megawatt range laser and exotic nonlinear optic crystals to generate the tachyon beam, as well as insanely powerful superconducting electromagnets to focus and steer the tachyon beam, the ship would need a hull that can withstand gravity fields of very near black hole strength. This problem may be fixed by generating a smaller counter-rotating gravitational flux field vortex to create a gravity shielding bow-shock in front of the ship's hull.

Avatar style psionic link technologies, with or without the creation of surrogate bodies in combination with one of the above technologies for gross transport used mostly for mundane applications such as guiding a ship while in a warp field.

Much of this stuff is sci-fi now, but is plausible in theory. Unfortunately IMHO, we will destroy ourselves long before we create our first interstellar capable space craft engine- even a mundane ION beam engine, that can send a person ALIVE to the nearest star.

[Prometheus]

...Much of this stuff is sci-fi now, but is plausible in theory. Unfortunately IMHO, we will destroy ourselves long before we create our first interstellar capable space craft engine- even a mundane ION beam engine, that can send a person ALIVE to the nearest star.

What if we already had the ability to go to the stars, just that you weren't being told the whole story about what's going on in military-industrial black projects, and neither was NASA.

However, what if someone very important in that area incidentally (but very intentionally) spilled the beans at a retirement speech, his own, at a major university nearly 20 years ago:nsmile:

[Keiser]

What if we already had the ability to go to the stars, just that you weren't being told the whole story about what's going on in military-industrial black projects, and neither was NASA.

However, what if someone very important in that area incidentally (but very intentionally) spilled the beans at a retirement speech, his own, at a major university nearly 20 years ago:nsmile:

Why do I get the feeling this is about Stargate?

GET KURT RUSSEL ON THESE FORUMS NOW!

[Keye'ung]

Here is an interesting fact the star system where Pandora is located is a real star system called Alpha Centauri its 4.4 Light Years away from Earth. The closest Solar System to Earth. Its the 3rd brightest star in the sky. In the movie it takes them almost 6 years to travel from Earth to Pandora so they would be going about 70% the speed of light.

s hybrid fusion/antimatter engines hurl out incandescent plasma over one million times brighter than a welding arc, with an exhaust plume twenty miles long. At the rear of the ship is a mirror shield, which protects the ship from the intense light of the beamed-power laser from Earth that the very same mirror uses as a man-made solar wind; used much like a solar sail for long term acceleration, and deceleration of the vessel without using on-board reactor mass. The mirror shield also acts as multi-layer interstellar debris shield during periods of flight in which the engines are not being used

The engines are at the front, with the rest of the ship dragged behind; this reduces the structural mass penalty. The arrangement is based on the Valkyrie starship design

The ISV Venture Star is capable of carrying 350 tons of cargo

Given the transit time of five years from Earth to Alpha Centauri A (a distance of 4.37 light years[5]), ISV Venture Star's average velocity is approximately 0.874 the speed of light. Allowing for acceleration and deceleration time at five gravities[6] (approximately 49 meters per second squared), its maximum velocity must be somewhat higher.

Also note that due to time dilation effects experienced at velocities higher than 0.1 times the speed of light, an Earth-time voyage of 5 years only seems like 2.43 years, or approximately 2 years, 5 months, and 5 days for the ship itself at a velocity of 0.874 c

Interstellar Vehicle Venture Star - James Cameron's Avatar Wiki - Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana (http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Interstellar_Vehicle_Venture_Star)

[theTANTALIZER]

Would the durabilty of the ship be able to handle that much force? What can be considered, a forcefield or some kind of aura field?


Well, that's not exactly what happens. Instead what this method and others like it do, is bend spacetime around the spacecraft such that there is an energy gradient to the spacetime being bent. That gradient creates a wave like warp in spacetime in which the spacecraft travels. Within the warp the spacecraft itself is actually motionless in its own reference frame, which means compared to the immediate space around the ship it's at a standstill. Essentially, with reference to the space outside the warp, the craft is in freefall and doesn't experience any of the gravitational and tidal forces within the warped space. However the warp and the ship itself travel through the rest of space at speeds faster than c, relative to the rest of space itself. When the ship wants to stop, it just shuts down its engines and space around the ship snaps back to being normal, the ship comes to a complete stop without any inertial effects.

It's pretty much the same sort of engine that the Starship Enterprises uses. That's the non physics, non maths easy explanation:ntongue::nsmile:

[Spock]

If carbon Nano-Tubing is perfected then the space elevator is not far away.

And if that happens then shipyards can be built for ships to be constructed in orbit, this would greatly simplify things.

[Neonium]

Would the durabilty of the ship be able to handle that much force? What can be considered, a forcefield or some kind of aura field?

The ship would be in the bubble created in space time and would feel no force, the whole point of this theory is exploiting the perspective of the ship.


When the ship wants to stop, it just shuts down its engines and space around the ship snaps back to being normal, the ship comes to a complete stop without any inertial effects.

Wasn't that one of the problem with the current theories? That stopping the ship would be impossible considering the method used to create it? Thought it had something to do with having to send something faster that c to stop...


If carbon Nano-Tubing is perfected then the space elevator is not far away.

And if that happens then shipyards can be built for ships to be constructed in orbit, this would greatly simplify things.

While this would help with space exploration in our system, the getting out of the atmosphere isn't the problem for longer trips, it's the time needed to travel thats the issue.


well the one that is most feasible at this time with our current technology would have to be nuclear, and with that i mean cold fusion. not what we are using now with power plants. right now scientist are using HUGE lasers to create nuclear fusion, just like we have in the sun, where hydrogen atoms are being forced together to fuse... into another element, giving off vast amounts of energy. this however is still in experimental stage. (it was said to have been done before many years ago, but no one has been able to replicate the results) if this is done, you would basically be flying around with a small star that is feeding you energy, all you need is Hydrogen.

"right now scientist are using HUGE lasers to create nuclear fusion, just like we have in the sun, where hydrogen atoms are being forced together to fuse"

This is normal fusion, not cold fusion.

if this is done, you would basically be flying around with a small star that is feeding you energy, all you need is Hydrogen.

This is also a problem as there is no way to gather hydrogen on the way, trying to "scoop" hydrogen out of the atmosphere would be suicidal at the speeds you would need to be going to make long trips in space feasible. It's also impossible because there is no real source of ANYTHING in space, even dust is a rare occurrence in space.

stars, just that you weren't being told the whole story about what's going on in military-industrial black projects, and neither was NASA.


What if we already had the ability to go to the stars, just that you weren't being told the whole story about what's going on in military-industrial black projects, and neither was NASA.

However, what if someone very important in that area incidentally (but very intentionally) spilled the beans at a retirement speech, his own, at a major university nearly 20 years ago:nsmile:

Do you mind posting some follow up articles on how the forces you showed in the last thread could be used for this type of application? While the fields don't seemed to developed at the moment, in theory it seems as if they would pan out.

[Mongo]

If you use only currently known physics, then the most likely technique would be a large and thin reflective sail, combined with a HUGE laser (very close to the Sun for abundant solar power -- most likely using the intense solar radiation for direct pumping of the laser) and a large Fresnel lens somewhere past Saturn to collimate the laser beam at interstellar distances. Robert Forward wrote several books about this.

For deceleration at the destination, simply have the inner portion of the sail (and cargo) be detachable from the outer portion. The laser light would bounce off the outer portion, back to the decelerating inner portion. Forward (a renowned physicist) determined that this could successfully work. The same principle could apply with a third stage, using the now-detached second stage to accelerate the third portion (and cargo) back to the solar system. Final deceleration would be directly on the third stage of the sail.

This technique is within known physics, has been determined to be viable, and is far cheaper than other possible methods, such as anti-matter. It has to be the number one prospect right now.

[Spock]

If you use only currently known physics, then the most likely technique would be a large and thin reflective sail, combined with a HUGE laser (very close to the Sun for abundant solar power -- most likely using the intense solar radiation for direct pumping of the laser) and a large Fresnel lens somewhere past Saturn to collimate the laser beam at interstellar distances. Robert Forward wrote several books about this.

For deceleration at the destination, simply have the inner portion of the sail (and cargo) be detachable from the outer portion. The laser light would bounce off the outer portion, back to the decelerating inner portion. Forward (a renowned physicist) determined that this could successfully work. The same principle could apply with a third stage, using the now-detached second stage to accelerate the third portion (and cargo) back to the solar system. Final deceleration would be directly on the third stage of the sail.

This technique is within known physics, has been determined to be viable, and is far cheaper than other possible methods, such as anti-matter. It has to be the number one prospect right now.

Mmmh. Very good idea.:cool:

[Prometheus]

Why do I get the feeling this is about Stargate?

GET KURT RUSSEL ON THESE FORUMS NOW!

Nothing to do with anything about Stargate....Project "Stargate" was actually about remote viewing.

[Prometheus]

Would the durabilty of the ship be able to handle that much force? What can be considered, a forcefield or some kind of aura field?

The field surrounds the ship and the immediate space around the ship...it doesn't touch any part of it. So, no extraneous force is put upon the hull of the ship.

[Prometheus]

Do you mind posting some follow up articles on how the forces you showed in the last thread could be used for this type of application? While the fields don't seemed to developed at the moment, in theory it seems as if they would pan out.

I'll get back to this tomorrow....rather tired right now and can't think all that great. Just to start it off, quote my previous post where I mentioned the forces. It'll make it easier to start:nsmile:

[Spock]

Bump.

[Neonium]

I'll get back to this tomorrow....rather tired right now and can't think all that great. Just to start it off, quote my previous post where I mentioned the forces. It'll make it easier to start:nsmile:

Do you mean things like this post?


Problem is that those we look up to aren't always right in what they say. They're just as human as the next person...most probably don't know themselves about it. It's good to have a discerning mind about these things but you have to be very careful about doubting something just because it seems too fantastic.

Here's some article for you to look at...

arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0607086

arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0412176

web.ist.utl.pt/orfeu.bertolami/actionport.ps (web.ist.utl.pt/orfeu.bertolami/actionport.ps)

...and here's a site to have a look through...

Chapter 3 (http://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/zpt/chapter3.html)

[Prometheus]

Yep....that would cover some of it.

[Neonium]

Yep....that would cover some of it.

Does this mean we get more interesting articles/information to pour over? :ntongue:

[Afkeu]

Now warp drives, otherwise known as a form of propellantless propellant work by sucking in space/time and blowing it out the back of the ship (from what I know). Look I don't even want to attempt to explain it so heres a link:Alcubierre drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive)


Well, that's not exactly what happens. Instead what this method and others like it do, is bend spacetime around the spacecraft such that there is an energy gradient to the spacetime being bent. That gradient creates a wave like warp in spacetime in which the spacecraft travels. Within the warp the spacecraft itself is actually motionless in its own reference frame, which means compared to the immediate space around the ship it's at a standstill. Essentially, with reference to the space outside the warp, the craft is in freefall and doesn't experience any of the gravitational and tidal forces within the warped space. However the warp and the ship itself travel through the rest of space at speeds faster than c, relative to the rest of space itself. When the ship wants to stop, it just shuts down its engines and space around the ship snaps back to being normal, the ship comes to a complete stop without any inertial effects.

It's pretty much the same sort of engine that the Starship Enterprises uses. That's the non physics, non maths easy explanation:ntongue::nsmile:

From my limited knowledge I think this system is the most promising, it would allow us to travel even to other galaxies quite quickly. The only problem is figuring out how to actually warp space-time without extremely strong gravity, like a black hole; And of course how to un-warp it once you have reached your destination.

You know the interesting thing is that in the new Star Trek movie **Spoiler Warning** - just in case


When old Spock shows Scotty the formula for beaming onto a ship traveling at warp, Scotty says something like: "Of course! I never would have thought of space as the thing that was moving!" This is a reference to the Alcubierre drive style system the Enterprise uses.



Nope, never heard of that. But I do know of two efforts, one Australian and the other American, that have both developed ion drives that using the appropriated energy source to power the engines could get you to Mars in 35-45 days.

Could you post a link or at least tell us the name of these projects/programs?


What if we already had the ability to go to the stars, just that you weren't being told the whole story about what's going on in military-industrial black projects, and neither was NASA.

However, what if someone very important in that area incidentally (but very intentionally) spilled the beans at a retirement speech, his own, at a major university nearly 20 years ago:nsmile:

Who was this? Can you post a link about what he said? Or is this all just a conspiracy theory?


On a less serious note, this system would also have great potential if it where even theoretically possible:
Infinite Improbability Drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Improbability_Drive#Infinite_Improbabilit y_Drive) :ntongue:

[Keye'ung]

The quantum slipstream drive is an advanced form of interstellar propulsion that achieved and exceeded what failed Federation attempts using transwarp were meant to do: exceed the warp speed barrier. Originally developed by an advanced species native to the Delta Quadrant, the technology was obtained by the USS Voyager in 2374 and used for an aborted test in early 2375 that nearly destroyed the ship.

The slipstream is a narrowly-focused, directed warp field that is initiated by manipulating the fabric of the space-time continuum at the quantum level. It works by focusing a quantum field through a deflector dish to generate massive changes in local space curvature; this creates a subspace tunnel, which is projected in front of the vessel. Once a ship has entered this tunnel, the forces inside propel it at incredible speed. In order to maintain the slipstream a ship has to constantly modify the quantum field with its deflector dish; however, the calculations involved are too complicated for 24th century Starfleet technology, and the time available is too short before the vessel out-paces the tunnel, collapsing the slipstream.

The Voyager crew first encountered slipstream technology when they found the USS Dauntless, a vessel ostensibly sent by Starfleet to transport them back to the Alpha Quadrant. However, the Dauntless was actually an elaborate trap set by Arturis to exact revenge on Kathryn Janeway for her role in the Borg's assimilation of his homeworld. In its first test by the Voyager crew, the Dauntless traveled fifteen light years in barely five minutes, about 1.6 million times the speed of light. During Seven of Nine's analysis of the technology, she commented on its similarity to Borg transwarp conduits

Quantum slipstream drive - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Quantum_slipstream_drive)

now that i wanna see

[Spock]

Yes now that would be cool.

[Neonium]

Yes now that would be cool.

Is anything from that series not inherently awesome?

[Spock]

True, Star Trek is amazing.

[Prometheus]

Actually, something like that might work. What they're essentially doing is creating a wormhole...opening up the graininess of spacetime at a quantum level and creating a tunnel through it. The ship would essentially ride the wave produced by the collapsing tunnel in spacetime behind the ship, which would push it along. But unlike a normal wormhole, the end would be closed...there'd be no open mouth, except when you went into the warped spacetime. Once the field was collapsed, you would pop back into normal space...when the other end of the wormhole was opened up.

[Afkeu]

Actually, something like that might work. What they're essentially doing is creating a wormhole...opening up the graininess of spacetime at a quantum level and creating a tunnel through it. The ship would essentially ride the wave produced by the collapsing tunnel in spacetime behind the ship, which would push it along. But unlike a normal wormhole, the end would be closed...there'd be no open mouth, except when you went into the warped spacetime. Once the field was collapsed, you would pop back into normal space...when the other end of the wormhole was opened up.

Perhaps we should get the Alcubierre drive working first? But I like the idea, it would definitely be better than the Alcubierre drive, just a lot harder to make and control.

[Neonium]

Perhaps we should get the Alcubierre drive working first? But I like the idea, it would definitely be better than the Alcubierre drive, just a lot harder to make and control.

Wouldn't they both be better in different situations?

[Prometheus]

Your "bog standard" warp drive would be good for cruising around the local neighbourhood but if you didn't want to take 70 or more years to cross the galaxy, you'd need "transwarp" drive. Or if you wanted to take a trip to Andromeda or anywhere else in the Local Group, you'd definitely need it.

[Afkeu]

Your "bog standard" warp drive would be good for cruising around the local neighbourhood but if you didn't want to take 70 or more years to cross the galaxy, you'd need "transwarp" drive. Or if you wanted to take a trip to Andromeda or anywhere else in the Local Group, you'd definitely need it.

I agree, but I think that in the interest of actually developing something, it would probably be better to start off small. For example (and this is a bad one), when the US was developing the Nuclear bomb (Manhattan Project) in the 40's, one of the physicists (Edward Teller) came up with a design for a Fusion bomb. Despite this, the Manhattan project eventually produced a Fission bomb (which is what they where originally developing, and what was later dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The Fusion bomb was later developed, but "they" started off with something that was a lot smaller, manageable, and easier first - the fission bomb.
I would love to develop something like a "transwarp" drive that can get you across the galaxy, and even to other galaxies, in a short time, but I also think that we should not get ahead of ourselves. However, I am open to being convinced otherwise.

[Keye'ung]

i always had this dream of a machine its a particle accelerator but it has huge super conducting magnets at the point of impact that changes polarity and rips the particle bigger on impact

[Spock]

Heres a post that sums up some forms of space travel propulsion, whether they be faster than light or not. I will provide links as well. But for those who don't want to troll through the links, I will provide an acompanying summary.

Basic rocket: Rocket - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket)

The modern rocket baisically works by reacting a propellant with an oxidizer propellant this produces very hot gases that expand and rush out the rocket nozzles at hypersonic speeds and thus propelling the rocket forward.

Rockets have been around since the 1200's, first originating in China, the technology was subsequently spread by Ghengis Khan during his conquest of China and Transoxania. Rocket technology was stagnant up until Konstantin Tsiolkovsky proposed using liquid hydrogen and oxygen as a propellant, thus the birth of the modern rocket. Rockets are still widely used in the aerospace industry making them a 800 year old technology. Time to move on perhaps?

Ion drive: Ion thruster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_drive)

Ion drives are perhaps the most efficient form of space travel technology to date, as a very high propellant efficiency is attained.

So, how do they work: Please see link.

Dr. Robert H Godard first proposed the theory in 1906. But it wasn't until the 1960's that sub-orbital tests were conducted. Currently they are used in deep space probes and as small "Hall" thrusters to stabilize satellites in orbit.

Alcubierre drive: Alcubierre drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive)

I believe that this is our best hope of inter-stellar travel. It is a reminscent of the popular "Warp drive" in the Star Trek series.

This baisically works by having the space in front of the ship contract, and then expand behind it, the ship will not be actually moving but rather moving with the region of space as it moves. Remember space moves, time doesn't.

This theory was proposed by a mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, but the theory will remain as such as there is no known way of creating a warp bubble around a ship. There are signifigant difficulties for this theory to overcome before it become practical, please see the link.

Solar sails: Solar sail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail)

This method of propulsion requires large sails to be extended behind a ship, maybe even tens or hundreds of kilometres wide, so that photons from a star, or a laser can push the ship along.

This method seems impractical to me, because it will take many years for ships to reach realistic speeds for interstellar travel, thus creating the need for multi-generational ships etc.

Antimatter/Matter reaction rocket: Antimatter rocket - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter_rocket)

This is another method that I find hope in, it won't be effective for interstellar travel, but it could make traveling around our own solar system almost easy. This could in theory propell a ship up to 100,000 kilometres a second. This is what the ISV Star Venture used in conjunction with fusion engines.

Well, how does it work? Put simply it just means anhilating anti-protons with protons, resulting in a near 100% conversion of matter to energy, very efficient considering fusion reactions are only 2%. The main problem this method faces is that manufacturing the anti-matter on a scale needed is unpractical at the present time. In a 1 month trip to mars it would take 10 grams of anti-matter. I don't even think 10 grams has ever been produced if you add up all the anti-matter that has currently come into existence due to the use of Ion colliders.

Project Orion: Project Orion (nuclear propulsion) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion))

I think this one has pretty much been covered but here we go anyway, during 1947 the idea was proposed by Stanisław Ulam, his vision was realised by 1958 when experimentation commenced.

How this worked was the explosion of atomic bombs behind the spacecraft, the craft would then be propelled forward by the force of the shockwave created by the bombs. The project was scrapped in 1963 with the ban on atmospheric nuclear testing.

Nuclear photonic rocket: Nuclear photonic rocket - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_photonic_rocket)

This design relied on a nuclear reactor running at extremely high temperatures, thus creating "blackbody radiation" that provided signifigant thrust, all the way up to light speed. It is stated that this method is feasible, but not practical with 21st century technology as the energy required is truly immense.

This method is touted to provide thrust that will power the ship up to 240km/s.

There are more theories and methods but to me these ones stood out the most.

Thankyou, live long and prosper.

[OelNgatiKameie]

From Reading the posts I see that the most concerning thing you are proposing is the time of a potential Journey, however If a spacecraft was created that could withstand the intense forces of Light speed and was capable of reaching that speed you could travel forever without ageing more that 1 second. A proven fact is that the faster a person is travelling the slower time moves for that individual person. You could travel to a planet 10,000 Light Years away and back and you would have aged no more than 1 Second, however the universe would contine to move through time normally, so when you got back it would be the year 22010.

~O.N.K.

[Spock]

From Reading the posts I see that the most concerning thing you are proposing is the time of a potential Journey, however If a spacecraft was created that could withstand the intense forces of Light speed and was capable of reaching that speed you could travel forever without ageing more that 1 second. A proven fact is that the faster a person is travelling the slower time moves for that individual person. You could travel to a planet 10,000 Light Years away and back and you would have aged no more than 1 Second, however the universe would contine to move through time normally, so when you got back it would be the year 22010.

~O.N.K.

Yes, thats right. But I think the main problem with this is that the ship would require exponential ammounts of energy to get it as close to light speed as possible. But the benefits of getting as close to light speed as possible are very rewarding as you've pointed out, journey time would be greatly decreased.

[OelNgatiKameie]

Yes, thats right. But I think the main problem with this is that the ship would require exponential ammounts of energy to get it as close to light speed as possible. But the benefits of getting as close to light speed as possible are very rewarding as you've pointed out, journey time would be greatly decreased.

My apologies, I have just said this in the other post on General, I thought I did it on here. The Phd Physicist on there mentioned the potential of a Tachyon with a Gradient of 0, which in itself would yield an answer of Infinite, which is also a Mathematical Theory. An amount being a multiple of or divisible by 0 would only yield Infinite, which means in order to reach a speed such as Light Speed or Tachyon Speed would require Physics beyond our Universe because a Tachyon and True Light Speed of 186,000 Miles Per second is against the Laws of Physics and Thermodynamics If I remember correctly

~O.N.K.
Fantastic to discuss these things though

[Spock]

My apologies, I have just said this in the other post on General, I thought I did it on here. The Phd Physicist on there mentioned the potential of a Tachyon with a Gradient of 0, which in itself would yield an answer of Infinite, which is also a Mathematical Theory. An amount being a multiple of or divisible by 0 would only yield Infinite, which means in order to reach a speed such as Light Speed or Tachyon Speed would require Physics beyond our Universe because a Tachyon and True Light Speed of 186,000 Miles Per second is against the Laws of Physics and Thermodynamics If I remember correctly.

I think thats pretty much all that needs to be said right there.



Fantastic to discuss these things though

Yes it is.

[OelNgatiKameie]

One more thing to rattle around in your head. Imagine putting a torch in space and switching it on. If it didnt hit anything on it's journey, what speed would it reach? :) I'd think a damn faster that the Protons they have zooming around Cern at 99.9999991% the speed of Light ^_^

~O.N.K.

[Spock]

One more thing to rattle around in your head. Imagine putting a torch in space and switching it on. If it didnt hit anything on it's journey, what speed would it reach? :) I'd think a damn faster that the Protons they have zooming around Cern at 99.9999991% the speed of Light ^_^

~O.N.K.

Perhaps for some extent of the journey, but I wonder if the light would be pulled into any sort of gravitational disturbance or singularity.

[OelNgatiKameie]

Perhaps for some extent of the journey, but I wonder if the light would be pulled into any sort of gravitational disturbance or singularity.


Exactly - Which backs the point of light speed in our universe being impossible. No matter of any kind can reach light speed because of forces acting on it. If we wanna reach Pandora, we have to think out side the Universe :) Quantum Mechanics anyone? ^_^

~O.N.K.

[Spock]

Exactly - Which backs the point of light speed in our universe being impossible. No matter of any kind can reach light speed because of forces acting on it. If we wanna reach Pandora, we have to think out side the Universe :) Quantum Mechanics anyone? ^_^

~O.N.K.

There will be someone around here that could indulge you in a conversation about quantum mechanics, but its not me. Just some ideas though, Alcubierre or warp drives are the answer to inter-stellar travel. How long would it take to reach Pandora at warp factor 9.9 which is 21,473 times the speed of light?

[OelNgatiKameie]

Im afraid your knowledge of Star Trek far surpasses mine, but remember that a warp drive is only theoretical and to be able to travel 21,473 times the speed of light may be as simple as pressing a button when we learn to work outside the laws of physics

~O.N.K.

[Spock]

Im afraid your knowledge of Star Trek far surpasses mine, but remember that a warp drive is only theoretical and to be able to travel 21,473 times the speed of light may be as simple as pressing a button when we learn to work outside the laws of physics

~O.N.K.

Fair enough.

[Afkeu]

Im afraid your knowledge of Star Trek far surpasses mine, but remember that a warp drive is only theoretical and to be able to travel 21,473 times the speed of light may be as simple as pressing a button when we learn to work outside the laws of physics

~O.N.K.

It could that simple and we could be working within the laws of physics, with the warp drive, you are actually not moving at all, the space around you is moving. In fact in the new Star Trek movie, when Spock Prime shows Scotty the field equation for Trans-warp Beaming that Scotty was "going to" discover Scotty says: "Imagine that! Never occurred to me to
think of space as the part that's moving."

[NYSEF816]

this is the correct forum! very excited.

As far as the speed of light goes, remember that when the speed of light is substituted into the equation it breaks down, i.e. anything with mass cannot travel at the speed of light, otherwise it would have to be infinitely small and infinitely massive.

and you would be surprised how many ideas we get from a series like star trek... making the impossible plausible is the first step to discovery.

as far as quantum mechanics is concerned, there are limitless amounts of potential uses and manipulations we can use. If humans do anything well, it is most certainly scientific research..... or war, but I will stick with research. so rest assured we are trying, as we speak, to create FTL travel, but the knowledge is simply not there. We must all hope the LHC allows us multiple breakthroughs.

[Spock]

Lets get a discussion going about a method of astronautical propulsion.

Who wants to go first?

[NYSEF816]

sounds good to me.

I think antimatter / matter annihilation, solar sails with initial help from lasers on earth, and other sub light speed travel are certainly important stepping stones and perhaps good ways to explore our Sol system. However, i think if we really want any chance of going to the stars, we need to really get serious about FTL travel.

Although my current research is on tachyon rays, at this point humanity is closer to reaching FTL speeds with a banana peel. it doesnt help that tachyons are purely theoretical as well, and the logistics of capturing a FTL particle within a specified area of space time contradicts everything we know about modern physics.

The basic idea, since tachyons cannot be captured, is to create a field of gravitons (also purely hypothetical, but much more probable to exist) around an entity and have tachyons flow through it, allowing the entity to not be bound by the speed of light (since tachyons would be, by any scientific definition, time travelers as they are not bounded to the universe by that dimension, therefore tachyons can flow freely through time).

More on the realistic side...

I read an article when the new Star Trek came out that Stephen hawking was touring the set and, when he saw the model of the warp-drive engine, said "that is what I am working on". from a perspective of quantum mechanics (and from what i can recall from my studies, special relativity as well), warp drive is physically possible. Researchers at NASA and lockheed martin have identified ununpentium, which is element 115, as a possible catalyst to generate enough energy to warp (or punch a hole through) space time. the engine for warp drive will come eventually through humanity's curiosity and ingenuity, but it will most likely be after our time.

btw spock - i see you are from NZ; i have been thinking a proper greeting of humanity to the Na'vi would be an All Black's haka, perhaps timatanga. kapa o pango and ka mate would probably start a war.

[Afkeu]

More on the realistic side...

I read an article when the new Star Trek came out that Stephen hawking was touring the set and, when he saw the model of the warp-drive engine, said "that is what I am working on". from a perspective of quantum mechanics (and from what i can recall from my studies, special relativity as well), warp drive is physically possible. Researchers at NASA and lockheed martin have identified ununpentium, which is element 115, as a possible catalyst to generate enough energy to warp (or punch a hole through) space time. the engine for warp drive will come eventually through humanity's curiosity and ingenuity, but it will most likely be after our time.

I am a firm believer that attitude and enthusiasm (or lack of it) has the ability to affect whether something happens or not. (to a small degree) Therfore, I would like to belive that FTL travel through such methods as the Star Trek Warp Drive (Alcubierre Drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive)) will be possible within my life time if people are willing to drop their skepticism and actually think about how this could be done.

[NYSEF816]

good point. trust me, if theres anyone who wants to make FTL travel happen, its the people who are working on it. myself and all the people I work with have given up our lives to do research on a theoretical engine which has the slight possibility of being created in the next century. I have been working at NASA for a year now (2 semesters), the entire time on the tachyon ray field project. I have come to terms with the idea that, if i am lucky in my lifetime, humans MIGHT see the moons of mars as manned space programs. but that in no way decreases my capacity to walk into the lab every morning and lecture hall every night. what better gift to following generations then further knowledge?

[Spock]

good point. trust me, if theres anyone who wants to make FTL travel happen, its the people who are working on it. myself and all the people I work with have given up our lives to do research on a theoretical engine which has the slight possibility of being created in the next century. I have been working at NASA for a year now (2 semesters), the entire time on the tachyon ray field project. I have come to terms with the idea that, if i am lucky in my lifetime, humans MIGHT see the moons of mars as manned space programs. but that in no way decreases my capacity to walk into the lab every morning and lecture hall every night. what better gift to following generations then further knowledge?

What your saying represents everything I want to hear, your work, and that of your colleagues is truly pioneering. Keep up the good research, the fate of the entire human race may one day depend on it.

For now, live long and prosper.

P.S: The Haka may be a good greeting.

[Afkeu]

good point. trust me, if theres anyone who wants to make FTL travel happen, its the people who are working on it. myself and all the people I work with have given up our lives to do research on a theoretical engine which has the slight possibility of being created in the next century. I have been working at NASA for a year now (2 semesters), the entire time on the tachyon ray field project. I have come to terms with the idea that, if i am lucky in my lifetime, humans MIGHT see the moons of mars as manned space programs. but that in no way decreases my capacity to walk into the lab every morning and lecture hall every night. what better gift to following generations then further knowledge?

This is also what I want to do once I get a few degrees in Physics and actually understand it; because right now I understand the theory, but I don't even know where to begin with the equations! :ntongue:

(I am 18, graduating high school this june)
I'm hoping to go to the Perimeter Institute (if I'm lucky) for my PhD after I get my Bachelor's and Master's at U Waterloo.

[OelNgatiKameie]

'lo Again People, This sounds like a lovely discussion.

What you are researching on sounds like a fantastic Job to be doing, with incredible potential, as I have just started my first year in College (17 year old) If it was something I do become interested in it may have advanced a Decade by then, lets hope for some results eh? :)

~O.N.K.

[NYSEF816]

thank you all very much for the support! except for the occasional politician giving the half-*ssed 'thank you for all you do' to get elected, it is very rare to come in contact with people like yourselves who deeply care about this issue.

i think the scariest thing is: Spock is correct, the lifeline of humanity will depend on traveling to the stars. and we will need this technology within the next few millennium, long before our star goes nova in a few billion years.

the best advice I can give to students or fans of physics is: never become frustrated. I am personally an atheist, but i know alot of my coworkers say it is god's (an infinitely wise being's) puzzle and we should be happy we have even seen the puzzle, let alone come closer to solving it. I like to think that humans are a way for the universe to understand itself, so it is our duty to discover and invent all we can while protecting our environment. but rest assured, the puzzles will seem impossible, but there will always be that EUREKA! moment.

Back to the discussion, perhaps spock could help with this, what is the 'warp factor' in star trek? is it initiated by producing more initial energy and disrupting spacetime at a higher, more convoluted rate?

[Afkeu]

thank you all very much for the support! except for the occasional politician giving the half-*ssed 'thank you for all you do' to get elected, it is very rare to come in contact with people like yourselves who deeply care about this issue.

i think the scariest thing is: Spock is correct, the lifeline of humanity will depend on traveling to the stars. and we will need this technology within the next few millennium, long before our star goes nova in a few billion years.

the best advice I can give to students or fans of physics is: never become frustrated. I am personally an atheist, but i know alot of my coworkers say it is god's (an infinitely wise being's) puzzle and we should be happy we have even seen the puzzle, let alone come closer to solving it. I like to think that humans are a way for the universe to understand itself, so it is our duty to discover and invent all we can while protecting our environment. but rest assured, the puzzles will seem impossible, but there will always be that EUREKA! moment.
That sound like great advice, I will remember that!
btw, I was wondering, what do you actually do in the lab with regard to Tachyons? Since they are a completely theoretical particle (for now) do you design and run experiments that might prove of disprove their existence? I really have no idea. I searched tachyon ray field project on google and the only thing that came up with all those words in it, was this thread...


Back to the discussion, perhaps spock could help with this, what is the 'warp factor' in star trek? is it initiated by producing more initial energy and disrupting spacetime at a higher, more convoluted rate?

I'm not Spock but the Warp-Factor is a measurement of the velocity the ship is travelling at. Apparently this is the equation for the velocity of a given Warp-Factor: http://www.avatar-forums.com/images/imported/2010/02/11.png Where s (velocity) is described as a function of w (warp-factor) and c is the speed of light. If you want to know how it works then read this:

"The episode "Metamorphosis," also from the original series, establishes a backstory for the invention of warp drive, stating that it was invented by Zefram Cochrane. Cochrane is repeatedly referred to afterwards, but the exact details of the first warp trials were not shown until the second Star Trek: The Next Generation movie, Star Trek: First Contact. The movie depicts Cochrane as having invented warp drive on Earth in 2063 (two years after the date speculated by the first edition of the Star Trek Chronology). By using a fusion reactor to heat plasma, and by sending this plasma through warp coils, he created a warp bubble which he could use to move a craft into subspace and hence exceed the speed of light. This successful first trial led directly to first contact with the Vulcans."

Source(for both parts) Warp drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive)
Here is something about the warp-coil mentioned: Warp coil - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Warp_coil)

[NYSEF816]

good questions! what we do in the lab is assume tachyons are real and create diagrams and work out the mathematics to see if the force field is possible and if it would have any detrimental affects to those traveling within it. the lab thus far hasnt conducted any experiments, just 3 or 4 of us with the occasional senior fellow giving presentations or workshops. the bad part about being a theoretical physicist is precisely that: theres really nothing for you to do other then postulate theory, render mathematical equations to the theory and then observe. however, eventually we will conduct high-energy collisions and different thigns like that.

its funny you mentioned searching for the project. I know we are kept 'hushed' but i didnt realize we were THAT hushed. the most recent thing I could find was this NASA site on our predecessor during the Bush years: Breakthrough Propulsion Physics (http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/) my research is a continuation of this. it was originally discontinued but was reinstated as part of the stimulus bill Obama passed in 2009, part of his space and technology frontier. some of the departments working now are my Tachyon ray field project, space drives, quantum fluctuations, which are all in the FTL department. the technology you see in the film avatar, namely anti matter/matter annihilation and solar sails, has been moved from theoretical physics to theoretical engineering within NASA, so a huge step forward. we mostly nailed down the physics for those two, they aren't very difficult (comparably), now it is up to the engineers to figure out a way to harness these reactions.

[Spock]

I'm not Spock but the Warp-Factor is a measurement of the velocity the ship is travelling at. Apparently this is the equation for the velocity of a given Warp-Factor: http://www.avatar-forums.com/images/imported/2010/02/11.png Where s (velocity) is described as a function of w (warp-factor) and c is the speed of light. If you want to know how it works then read this:

"The episode "Metamorphosis," also from the original series, establishes a backstory for the invention of warp drive, stating that it was invented by Zefram Cochrane. Cochrane is repeatedly referred to afterwards, but the exact details of the first warp trials were not shown until the second Star Trek: The Next Generation movie, Star Trek: First Contact. The movie depicts Cochrane as having invented warp drive on Earth in 2063 (two years after the date speculated by the first edition of the Star Trek Chronology). By using a fusion reactor to heat plasma, and by sending this plasma through warp coils, he created a warp bubble which he could use to move a craft into subspace and hence exceed the speed of light. This successful first trial led directly to first contact with the Vulcans."


Well, said. I wouldn't trust any warp factor information from Star Trek, the reason is because the warp theories differentiate between different Star Trek series. For example, in Star Trek voyager warp 10 is listed as infinite, stating you can occupy all places in the universe at once. However on several occasions during Star Trek TNG and TOS has the enterprise been travel at more than warp 10, and still not at infinite velocity.

If you want to crunch the numbers then here: Warp factor - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Warp_factor)

[NYSEF816]

thank you both for the info. I am reading the site now. warp 4.5, a trip to neptune back in 6 minutes.... gives me motivation. haha

it seems like the most important thing for humanity to create and decipher are the 'warp coils', which seems like it uses energy to create a spacetime warp.

one of the very few things we have deciphered through tachyon research is the need for a force field, which would also represent a 'bubble'. How we can do this is largely unknown, since we have never seen a graviton or tachyon, but there is the possibility of creating something similar to warp coils for warp drive, perhaps changing the initial properties of a Tau particle (either up to down or its 'color') which could potentially cause large disruptions outside the ship in spacetime. the only problem would be the protection of humans within the ship.

and another thing which must go with any interstellar travel is artificial gravity, either by rotating the ship in a way the centripetal force acts as gravity, or somehow manipulate gravitons to create a local field of increased gravitational force. even if we reached FTL travel which rivaled star trek, we would still have to control the detrimental affects of zero-G (or freefall) on any constituents in orbit.

[Spock]

thank you both for the info. I am reading the site now. warp 4.5, a trip to neptune back in 6 minutes.... gives me motivation. haha.

Yes, it would be amazing to see this happen.



it seems like the most important thing for humanity to create and decipher are the 'warp coils', which seems like it uses energy to create a spacetime warp.

Star Trek provides, Star Trek provides.



one of the very few things we have deciphered through tachyon research is the need for a force field, which would also represent a 'bubble'. How we can do this is largely unknown, since we have never seen a graviton or tachyon, but there is the possibility of creating something similar to warp coils for warp drive, perhaps changing the initial properties of a Tau particle (either up to down or its 'color') which could potentially cause large disruptions outside the ship in spacetime. the only problem would be the protection of humans within the ship.

Sounds good.



and another thing which must go with any interstellar travel is artificial gravity, either by rotating the ship in a way the centripetal force acts as gravity, or somehow manipulate gravitons to create a local field of increased gravitational force. even if we reached FTL travel which rivaled star trek, we would still have to control the detrimental affects of zero-G (or freefall) on any constituents in orbit.

I believe in Star Trek they counter gravity by fitting anti-gravity pannels under the floors throughout Star Trek ships, perhaps you could work with this idea. This is also what they did with the ship "Ishimura" in the gaming series, "Dead Space", fitting the anti-gravity mechanism under the floor of the ships, hallways, rooms, mess halls, anywhere where a Human would need to go on a ship really.

[Afkeu]

good questions! what we do in the lab is assume tachyons are real and create diagrams and work out the mathematics to see if the force field is possible and if it would have any detrimental affects to those traveling within it. the lab thus far hasnt conducted any experiments, just 3 or 4 of us with the occasional senior fellow giving presentations or workshops. the bad part about being a theoretical physicist is precisely that: theres really nothing for you to do other then postulate theory, render mathematical equations to the theory and then observe. however, eventually we will conduct high-energy collisions and different thigns like that.

its funny you mentioned searching for the project. I know we are kept 'hushed' but i didnt realize we were THAT hushed. the most recent thing I could find was this NASA site on our predecessor during the Bush years: Breakthrough Propulsion Physics (http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/bpp/) my research is a continuation of this. it was originally discontinued but was reinstated as part of the stimulus bill Obama passed in 2009, part of his space and technology frontier. some of the departments working now are my Tachyon ray field project, space drives, quantum fluctuations, which are all in the FTL department. the technology you see in the film avatar, namely anti matter/matter annihilation and solar sails, has been moved from theoretical physics to theoretical engineering within NASA, so a huge step forward. we mostly nailed down the physics for those two, they aren't very difficult (comparably), now it is up to the engineers to figure out a way to harness these reactions.

That's really cool. I'm going to be doing Physics at university, and the stuff you working on is just the sort of things I would love to do, the only difference is that if I was a part of getting something to move from theoretical Physics to Theoretical Engineering, I would probably want to go work on the engineering part too, so I could contribute to actually making the theory a reality. I don't think I would be content to just do the Theoretical Physics part, I would want to stick with it right to the end when it becomes a reality (or is proven to be impossible with our current abilities, like requiring the energy of a star or greater)


and another thing which must go with any interstellar travel is artificial gravity, either by rotating the ship in a way the centripetal force acts as gravity, or somehow manipulate gravitons to create a local field of increased gravitational force. even if we reached FTL travel which rivaled star trek, we would still have to control the detrimental affects of zero-G (or freefall) on any constituents in orbit.

One thing I must ask is this:
Do we really know what happens to us when there are no strong forces of gravity acting upon us? (Say halfway between here and Alpha Centauri, we are not close to any large bodies) When humans are in LEO, they are still being strongly acted upon by earths gravity because they are still really close to it. In this case, they are really just free-falling towards earth constantly, the only thing keeping them up there is the fact that they have enough horizontal movement to make them move in a circle (orbit). Halfway between Alpha Centauri and here, astronauts would not really be falling towards anything (they would, but it would happen very very slowly). Would this have a different effect on humans than LEO because the forces acting on them are much weaker?


Star Trek provides, Star Trek provides.

Indeed it does! Star Trek is one of those few TV series/Movies that actually follows the laws of physics with a decent degree of accuracy. A lot of the Tech in Star Trek is actually theoretically possible.

[Spock]

That's really cool. I'm going to be doing Physics at university, and the stuff you working on is just the sort of things I would love to do, the only difference is that if I was a part of getting something to move from theoretical Physics to Theoretical Engineering, I would probably want to go work on the engineering part too, so I could contribute to actually making the theory a reality. I don't think I would be content to just do the Theoretical Physics part, I would want to stick with it right to the end when it becomes a reality (or is proven to be impossible with our current abilities, like requiring the energy of a star or greater).

I can understand that, it must be hard to see your brain child just float away into the theoretical engineering department with no goodbyes. I would surely want to see it the whole way through as well.



One thing I must ask is this:
Do we really know what happens to us when there are no strong forces of gravity acting upon us? (Say halfway between here and Alpha Centauri, we are not close to any large bodies) When humans are in LEO, they are still being strongly acted upon by earths gravity because they are still really close to it. In this case, they are really just free-falling towards earth constantly, the only thing keeping them up there is the fact that they have enough horizontal movement to make them move in a circle (orbit). Halfway between Alpha Centauri and here, astronauts would not really be falling towards anything (they would, but it would happen very very slowly). Would this have a different effect on humans than LEO because the forces acting on them are much weaker?

I will try to answer this, but I think it requires "NYSEF816's" attention.
Yes we are being acted on by the forces of earth's gravity in LEO, but even then, the gravity is wanting. Astronauts need to maintain a strict exercise reigm whilst in space otherwise your bone marrow degrades at a rate of 2% per month I believe it is. While on earth it doesn't degrade at all, obviously. Lets say you were to go to mars, thats a nine month trip, by the time you got there 18% of your bone marrow would have degenerated. Eek.

Logically speaking, if you were to go to the Centaurus system the gravity would be even more scarse, but it would still be there, so your bone marrow might degrade at a slightly faster rate 2.1% a month, they must have had some system to counter this in Avatar, I wouldn't like to wake up out of cyro and discover that i've got no bones!

I think the main point here is pressure, you must keep pressure on your skeletal system so that it doesn't degrade. I don't know if i've misenterpreted your question? I hope not.



Indeed it does! Star Trek is one of those few TV series/Movies that actually follows the laws of physics with a decent degree of accuracy. A lot of the Tech in Star Trek is actually theoretically possible.

What sci-fi was originally intended to do was portray scientific advancements to the public in an easily understandable manner, alot of sci-fi series have veered away from this, but Star Trek has stayed true. And of course all the while maintaining a relative parallel with actual physics.

[Human No More]

I would imagine that in cryo, most body function is suspended, which prevents loss of bone mass.
That said, Jake did have tubes attached to him (although they could have been cables, I guess) which could have easily been a drug or similar that prevents loss.

[Spock]

I would imagine that in cryo, most body function is suspended, which prevents loss of bone mass.
That said, Jake did have tubes attached to him (although they could have been cables, I guess) which could have easily been a drug or similar that prevents loss.

Thanks for your input.

Yes, these ideas you've presented could all provide an answer to bone marrow degredation in cyro.

[OelNgatiKameie]

You know Bone Marrow is the stem cells that are inside your bones, even if they began to degrade, this shouldn't do anything to your bones per-say. Stem cells are basically blank cells. Cells that can become any other cells. Which is why Bone marrow is used after full body irradiation. When someone is irradiated their immune system is shot, so bone marrow can become the base line of a brand new immune system for that person.
When a person enters "cryosleep" their heart rate and breathing is lowered and all but the major bodily functions are suspended. The theory would even have a machine beat your heart and oxygenate your blood for you, but by doing this it can make your body very weak, your muscles can atrophe. Whilst in cryo I would imagine you would be given an IV of Glucose and Basic minerals for bodily energy to stop your brain dying. This is what I believe is the base line of Cryo at the mo, but of course, we can't actully achieve a full, safe Cryo sleep yet.

~O.N.K.

Whilst Physics seems to be your thing, I quite like Theoretic Biology Mechanics and Potential. Cryo is one step, but we will be the guys that will be able to grant Eternal Life some day :)

[Afkeu]

I can understand that, it must be hard to see your brain child just float away into the theoretical engineering department with no goodbyes. I would surely want to see it the whole way through as well.



I will try to answer this, but I think it requires "NYSEF816's" attention.
Yes we are being acted on by the forces of earth's gravity in LEO, but even then, the gravity is wanting. Astronauts need to maintain a strict exercise reigm whilst in space otherwise your bone marrow degrades at a rate of 2% per month I believe it is. While on earth it doesn't degrade at all, obviously. Lets say you were to go to mars, thats a nine month trip, by the time you got there 18% of your bone marrow would have degenerated. Eek.

Logically speaking, if you were to go to the Centaurus system the gravity would be even more scarse, but it would still be there, so your bone marrow might degrade at a slightly faster rate 2.1% a month, they must have had some system to counter this in Avatar, I wouldn't like to wake up out of cyro and discover that i've got no bones!

I think the main point here is pressure, you must keep pressure on your skeletal system so that it doesn't degrade. I don't know if i've misenterpreted your question? I hope not.

It has to be more than just pressure. If it was pressure then astronauts wouldn't experience any bone loss because the ISS and Shuttles are pressurized.

[Spock]

It has to be more than just pressure. If it was pressure then astronauts wouldn't experience any bone loss because the ISS and Shuttles are pressurized.

I didn't mean air pressure, what I was refering to was the pressure of weight on your bones.

[NYSEF816]

sorry for the absence lately - i had to travel, but I will be here for the the next week straight.

As for the question of weightlessness, it is difficult to say. you correctly stated that humans in orbit are not in zero-g, they are in what we call 'freefall'. From what we can tell, the effects would be the same in zero-g as in freefall, but i am not sure anyone has truly investigated the matter (as an undergraduate i helped one of my professors write a paper on antimatter propulsion, comparing it in both freefall and zero-g situations, in which is performed identically the same). much like acceleration creates the feeling of gravity, freefall has to same sensation at zero-g and we therefore kind of assume it will have the same affects. So pretty much what spock said.

a professor I was working with at a workshop, leonard susskind, had an idea for zero-g environments. for now, artificial gravity seems to be well outside our grasp, on the same level as transporting capabilities (as far as creating gravity; rotating a ship to create centripetal force is certainly possible). However, there was a debate in the early 60's within the medical community as to how much gravity a human actually needed, aka: does a human body need constant gravitational pull? or can they be weightless for a part of the day and have the pull of gravity for the remainder? what they concluded was that humans need about 2 hours of 1G force pulling on them. Susskind's idea (and, knowing him, it was most likely someone else's that he took credit for) was to create something that creates centripetal force, much like the machines used to train astronauts and fighter pilots, which could be quite compact. but spock is correct, the main consideration is that of the skeletal and muscular system. this by no means solves the problem, but it would most likely be something along these lines.

as far as cry sleep goes, this is well beyond my capabilities. I am actually quite awful at biology.

I told spock in a series of messages that I was brought up with star wars, my father was a fan. Although it is a great epic, it did not in any way inspire me to do what I do now. the science is completely bogus, and i think even star wars fans consider this a solid truth. without 'the force', which isnt explained for more then a combined 2 minutes throughout the 6 part series, the story falls apart. the more i read about star trek, the more i find it fascinating. extremely creative and relevant to modern physics. so cheers to the visionaries.

and yes it is a bitter-sweet ceremony to turn an idea over from theoretical physics to theoretical engineering and then engineering. if you work on a team like I do and you have a breakthrough (enough to be carried over to the engineering dept), they usually choose the top 2 or 3 members of the team as consultants, since the engineering phase obviously needs a massive amount of clarification and refinement of any conclusions or theories. unfortunately, I am 23 and am by far the youngest person on my team, working on a project which is by far the most impossible and unlikely to produce any real type of benefits anytime in the next century. so until i can publish my thesis and gain recognition, i am stuck researching a particle which very well may not exist.

and were the things on jake's chest intruding into his skin, or were they sensors like an EVG?

[Afkeu]

sorry for the absence lately - i had to travel, but I will be here for the the next week straight.

So your not in New York anymore?


and yes it is a bitter-sweet ceremony to turn an idea over from theoretical physics to theoretical engineering and then engineering. if you work on a team like I do and you have a breakthrough (enough to be carried over to the engineering dept), they usually choose the top 2 or 3 members of the team as consultants, since the engineering phase obviously needs a massive amount of clarification and refinement of any conclusions or theories. unfortunately, I am 23 and am by far the youngest person on my team, working on a project which is by far the most impossible and unlikely to produce any real type of benefits anytime in the next century. so until i can publish my thesis and gain recognition, i am stuck researching a particle which very well may not exist.

Thats not the attitude of someone trying to bring us FTL travel within this century! You have to have a positive outlook if you expect to make a breakthrough! Be optimistic, and challenge yourself to not think about how your work is probably all pointless; because it isn't! Just look at the Large Hadron Collider. One of the main reasons for building the 9 billion dollar collider is to find out if the "God Particle", or Higgs Boson, exists. The Higgs Boson, as I'm certain you know, is another particle which may very well not exist. Just keep your spirits up, you will have something to show for your work someday I'm sure. If not, I'm 100% certain that at the very least you will have learned something important. (Which could be considered something to show for your work!)


and were the things on jake's chest intruding into his skin, or were they sensors like an EVG?

I don't think they punctured his skin, they where external sensors. Wouldn't he have had to take his shirt off otherwise?
The link unit is the only thing in Avatar that I can think of thats not very well grounded in science, that is, it's the only thing that isn't even theoretically possible yet because we don't know enough about the brain.

"The Avatar Project: Human volunteers are paired with avatars, which are artificially created human/Na’vi hybrids controlled by persona-projection technology. While the human controller remains in a sleep-like state in a psionic link unit, his or her personality inhabits and completely controls a custom-made Na’vi body."
Source: the_avatar_program [Pandorapedia] (http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php/the_avatar_program)

[NYSEF816]

No i am still in NYC, i had to travel to princeton for a lecture/workshop. I am in NYC until march 3rd, then I will be going to the LHC at CERN which I am quite excited about.

I would lik to have an optimistic view, but you will understand it more when you have a graduate degree in physics. is it possible to travel FTL? yes through some type of warp drive. is it possible through tachyons? as someone who is writing his PhD thesis on tachyons, no. not only isnt it possible now, but it wont be possible for another few centuries. so warp drive, perhaps. tachyons, absolutely not. i just heard they are canceling our department on tachyons within the next 3 weeks and I am finally being transferred to quantum field research, which is why I am going to CERN. hopefully i will have more to offer this group at that point.

I have never been a huge proponent of cryo sleep. it would be a nice stepping stone, but it in no way is what we should be striving for as a definite conclusion. the humans going to distant places are not as affected as they should be, but is still 10+ years until humans on earth can decipher through any observations or research.

in more positive news, scientists in princeton created Ununpentium from combining 243AM with 48CA. it only existed for about 100 milliseconds, but they received good data

[Afkeu]

No i am still in NYC, i had to travel to princeton for a lecture/workshop. I am in NYC until march 3rd, then I will be going to the LHC at CERN which I am quite excited about.

I would lik to have an optimistic view, but you will understand it more when you have a graduate degree in physics. is it possible to travel FTL? yes through some type of warp drive. is it possible through tachyons? as someone who is writing his PhD thesis on tachyons, no. not only isnt it possible now, but it wont be possible for another few centuries. so warp drive, perhaps. tachyons, absolutely not. i just heard they are canceling our department on tachyons within the next 3 weeks and I am finally being transferred to quantum field research, which is why I am going to CERN. hopefully i will have more to offer this group at that point.

Thats awesome! I would love to go work at CERN. Lucky You.
Maybe I'll be able to go to CERN when I have a degree or two. :nsmile:
Or maybe even through this before then:
Studentships in Summer (Non Member State Nationals) (https://ert.cern.ch/browse_www/wd_pds?p_web_site_id=1&p_web_page_id=7580&p_no_apply=&p_show=N)
btw are you going to CERN as part of this program?
Non-Member State Postdoc Fellowship Programme (Theoretical Physics) (https://ert.cern.ch/browse_www/wd_pds?p_web_site_id=1&p_web_page_id=7706&p_no_apply=&p_show=N)

On another note, Would you say that FTL travel, through any method, will be possible within this century? Or is it more likely that a breakthrough will not happen within that time? Of course maybe you will find that breakthrough that you seek at CERN:
"CERN - a place where engineers rub shoulders with computer scientists; where technicians swap ideas with physicists; and where a quick chat over coffee might just give you the breakthrough you’ve been looking for."
Quote from the CERN Careers home page. :nsmile:


in more positive news, scientists in princeton created Ununpentium from combining 243AM with 48CA. it only existed for about 100 milliseconds, but they received good data

How was this done? I assume it was some form of fusion reaction? Also was it Uup 288, because that one has a half-life of ~100ms.

[NYSEF816]

Afkeu - I am glad you responded, I wanted to clarify what I said earlier. I did not mean to seem like a pompous *sshole, but one professor once told me:

"do not enter the study of physics believing you will make a difference. believe that by entering this study you will [B]further the knowledge of mankind[B]. that he said was there were many before you (and me) who were far smarter then myself (and you), and no one breakthrough can come from one person alone. even Einstein was wrong with his interpreteation of the universal-constant state, one which hubble later rebuked (as our universe is expanding due to dark energy).

Afkeu, do not get me wrong, I am VERY proud of you for taking on this journey of physics, it is truly a humbling and character building experience. the study of physics (especially astronomy) really makes you realize how small we are in the cosmic spectrum. hopwever, unlike the business world, AMBITION leads not to breakthrough in science, it leads to frustration. this is why we we have different paths. I was literally a clone of you when I was an undergrad, but as a masters (and now PhD student) i realized: all I can ask for is to create knowledge for future generations. If I can do more then that, then wonderful, but i do not intend to be a martyr of science. at best, i wish to be a research fellow on a paper that leads a scientist 150 years from now to say "wow, i should expand on their research". it is not the fame, or pandora, that i crave, it is the survival of humanity.

but on a more optimistic note (which may seem as a contradiction to my entire opening statement), yes, FTL travel is indeed possible i n the next century. what you and people like Spock and ONK need to realize is it is up to you: humanity cares more about paris hilton then it does about inter-stellar travel (which is why it is so difficult to find information about tachyon research).

and for the more optimistic note, yes it was done by nuclear fusion. The two elements were combined and for 100 milliseconds then formed element 115. I would say, at this point, elemnt 115 is a much more probably catalyst for FTL travel then antimatter because of its abundance.

[Inny Binny]

The general populace would care more about interstellar travel than Paris Hilton if it was actually created - the problem is, if it were created, it would actually have been created, thus the increased popularity comes too late to be relevant.

Humanity really sucks when it comes to space.

I guess I'll come back down to earth once I get through university as well. But as it stands, me and my army of researchers are going to single-handedly discover the key to interstellar travel. We might chuck in time travel just for fun as well.

Yes, the dreams of a misguided 17 year old. :d

[Spock]

Well, I don't have physicist blood in my veins, anything to do with advanced calculations makes me weap, although I enjoy them, I just can't do them.:,(

This year i'm studying Chemistry and Biology at the Vulcan science academy, so thats more of where i'm at. In a few years, I might study Exo-Biology (or is it astro-biology), we could all walk hand in hand. Furthering humanities (and vulcan) knowledge of the cosmos.

[Afkeu]

Afkeu - I am glad you responded, I wanted to clarify what I said earlier. I did not mean to seem like a pompous *sshole, but one professor once told me:

"do not enter the study of physics believing you will make a difference. believe that by entering this study you will [B]further the knowledge of mankind[B]. that he said was there were many before you (and me) who were far smarter then myself (and you), and no one breakthrough can come from one person alone. even Einstein was wrong with his interpreteation of the universal-constant state, one which hubble later rebuked (as our universe is expanding due to dark energy).

Afkeu, do not get me wrong, I am VERY proud of you for taking on this journey of physics, it is truly a humbling and character building experience. the study of physics (especially astronomy) really makes you realize how small we are in the cosmic spectrum. hopwever, unlike the business world, AMBITION leads not to breakthrough in science, it leads to frustration. this is why we we have different paths. I was literally a clone of you when I was an undergrad, but as a masters (and now PhD student) i realized: all I can ask for is to create knowledge for future generations. If I can do more then that, then wonderful, but i do not intend to be a martyr of science. at best, i wish to be a research fellow on a paper that leads a scientist 150 years from now to say "wow, i should expand on their research". it is not the fame, or pandora, that i crave, it is the survival of humanity.
First, you never sounded "...like a pompous *sshole."
Second, those are very wise words. I will remember them (and if I forget I'll come back here and read it again). I don't crave fame either, I crave knowledge and understanding of our universe; that is what has lead me to physics. I know that there may be times of frustration, but I'll pull through. It's great to know that I'm not the only person who has ever felt like I do, all optimistic and full of ambition, etc.

but on a more optimistic note (which may seem as a contradiction to my entire opening statement), yes, FTL travel is indeed possible i n the next century. what you and people like Spock and ONK need to realize is it is up to you: What about you? Your not exactly old either! Since when is 23 the new 50? I would say it's up to US! You and Me and Spock and ONK, etc.
On a side note, I must ask:
If you are only 23 and getting your PhD soon, how many years did you take to do your BSc and MSc? I'm 18 and I am graduating High School this june. My Undergrad will take 4-5 years and then my MSc will probably take at least two years. That makes me 24-25 when I start my PhD, assuming that I do all my degrees without taking a break like that.
humanity cares more about paris hilton then it does about inter-stellar travel (which is why it is so difficult to find information about tachyon research).

Ahh, the unfortunate truth... Inny Binny has a good explanation about that one- most people don't care about it until it works.


and for the more optimistic note, yes it was done by nuclear fusion. The two elements were combined and for 100 milliseconds then formed element 115. I would say, at this point, elemnt 115 is a much more probably catalyst for FTL travel then antimatter because of its abundance.

I assume that by abundance you mean that it is easier to make than anti-matter. However, how is it a good catalyst for FTL travel? I vaguely remember reading some mention of one of the "Unun******" elements being used for space propulsion but I can't remember where or what it was; but it was probably elem 115.


Well, I don't have physicist blood in my veins, anything to do with advanced calculations makes me weap, although I enjoy them, I just can't do them.:,(

This year i'm studying Chemistry and Biology at the Vulcan science academy, so thats more of where i'm at. In a few years, I might study Exo-Biology (or is it astro-biology), we could all walk hand in hand. Furthering humanities (and vulcan) knowledge of the cosmos.
I didn't know there was a real Vulcan Science Academy?! (or are you joking? I'm very skeptical.)
Also, it is Exo-biology. Grace (in Avatar) was called an Exo-Botanist.


Also, a question for NYSEF816:

why is special relativity still used so much when general relativity superseded it? Or am I wrong about that?

[NYSEF816]

As for my education, I started a year early and skipped 5th grade in the US system, so i graduated HS when I was 16 and started college immediately. I attended Princeton for undergrad and they had a 6 year accelerated program to obtain your BS and then your MS, so I graduated from there in May last year. In September I began at MIT, and began working for NASA once I enrolled. The structure for obtaining a PhD in physics, which you will learn, is much different then college and graduate school. There are lectures and things, but as a PhD candidate you are looked upon much more as an equal then a student, and time in spent in the lab far outweighs time spent in lecture. It is a very enjoyable experience; it allows you to travel and research anywhere without the fear of 'missing class'.

I never thought of it like that, haha. But you are correct, we are of the same generation. and it is up to us! and we will do our best - humanity has an excellent track record in the field of scientific breakthroughs. Unfortunately, we are not so keen on the application aspect.

And yes element 115 is much easier to obtain then anti-matter. And it is a good catalyst for FTL propulsion because it is intrinsically unstable and gives off an enormous amount of energy as it decays. Not enormous in relation to nuclear fusion, but enormous with regards to the decay of other atoms. and you most likely read about it from a new-age type website. There is a large community of UFOlogists who believe element 115 is used to propel alien saucers and things like that.

As for relativity: the two are not so much mutually exclusive. Special relativity, to put it broadly, is largely general relativity + acceleration. Therefore, instead of being a hypothesis about general coordinate transformations as general relativity is, special relativity deals with frames in uniform relative motion.

[Spock]

I didn't know there was a real Vulcan Science Academy?! (or are you joking? I'm very skeptical.)
Also, it is Exo-biology. Grace (in Avatar) was called an Exo-Botanist.


Yes, I was joking, I will refrain from joking here on in.

[Afkeu]

As for my education, I started a year early and skipped 5th grade in the US system, so i graduated HS when I was 16 and started college immediately. I attended Princeton for undergrad and they had a 6 year accelerated program to obtain your BS and then your MS, so I graduated from there in May last year. In September I began at MIT, and began working for NASA once I enrolled. The structure for obtaining a PhD in physics, which you will learn, is much different then college and graduate school. There are lectures and things, but as a PhD candidate you are looked upon much more as an equal then a student, and time in spent in the lab far outweighs time spent in lecture. It is a very enjoyable experience; it allows you to travel and research anywhere without the fear of 'missing class'.

So did you know you wanted to do physics when you where 16? Or did you just start your undergrad in a general program and choose physics later? I'm just interested because my parents are always going on about how I shouldn't be expected to know for certain what I want to do, with regard to university, yet. Even though I'm 95% sure I want to do Physics.


And yes element 115 is much easier to obtain then anti-matter. And it is a good catalyst for FTL propulsion because it is intrinsically unstable and gives off an enormous amount of energy as it decays. Not enormous in relation to nuclear fusion, but enormous with regards to the decay of other atoms. and you most likely read about it from a new-age type website. There is a large community of UFOlogists who believe element 115 is used to propel alien saucers and things like that.

So how is 115 stored for any amount of time if it's half-life is ~100ms? Or is the energy is releases when it decays somehow greater than the energy required to synthesize it?


As for relativity: the two are not so much mutually exclusive. Special relativity, to put it broadly, is largely general relativity + acceleration. Therefore, instead of being a hypothesis about general coordinate transformations as general relativity is, special relativity deals with frames in uniform relative motion.

did you mean that General Relativity is Special Relativity + Acceleration? Thats what I have read (but that could be totally wrong), What I was asking was why special relativity is still used when general relativity is, as far as my understanding goes, Special Relativity + Acceleration. Sorry if that wasn't clear. I suppose I should have explained what I already knew.


Yes, I was joking, I will refrain from joking here on in.
Wouldn't jokes be considered Highly Illogical by the Vulcans?

[Spock]

Wouldn't jokes be considered Highly Illogical by the Vulcans?

I was practising it as part of a theses i'm construction on Human humour.

Ok, now my next post will definately be right back on topic.

[NYSEF816]

oh yes, i knew i wanted to do physics wince i was very little. at first i wanted to do astronomy or cosmology, but through my undergrad i realized i really wanted to do theoretical quantum field theory, M theory etc. It is very rare for kids to know what they want to do at such a young age, so it is good you do. heck, 2 of my 5 roommates in undergrad have been 'ski bums' for the last 6 months in colorado because they do not know what they want to do.

sorry, i should have clarified element 115: as far as we know, there are ways to stabilize element 115 long enough to form a solid perhaps as big as a small rock by using electromagnetism. since the atom is so large, ie 115 electrons, the energy given off when its electrons move to a higher orbit is 115 times greater then, say, hydrogen with 1 electron. so ideally we could fire a neutron at a piece of element 115 which, in turn, would give off alot of energy. not nearly as much as antimatter, but enough so that being within 20 meters of the collision without immediate protection would give you instant radiation poisoning.

and yes very good catch, i messed up the two. general relativity is special relativity + acceleration. so it is like algebra and calculus in a way; one builds on the other. and although there is a more advanced study (calculus or general relativity), many academics in the field prefer to use the primary system of deduction (algebra or special relativity) to make things less complicated, or just to create a uniformity between calculations. unfortunately here in NYC the public transportation buses are shut down for the time being, but next time i am in the lab i will verify this conversation with someone who knows much better then I.

and I have always been jealous of a vulcan's ability to put aside all emotion. Spock, does this logic really offer you total serenity? and i think it was a good try at human behavior.

[Afkeu]

oh yes, i knew i wanted to do physics wince i was very little. at first i wanted to do astronomy or cosmology, but through my undergrad i realized i really wanted to do theoretical quantum field theory, M theory etc. It is very rare for kids to know what they want to do at such a young age, so it is good you do. heck, 2 of my 5 roommates in undergrad have been 'ski bums' for the last 6 months in colorado because they do not know what they want to do.


Yeah, I expect I will narrow my interest down once I'm an Undergrad... I hardly think that I could know 100% what I want to learn about when I don't even know the full extent of what there is to learn!


and yes very good catch, i messed up the two. general relativity is special relativity + acceleration. so it is like algebra and calculus in a way; one builds on the other. and although there is a more advanced study (calculus or general relativity), many academics in the field prefer to use the primary system of deduction (algebra or special relativity) to make things less complicated, or just to create a uniformity between calculations. unfortunately here in NYC the public transportation buses are shut down for the time being, but next time i am in the lab i will verify this conversation with someone who knows much better then I.


Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense, your analogy to Calculus Vs Algebra is a good one.

[Spock]

and I have always been jealous of a vulcan's ability to put aside all emotion. Spock, does this logic really offer you total serenity? and i think it was a good try at human behavior.

I do not feel serenity.

Ok, thats enough of that, stop making me post off topic.

['ew]

I'v always been one for slipspace although the radiation dosn't sound fun

[Spock]

I'v always been one for slipspace although the radiation dosn't sound fun

Thats why we need to figure out how to shield the ship from radiation, although I don't think slipspace would actually create radiation as a bi-product of the warping of space time, NYSEF816 can you answer this?

['ew]

I say radiation because (the way i understand it at least) is that slipspace is short slip-stream space which is the "space between space" so to speek, and in a jump you exsperience flux-vortexes(like on Pandora, but a million times the power) and very powerful radiation. thoughts?

[Spock]

I say radiation because (the way i understand it at least) is that slipspace is short slip-stream space which is the "space between space" so to speek, and in a jump you exsperience flux-vortexes(like on Pandora, but a million times the power) and very powerful radiation. thoughts?

Its an interesting concept, but purely science fiction, as the slip-stream itself hasn't been discovered. I believe they use slip-space in the "Halo" series of video games. As I am a studying chemistry and biology, let me think...

From what I can deduce, the only way to be poisoned by radiation is if the the slip stream itself is actually flooded with radiation. The flux-vortexes are purely electromagnetic and shouldn't cause radiation in its own right. But if you times that by one million, well then, your body would disentergrate as the metals carried in your blood would be attracted to the source of the electro-magnetism, but they would leave your body at close to light speed. i don't really know enough to comment any further. Maybe slip-space would be viable if those physicists at CERN, wink wink, discovered a slip-space corridor.

[hallipino]

Just to let every one know if anyone forgot. Pandora is 4.6 light years away from earth (if it is really there) and they got there in six years and something days so they weren't traveling the speed of light so if anyone wants to work up and equation as to how fast they had to be going that would be useful.

['ew]

Very observant,but what ment to say is the flux-vortex and the radiation are completly unrelated. Sorry if i screwed up on exsplaning that. Although you make a very good point. As for cern who knows what ther doing, i swere thay better not be playing put put golf.

[Afkeu]

Its an interesting concept, but purely science fiction, as the slip-stream itself hasn't been discovered. I believe they use slip-space in the "Halo" series of video games. As I am a studying chemistry and biology, let me think...

From what I can deduce, the only way to be poisoned by radiation is if the the slip stream itself is actually flooded with radiation. The flux-vortexes are purely electromagnetic and shouldn't cause radiation in its own right. But if you times that by one million, well then, your body would disentergrate as the metals carried in your blood would be attracted to the source of the electro-magnetism, but they would leave your body at close to light speed. i don't really know enough to comment any further. Maybe slip-space would be viable if those physicists at CERN, wink wink, discovered a slip-space corridor.

Perhaps those scientists at CERN (or who will soon be going there *hint hint* NYSEF816) will prove the existence of the "God Particle" - the particle that gives all matter it's mass. Then, we could find a way to remove this particle from people without killing them, and then we could travel at or above the speed of light unrestricted by mass! :ntongue: (I highly, highy doubt that this is possible even if the "God Particle" does exist. I was pretty much just writing that "stream of consciousness" style.)


Just to let every one know if anyone forgot. Pandora is 4.6 light years away from earth (if it is really there) and they got there in six years and something days so they weren't traveling the speed of light so if anyone wants to work up and equation as to how fast they had to be going that would be useful.

They where going at 70% the speed of light (not the whole time though, they has to speed up and slow down too).
isv_venture_star [Pandorapedia] (http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php/isv_venture_star)

[Spock]

As for cern who knows what ther doing, i swere thay better not be playing put put golf.

CERN, I think they do a good job, NYSEF816 works for CERN, query him if you want, he'll give you decent answer.

[NYSEF816]

ohhh yes - the Halo universe! something I know far too much about for my own good. Yes - slip stream is purely science fiction at this point but from what the Halo universe uses with the Shaw-Fujikawa slipspce engine, it allows an entity (say, a ship) to manipulate its 3 dimensional space in a way which incorporates it into the higher 7 dimensions (M theory actually predicts 9, or 20 extra dimensions if tachyons exist). in that universe there were 2 methods, the human and convenant (aka, stolen forerunner technology) methods. The human method was to create a whole in the extra dimensions and use brute force to enter them, while convenant technology was a more precise mechanism of forcing the extra dimensions to conform around the craft. so, a surgical knife as opposed to a hammer, etc. but I can honestly not say whether or not this would produce radiation. pretty much what Spock said: in itself, aka going from one set of dimensions to another, it should not (unless those dimensions had pre-existing radiation); however it seems that creating enough force to manipulate these dimensions would create an extreme amount of radiation which humans would have to be shielded by.

For now, warp-drives seem most attainable given our understanding of physics at this point.

As far as CERN goes, everyone I have met from there is very professional and determined, so I would not worry too much about wasted time. unfortunately, as academic physicists, our ability to 'let loose' is.... um.... slightly below that of an average person, so 'partying' to us tends to revolve around science. and not the science of brewing.

actually, funny you bring CERN up. the first results were just published in an academic paper yesterday. although no higgs-boson yet, they have already seen new particles we had not known before. a very exciting time for science!!

First LHC Results Are In - They have been obtained from December collisions - Softpedia (http://news.softpedia.com/news/First-LHC-Results-Are-In-134491.shtml)

[Spock]

Definately an exciting time for science. Even if its not the higgs-boson, every little bit is progress.

Thankyou for your input about slip-space, I believe the Human spaceships in halo are propelled through slip-space at 2 lightyears a day, whilst the convenant ships are propelled at 30 lightyears per day. Just like you said, the stolen forerunner technology is alot more precise.

[Afkeu]

As far as CERN goes, everyone I have met from there is very professional and determined, so I would not worry too much about wasted time. unfortunately, as academic physicists, our ability to 'let loose' is.... um.... slightly below that of an average person, so 'partying' to us tends to revolve around science. and not the science of brewing.

actually, funny you bring CERN up. the first results were just published in an academic paper yesterday. although no higgs-boson yet, they have already seen new particles we had not known before. a very exciting time for science!!

First LHC Results Are In - They have been obtained from December collisions - Softpedia (http://news.softpedia.com/news/First-LHC-Results-Are-In-134491.shtml)

Thats awesome! I can only imagine what we will know 5 years from now when I have my BSc.
Can we count on you for insider updates once you get to CERN NYSEF816? :nwink:

[Spock]

Thats awesome! I can only imagine what we will know 5 years from now when I have my BSc.
Can we count on you for insider updates once you get to CERN NYSEF816? :nwink:

If you ask him nicely, he's already giving me updates on his work and breakthroughs, not to speak of the devil or anything.

[NYSEF816]

yes you can all count on me for updates!

as fate (or whatever you may call it) would have it, the day i finally get cable internet in my apartment (today) i am told the tachyon department is closing 2 weeks early, aka this upcoming sunday, and I will be leaving for CERN next wednesday.

fortunately, they have housing for scientists there WITH internet, so i will be able to give much more constant updates.

asa far as warp drive goes, and I know we have already talked about this on the thread, I found this interesting segment from michio kaku's show on the science channel.

(notice the scientist got his idea from star trek)

YouTube- Broadcast Yourself.

['ew]

I Love that show watch it every weak. Have you pondered slipspace.

[NYSEF816]

I Love that show watch it every weak. Have you pondered slipspace.

it is an awesome show, and michio is the 'carl sagan' of our generation.

slip space would be extremely beneficial, but unfortunately since it deals with extra dimensions (and therefore M theory), we know very little about how it would even work. as opposed to something like warp drive which, in essence, uses relativity which we have been dissecting for 70 years.

in time humans will travel to the stars using some FTL technology. if there is one thing we are good at it is innovation. and war, but.... we shall stick with innovation on this thread

['ew]

O yeah thats right. I always thought there would have to be some sort of partacle accelarators on bord your ship. Sounded kind of wierd to me though.

[NYSEF816]

i mean slip space could work if the theory is there. traveling 'between space', or in the bundled up higher dimensions which are within millionths of a millimeter of our own dimensions, would offer a FTL propulsion, but it is a matter of discovering the nature of these dimensions, how to manipulate them (most likely with a gigantic amount of force), and most importantly how to navigate through them.

['ew]

Yeah, so we don't get ripped into tiny,tiny, litle pieces. That would ruin everybodys day.

[Spock]

Here is a little bit on slip-space from halo:


This...engine allowed ships to tunnel into...slipspace... Slipspace is a domain with alternate physical laws, allowing faster-than-light travel without relativistic side-effects. Faster-than-light travel is not instantaneous; "short" jumps routinely take up to two months, and "long" jumps can last six months or more. Entire crews of some ships have been reported to disappear with no damage to the ship what so ever. ...scientists noted an odd "flexibility" to temporal flow while inside the Slipstream. Though no human scientist is sure why travel time between stars is not constant, many theorize that there are "eddies" or "currents" within the Slipstream—there is generally a five to ten percent variance in travel times between stars. This temporal inconsistency has given military tacticians and strategists fits—hampering many coordinated attacks. The Covenant have a very finely tuned version of this technology, and it is far superior to the UNSC's. Instead of simply tearing a hole into slipspace, it cuts a very fine slit and slips into slipspace with precision. It exits the same way, and can have pinpoint accuracy. It can even do so to slipspace within planetary atmospheres, though this is highly damaging to the surface of the planet.

['ew]

Pray to God, that the RDA don't pull a New Mombasa on Pandora.

[Spock]

Pray to God, that the RDA don't pull a New Mombasa on Pandora.

Going into slip-space within an atmosphere is an extremely dumb idea. The reason is because you are dealing with thousands of tiny black holes, that would pull in the environment as well as the ship that is going to slipspace.

Hey, the prophet of regret did it over the top of New Mombassa, look what happened to that city, half the buildings in it went to slipspace with the covenant cruiser, plus a couple of million tons of soil and water.

The very definition of collateral damage if you ask me.

['ew]

Presicially, not any of the bows and arrows and all the Ikran you got can stop a slipspace rupsur.

[Afkeu]

Presicially, not any of the bows and arrows and all the Ikran you got can stop a slipspace rupsur.

The RDA doesn't even have FTL travel, let alone slipspace.

[Spock]

The RDA doesn't even have FTL travel, let alone slipspace.

Our little conversation was purely hypothetical.

[Afkeu]

So I guess right now, what needs to be done, is we need to find a way to warp space without immense amounts of energy; then voila, Warp Drive. :nsmile:

Also, I love how Miguel Alcubierre got the idea from Star Trek.

[Spock]

So I guess right now, what needs to be done, is we need to find a way to warp space without immense amounts of energy; then voila, Warp Drive. :nsmile:

Also, I love how Miguel Alcubierre got the idea from Star Trek.

Dead right. Warp drive definately has the thumps up from me.

['upxare]

Why dream and speculate about superadvanced propulsion technologies requiring gigantic amounts of energy, if we haven't even a fusion powered ship ready. That has to be our next step, though. With nuclear fusion power, we can travel at 0.1c, means Alpha Centauri will be reachable in one's lifetime.

[TorukStorm]

Discuss. If Humanity is to travel the cosmos what propulsion would be realistic, maybe antimatter-matter reactions, Nuclear fusion or perhaps a warp drive (physics get touchy here).

Maybe cyrogenic sleep trumps these. Please discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of space travel propulsion.

Feel free to add in new ideas and methods of space travel.


Generation of an artificial wormhole by using magnetic fields and a rapidly rotating superconductor

[Spock]

Why dream and speculate about superadvanced propulsion technologies requiring gigantic amounts of energy, if we haven't even a fusion powered ship ready. That has to be our next step, though. With nuclear fusion power, we can travel at 0.1c, means Alpha Centauri will be reachable in one's lifetime.

Thats not practical though, we need to jump straight past ineffective forms of space travel, and right to what works, things like the warp drive, and it is well within reach.

[Prometheus]

Why dream and speculate about superadvanced propulsion technologies requiring gigantic amounts of energy, if we haven't even a fusion powered ship ready. That has to be our next step, though. With nuclear fusion power, we can travel at 0.1c, means Alpha Centauri will be reachable in one's lifetime.

It's precisely that dreaming and speculating which will most likely give us the capabilities to travel at warp speeds, and sooner than you might think. It's all well and good to just stick with what we know but that ultimately won't get us anywhere, except next door, so to speak.

If we want to travel to the stars, then we're going to have to think outside of the box, so far as our understanding of physics and technologies are concerned.

[Spock]

If we want to travel to the stars, then we're going to have to think outside of the box, so far as our understanding of physics and technologies are concerned.

Yup, exactly what I think.

[NYSEF816]

It's precisely that dreaming and speculating which will most likely give us the capabilities to travel at warp speeds, and sooner than you might think. It's all well and good to just stick with what we know but that ultimately won't get us anywhere, except next door, so to speak.

If we want to travel to the stars, then we're going to have to think outside of the box, so far as our understanding of physics and technologies are concerned.

precisely. the technology in Avatar, i.e. harnessing antimatter/matter annihilation to propel a ship forward, is a good stepping stone, but it should not be our goal. neither should be cryo sleep, as this is more of a way to deal with being unable to travel at warp speeds then a real breakthrough. our goal should be to harness this massive energy and direct it towards warping space time. THAT is good science.

['upxare]

Thats not practical though, we need to jump straight past ineffective forms of space travel, and right to what works, things like the warp drive, and it is well within reach.

Logic dictates to apply technologies first, which are in our reach, before we think about technologies completely impossible at the moment. Fusion powered spaceships are the interstage to antimatter propulsion, which is the interstage to warp drive, which should be our ultimative goal.
If we would direct the funds we currently burn for military equipment (which will be outdated in some years as newer better weapon systems are developed), we could mastermind the warp drive within 40 years, if not earlier.

[Spock]

Logic dictates to apply technologies first, which are in our reach, before we think about technologies completely impossible at the moment.

We could apply our technologies to a currently practical idea, but they would be largely useless on a inter-stellar basis. And the warp drive is not immpossible, not even at the moment.



Fusion powered spaceships are the interstage to antimatter propulsion, which is the interstage to warp drive, which should be our ultimative goal.
If we would direct the funds we currently burn for military equipment (which will be outdated in some years as newer better weapon systems are developed), we could mastermind the warp drive within 40 years, if not earlier.

Yeah, good idea. Good luck getting governments to redirect resources away from weapon systems though.

[ateyo 'uniltiranyu]

One of the most practical ideas that is in fact feasible with today's current technology and perhaps budget is an ion drive powered by a nuclear fission reactor (Fusion is still a few decades off). Once free of substantial gravitational forces this mode of propulsion would allow the spacecraft to accelerate at a slow but steady rate. In all probability, this could get us to Mars in 6 months. Sure it's not anti-matter propulsion but something like this would at least jump start the space program to ignite a new age of humanity. If we wish to venture to distances reminiscent to that of Pandora, some concepts of Quantum Mechanics will need to be applied.

['upxare]

We could apply our technologies to a currently practical idea, but they would be largely useless on a inter-stellar basis. And the warp drive is not immpossible, not even at the moment.


Yeah, good idea. Good luck getting governments to redirect resources away from weapon systems though.

And thats the critical point here. If we WANT to get to the warp drive, we would have to combine ALL our resources together. No more war funding, instead pour all ressources into the development of a technology, which even in this case wouldnt be ready before the mid of the century. Thats way beyond any term of any politician on earth.
Or - and that would be more efficient, we abandon the nowadays principles of economics in favor for a more advanced society. However, with our current society with its artificially limited ressources, we can only proceed the slow step-to-step approach. So JC's vision that in 140 years we have masterminded nearby interstellar trips based on sublight propulsion seems (based on my logical conclusion of the named facts) reasonable.

[Inny Binny]

Thats not practical though, we need to jump straight past ineffective forms of space travel, and right to what works, things like the warp drive, and it is well within reach.

Don't get ahead of yourself! 'Well within reach' is more than a bit of an overstatement.

Now, obviously we're not going to get to do any interstellar travel without some form of FTL travel. But other technologies, such as nuclear propulsion, ion drives, solar sails etc. aren't intended for interstellar travel anyway - at least, not much past Alpha Centauri, and even then only because it's cool. They're intended for getting to Mars and the rest of the Solar System quicker and more efficiently. And it's pretty obvious we need to figure out how to play around in our own backyard before we go jumping off into the unknown. We need experience in space which we clearly don't have right now.

I'm definitely an advocate for getting as much funding into FTL research as possible though. It's a bit hard to know where to start though. Do we want to open wormholes? So we'd need to manufacture a bunch of negative energy? Or maybe we want to bend spacetime with a warp drive. Do we need negative energy for that as well? Maybe something else? The fine-structure constant may not be constant after all. Do we try to alter the speed of light itself?

It's going to be very hard to get FTL travel up and running. Hopefully it will come as a breakthrough in physics, not too far in the future. It'll probably be more a slow accumulation of discoveries, however.

['upxare]

Don't get ahead of yourself! 'Well within reach' is more than a bit of an overstatement.

Now, obviously we're not going to get to do any interstellar travel without some form of FTL travel. But other technologies, such as nuclear propulsion, ion drives, solar sails etc. aren't intended for interstellar travel anyway - at least, not much past Alpha Centauri, and even then only because it's cool. They're intended for getting to Mars and the rest of the Solar System quicker and more efficiently. And it's pretty obvious we need to figure out how to play around in our own backyard before we go jumping off into the unknown. We need experience in space which we clearly don't have right now.

I'm definitely an advocate for getting as much funding into FTL research as possible though. It's a bit hard to know where to start though. Do we want to open wormholes? So we'd need to manufacture a bunch of negative energy? Or maybe we want to bend spacetime with a warp drive. Do we need negative energy for that as well? Maybe something else? The fine-structure constant may not be constant after all. Do we try to alter the speed of light itself?

It's going to be very hard to get FTL travel up and running. Hopefully it will come as a breakthrough in physics, not too far in the future. It'll probably be more a slow accumulation of discoveries, however.

We already know how FTL travel (creating a warp bubble) works - THEORETICALLY. We we re still at the beginning, the same as we had been in 1935 when the first theories of nuclear fission were discussed - to now (2010), when ITER (first nuclear FUSION plant) in on the way. We know roughly how it would work. But to BUILD a warpdrive, we have to tackle very many obstacles. I think we'll be near it somewhen in the mid-later 22th century, given the current speed of technological advancement.

[THEONDYFBG]

I hope that thy will be able to create thi before I die

[Inny Binny]

We already know how FTL travel (creating a warp bubble) works - THEORETICALLY. We we re still at the beginning, the same as we had been in 1935 when the first theories of nuclear fission were discussed - to now (2010), when ITER (first nuclear FUSION plant) in on the way. We know roughly how it would work. But to BUILD a warpdrive, we have to tackle very many obstacles. I think we'll be near it somewhen in the mid-later 22th century, given the current speed of technological advancement.

We've got a general theoretical idea. Far from a complete theoretical foundation where we could even contemplate any sort of engineering plans.

I think it may be created sooner than that. But that's only guessing.

['upxare]

We've got a general theoretical idea. Far from a complete theoretical foundation where we could even contemplate any sort of engineering plans.

I think it may be created sooner than that. But that's only guessing.

Thats why I'd say, fusion energy (and fusion drives for the first interstellar probes) is our venture for this century, warp drive is the challange for the NEXT century.

[Inny Binny]

Well, I prefer something like VASIMR, but it's the same general idea - something that we already know how to build (although fusion isn't something we really know how to build in a spacecraft yet...but whatever).

I do think the timeframes will be shorter. A century is a hell of a long time. We'll probably all be swimming through a digital reality at that time...which would actually render space travel quite irrelevant, but more on that at another time...

['upxare]

Well, I prefer something like VASIMR, but it's the same general idea - something that we already know how to build (although fusion isn't something we really know how to build in a spacecraft yet...but whatever).

I do think the timeframes will be shorter. A century is a hell of a long time. We'll probably all be swimming through a digital reality at that time...which would actually render space travel quite irrelevant, but more on that at another time...

If you already got a fusion reactor, the one for the spaceship isnt far anymore.
Remember what Jake said once he woke up in his avatar link unit? "This is a dream, the reality is out there." Artificial reality can NEVER compensate the real (vast!) universe out there. THATS the reality. :)

[Spock]

Don't get ahead of yourself! 'Well within reach' is more than a bit of an overstatement.

I have been conversing with a certain quantum physicist.



Now, obviously we're not going to get to do any interstellar travel without some form of FTL travel. But other technologies, such as nuclear propulsion, ion drives, solar sails etc. aren't intended for interstellar travel anyway - at least, not much past Alpha Centauri, and even then only because it's cool. They're intended for getting to Mars and the rest of the Solar System quicker and more efficiently. And it's pretty obvious we need to figure out how to play around in our own backyard before we go jumping off into the unknown. We need experience in space which we clearly don't have right now.

We already know our 'backyard' well enough, just do a little research into our solar system and you'll soon see. Its rather taxing on my conscience that we sit here in this solar system talking about going to mars and all that. Because when we get there we will find more of the same. Hey I agree with mining the moon for helium-3 and titanium, but we need to venture beyond the veil for once.



I'm definitely an advocate for getting as much funding into FTL research as possible though. It's a bit hard to know where to start though. Do we want to open wormholes? So we'd need to manufacture a bunch of negative energy? Or maybe we want to bend spacetime with a warp drive. Do we need negative energy for that as well? Maybe something else? The fine-structure constant may not be constant after all. Do we try to alter the speed of light itself?.

Talk to this guy: NYSEF816 He works for CERN labratories as a quantum physicist.



It's going to be very hard to get FTL travel up and running. Hopefully it will come as a breakthrough in physics, not too far in the future. It'll probably be more a slow accumulation of discoveries, however.

It is going to be hard.

[Afkeu]

It is going to be hard.
But we can overcome this! Also, don't forget that we now have some things that where considered Sci-Fi only a decade or so ago. One example of this that I can think of, was the communicator in Star Trek. The one in the original series looks and acts like a cell phone. The ones in later seasons (the ones built into the Star Fleet badge on everyone's uniform, is also becoming a possibility. I read an article somewhere about circuitry and antennas stitched into clothing - that makes cell phones in your clothing possible (although perhaps impractical).

Also, here are two interesting articles I have found about FTL travel:
Is Warp Speed Possible? We Ask a String Theorist | Popular Science (http://www.popsci.com/entertainment-amp-gaming/article/2009-05/warp-speed-possiblewe-ask-string-theorist)
LHC Test Could Lead to Hyperdrive Space Propulsion (Well, In Theory) | Popular Science (http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-10/lhc-test-could-lead-hyperdrive-space-propulsion-well-theory)



precisely. the technology in Avatar, i.e. harnessing antimatter/matter annihilation to propel a ship forward, is a good stepping stone, but it should not be our goal. neither should be cryo sleep, as this is more of a way to deal with being unable to travel at warp speeds then a real breakthrough. our goal should be to harness this massive energy and direct it towards warping space time. THAT is good science.

Agreed! We should aim for FTL travel and not STL (Slower than Light) travel.

[Inny Binny]

I have been conversing with a certain quantum physicist.


Talk to this guy: NYSEF816 He works for CERN labratories as a quantum physicist.

Well, I know NYSEF816 is a post-graduate physicist. But I don't think he's saying that we know enough to the point that we are only an inch away from engineering something.

Is he? :confused:


We already know our 'backyard' well enough, just do a little research into our solar system and you'll soon see. Its rather taxing on my conscience that we sit here in this solar system talking about going to mars and all that. Because when we get there we will find more of the same. Hey I agree with mining the moon for helium-3 and titanium, but we need to venture beyond the veil for once.

We know our backyard OK. We don't have any (manned) experience in space though. That's what I'm talking about. Pretty much nothing useful whatsoever, except earth orbit. It's pretty obvious to me we need some practice before we go beyond our Solar System.

Actually (on a slight tangent), what I think should happen is NASA should do the research and then either fund (buy trips from) or just leave it entirely up to the companies who take people into space to do the engineering and travelling. I don't think this should be only restricted to ferrying astronauts to the ISS like SpaceX will be doing - it should continue like this when we want to go to the moon. I think that paying customers will get to the moon very quickly after professional astronauts do - in fact, they could get there before.

This would hopefully extend to FTL travel as well. Get NASA funding all the research for that, and if something big is discovered, leave it do the competing companies to try and use the discoveries as fast and as cheap as possible.

On something pretty unrelated, I'm sure you know we launched our first rocket not too long ago. A sub-orbital rocket, but it's a start. So maybe NZ will be the first to get to Mars, or implement FTL space travel! :d

(probably a bit hopeful)

One more thing, we should fund FTL research and engineer Mars/Saturn/whatever spacecraft at the same time. Bit of a no-brainer really. When the pieces are all together for FTL travel, just switch the engineering focus to FTL stuff. Hell, it's probably not hard to even build two things at once! By the time it's ready, we should have made it to Mars and other places anyway.

Of course, there's not enough funding for FTL travel. So get to it NASA!

[Spock]

Well, I know NYSEF816 is a post-graduate physicist. But I don't think he's saying that we know enough to the point that we are only an inch away from engineering something.

Is he? :confused:


Ask him.

[NYSEF816]

if M theory can be shown as a viable theory from which we can create hypotheses for experiments, then in the realm of academia warp drive is well within reach. If, for example, we discover the Higgs Boson, then it is only a matter of extrapolating M theory to cover human-made quantum fluctuations within space time.

however, as Inny Binny has correctly pointed out, the engineering part will be the true test for humanity. Indeed, H.G. Wells envisioned rocketry almost 80 years before Von Braun made the first V2. As I had stated before, while I was working for NASA certain propulsion techniques are, when the physics are deemed 'acceptable' or 'solid', transferred from theoretical physics to theoretical engineering. only when the 'theoretical engineering' is deemed possible and economically feasible (given NASA's pathetic 8 billion/year budget), it goes to engineering (i.e., the lowest bidder.... i.e., Boeing or Lockhead Martin).

As stated before, using Star Trek as a reference point, the physical entity which makes warp drive possible are the "Warp Coils". I can lecture engineers for 800 hours straight on the relationship between up Tau particles and high-energy brane warping, but unless they can take these ideas and transform them into a physical entity, we are stuck at theoretics.

This is why I may not have seemed to be an optimist before speaking of warp drive within my life time (i said its about 150 years away): it is because of the engineering aspect. I AM NOT SAYING engineers are stupid; quite the contrary. However, as in any discipline, theory postulation is much different then application. if the transposition from theory to application were so easy, Alan Greenspan would be a god among men and the world economy would not be depleted :)

But I am very much enjoying this conversation, lets keep it going.

[NYSEF816]

Actually (on a slight tangent), what I think should happen is NASA should do the research and then either fund (buy trips from) or just leave it entirely up to the companies who take people into space to do the engineering and travelling. I don't think this should be only restricted to ferrying astronauts to the ISS like SpaceX will be doing - it should continue like this when we want to go to the moon. I think that paying customers will get to the moon very quickly after professional astronauts do - in fact, they could get there before.

This would hopefully extend to FTL travel as well. Get NASA funding all the research for that, and if something big is discovered, leave it do the competing companies to try and use the discoveries as fast and as cheap as possible.

Luckily, this is precisely what NASA is doing. And it is the right thing to do. As much as many people hate corporations.... they do things a helluva lot cheaper then the government.... especially in the US. if ferrying astronauts to and from LEO is taken away from NASA, they can concentrate on what they are actually very good at: deep space exploration.

As far as FTL travel and private companies are concerned..... physicists I know working on warp drives and things like that (most notably Michio Kaku) all have a kind of 'insider' deal. If FTL travel is ever discovered, no papers of it will be published until humanity sets guidelines for inter-stellar travel.... this is extremely forward-looking and would most likely keep a situation like AVATAR from happening.

So after humans are ready to travel to the stars, give the companies the information. Until humans are ready, hide the data and wait until they are :)

EDIT: and congratulations to NZ on their first rocket!

[Spock]

EDIT: and congratulations to NZ on their first rocket!

We are so backward are we not.

[NYSEF816]

We are so backward are we not.

you guys are the home of the ALL BLACKS, the Flight of the Conchords, body paint airline ads and rhys darby (which i consider seperate the FOTC).

and therefore everything is forgiven.

[Spock]

you guys are the home of the ALL BLACKS, the Flight of the Conchords, body paint airline ads and rhys darby (which i consider seperate the FOTC).

and therefore everything is forgiven.

Ok, thanks.

Also, remember New Zealand is where WETA Digital is, thats the most important thing. And we all know what movie WETA Digital did the CGI for.

[Neonium]

Just a though but if M theory proves viable and the Kepler project finds a planet capable of supporting life withing range of this type of transport wouldn't funding become irrelevant? Personally I think this would either lead to an international project rushing to be the first to get there or more likely, at least in my mind, a divided rush by leading nations to be the first to make contact; much like the space race between USSR and the USA.

What do you guys think about this?

[Spock]

Just a though but if M theory proves viable and the Kepler project finds a planet capable of supporting life withing range of this type of transport wouldn't funding become irrelevant? Personally I think this would either lead to an international project rushing to be the first to get there or more likely, at least in my mind, a divided rush by leading nations to be the first to make contact; much like the space race between USSR and the USA.


Mmmh. Its a likely hypotheses.

[NYSEF816]

hmm unfortunately it would be the latter of your 2 hypothesis. perhaps the ESA & NASA vs. Russia vs. China

but it would be a great moment for science regardless.

[Spock]

hmm unfortunately it would be the latter of your 2 hypothesis. perhaps the ESA & NASA vs. Russia vs. China

but it would be a great moment for science regardless.

Yes, the right action for the wrong reasons perhaps, think about what the world governments would really want out of the situation, it would be a scientific gold rush.

[Inny Binny]

This is why I may not have seemed to be an optimist before speaking of warp drive within my life time (i said its about 150 years away): it is because of the engineering aspect. I AM NOT SAYING engineers are stupid; quite the contrary. However, as in any discipline, theory postulation is much different then application. if the transposition from theory to application were so easy, Alan Greenspan would be a god among men and the world economy would not be depleted

I think putting a timeline on something like FTL travel is ridiculously difficult, because there's every chance the field will be depending on a single discovery or breakthrough, and it is pretty much impossible to predict these.


Luckily, this is precisely what NASA is doing. And it is the right thing to do. As much as many people hate corporations.... they do things a helluva lot cheaper then the government.... especially in the US. if ferrying astronauts to and from LEO is taken away from NASA, they can concentrate on what they are actually very good at: deep space exploration.

This is why I like the new space budget so much. Sure, it's going to mean that it'll take a little longer to get man back on the moon (well, probably not, Ares was really messed up), but this plan is much more future proof than previous ones.

NASA should stick to the real exploration, companies can do the colonization.


As far as FTL travel and private companies are concerned..... physicists I know working on warp drives and things like that (most notably Michio Kaku) all have a kind of 'insider' deal. If FTL travel is ever discovered, no papers of it will be published until humanity sets guidelines for inter-stellar travel.... this is extremely forward-looking and would most likely keep a situation like AVATAR from happening.

So after humans are ready to travel to the stars, give the companies the information. Until humans are ready, hide the data and wait until they are :)

This is interesting, and probably a good thing. OK, it would have to be annoying to wait. I want the info as soon as it comes available! But for the future's sake once again, it's probably a good thing.

Is Michio Kaku researching warp drives seriously? I've never really known what he actually does, apart from being a science popularist and helping start up string field theory.


EDIT: and congratulations to NZ on their first rocket!

Took us a bit. But at least we got there at some point.


We are so backward are we not.

Well, it appears we're more forward than Australia with this one, so in the grand scheme of things...that's all that matters.


you guys are the home of the ALL BLACKS, the Flight of the Conchords, body paint airline ads and rhys darby (which i consider seperate the FOTC).

and therefore everything is forgiven.

Also the home of some of the most awesome (and highest grossing!) movies in existence. I have to count Avatar as a New Zealand movie, no matter if there were some finicky and unimportant details other countries took care of...and there's LOTR of course.


Just a though but if M theory proves viable and the Kepler project finds a planet capable of supporting life withing range of this type of transport wouldn't funding become irrelevant? Personally I think this would either lead to an international project rushing to be the first to get there or more likely, at least in my mind, a divided rush by leading nations to be the first to make contact; much like the space race between USSR and the USA.

What do you guys think about this?

Kepler isn't enough. Kepler is finding the size and distance of a planet, and so is good enough to see if a planet has a chance at being earth-like, but it doesn't do much in the way of spectral analysis, and so we won't know if it actually is earth-like. The Kepler mission is essentially a survey, trying to find out how common earth-like (and other) planets are. I cannot wait until it finds its first potentially earth-like planet, and I think the public eye will focus a little more toward space when that happens, which really needs to happen as the public seemingly doesn't care too much about it at the moment. But we're going to have to wait for something like TPF before we can set any good targets for an international cooperation/competition to get anywhere.

I also think we'd need a little more than validate M-theory, which is a huge task in itself.

But that kind of thing will probably eventually happen. Though I would still rather private competition as opposed to government competition.

[Afkeu]

As far as FTL travel and private companies are concerned..... physicists I know working on warp drives and things like that (most notably Michio Kaku) all have a kind of 'insider' deal. If FTL travel is ever discovered, no papers of it will be published until humanity sets guidelines for inter-stellar travel.... this is extremely forward-looking and would most likely keep a situation like AVATAR from happening.

So after humans are ready to travel to the stars, give the companies the information. Until humans are ready, hide the data and wait until they are :)

Wouldn't it make more sense to draw up some guidlines about Inter-stellar Travel BEFORE we actually gain such capability? What if a Pysicist that is not a part of this "insider deal" discovers a way to travel FTL? I think some basic guidlines should be drawn up now based on asumptions of what might be possible/what might be out there. That way we only have to amend the guidelines to fit what is created/discovered. Just my 2¢...



Is Michio Kaku researching warp drives seriously? I've never really known what he actually does, apart from being a science popularist and helping start up string field theory.

That surprises me as well! I had no idea what he was actually doing research on. This also makes we wonder though; What is Miguel Alcubierre researching? He is the one that came up with a theoretically viable theory for warp drives so I would be interested to know what he is working on right now.



Kepler isn't enough. Kepler is finding the size and distance of a planet, and so is good enough to see if a planet has a chance at being earth-like, but it doesn't do much in the way of spectral analysis, and so we won't know if it actually is earth-like. The Kepler mission is essentially a survey, trying to find out how common earth-like (and other) planets are. I cannot wait until it finds its first potentially earth-like planet, and I think the public eye will focus a little more toward space when that happens, which really needs to happen as the public seemingly doesn't care too much about it at the moment. But we're going to have to wait for something like TPF before we can set any good targets for an international cooperation/competition to get anywhere.

Apparently spectral analysis will be able to be done at least partially by the JWST (James Webb Space Telescope):
JWST Will Provide Capability to Search for Biomarkers on Earth-like Worlds | Universe Today (http://www.universetoday.com/2009/03/19/jwst-will-provide-capability-to-search-for-biomarkers-on-earth-like-worlds/)


BTW: NYSEF816, if you are at you new job at CERN, doesn't that mean your location is no longer New York? :nwink:

['upxare]

hmm unfortunately it would be the latter of your 2 hypothesis. perhaps the ESA & NASA vs. Russia vs. China

but it would be a great moment for science regardless.

No government can manage such a venture on its own. But lets put the things into a string of happenings, likely possible from now.

Lets assume in some years from now, possibly still by Kepler, we detect a planet even more suitable to sustain life than Gliese 581 C. And yes, in the best case around Alpha Centauri A or B. (in our cosmic backyard)

Ten years later, the James Webb Telescope (or a similar one) will be able to run first athmospheric analyses and detect nitrogen, oxygen and methan in its athmosphere.
This will ultimatively lead to the fact that this planet is inhabited by some kind of lifeform at least. And it may be habitable by humans.

This would pave the way for an international project, probably the biggest ever done by humans, to spur development of a fast sublight ship, partly funded by governments, partly funded by corporations. Give it another 20 years, and we may have a go for lift off. But thats a very optimistic plan. However, it could work like this.

[Afkeu]

No government can manage such a venture on its own. But lets put the things into a string of happenings, likely possible from now.

Lets assume in some years from now, possibly still by Kepler, we detect a planet even more suitable to sustain life than Gliese 581 C. And yes, in the best case around Alpha Centauri A or B. (in our cosmic backyard)

Ten years later, the James Webb Telescope (or a similar one) will be able to run first athmospheric analyses and detect nitrogen, oxygen and methan in its athmosphere.
This will ultimatively lead to the fact that this planet is inhabited by some kind of lifeform at least. And it may be habitable by humans.

This would pave the way for an international project, probably the biggest ever done by humans, to spur development of a fast sublight ship, partly funded by governments, partly funded by corporations. Give it another 20 years, and we may have a go for lift off. But thats a very optimistic plan. However, it could work like this.

Here is the problem with that idea: Humans don't inherently like to cooperate with each other. In fact we would rather compete with each other which is why I will agree with NYSEF816 here, it is more likely that we will have a race between many different organizations. I agree that if we all worked together then we would get where we want to go much sooner, but the likelihood of that actually happening is really really low... The only reason the LHC got off the ground is because CERN is an international institution (although it only has european member states). As far as I know (and maybe thats not very far), CERN is the biggest international institution of it's kind in the world; and CERN doesn't exactly include the whole world, mostly just europe.

[NYSEF816]

Michio Kaku isn't actively researching anything he is much more a 'popularizer' of science. However, he is an outside consultant for many outfits such as CERN.

the problem with setting guidelines now is that: outside of the physics community there is absolutely no incentive. especially with all the problems with the economy. walking up to capital hill and demanding inter-stellar travel be regulated would produce some hysterical tabloid articles, that is about it. if the technology were being held hostage, there would obviously be a much higher incentive to create laws.

and no country can build something by themselves, that is correct..... but that doesn't mean humanity won't try. as stated before, we loathe working together, especially when it comes to advanced technology.

EDIT: I mentioned Kaku because he is one of the biggest proponents of the idea of withholding information in that event
EDIT2: Afkeu - thank you for the reminder about my location - i forgot to change it!

[Prometheus]

The problem isn't that we're not co-operative, the problem is the governments, the military-industrial complex and their attitudes. That's why we're so uncooperative. Within our own little groups, we're fine, but even there we still had to learn to co-operate over the course of history. The problem is that governments and such have used the social paradigms of present day society and the old paradigms from history to be as anti-social as they possibly can without causing incessant wars. It's bad enough as it is. Now we have large economic systems thrown into the mix and that makes things even harder to get past. It all revolves around power...who can beat their chest the loudest and look tough. It's stupid and totally unnecessary. They're promoting discord and suspicion in order to further their own little fiefdoms and spheres of influence. It's like a bunch of teenagers and what they need is a good smack in the head to make them wake up to themselves.

['upxare]

Here is the problem with that idea: Humans don't inherently like to cooperate with each other. In fact we would rather compete with each other which is why I will agree with NYSEF816 here, it is more likely that we will have a race between many different organizations. I agree that if we all worked together then we would get where we want to go much sooner, but the likelihood of that actually happening is really really low... The only reason the LHC got off the ground is because CERN is an international institution (although it only has european member states). As far as I know (and maybe thats not very far), CERN is the biggest international institution of it's kind in the world; and CERN doesn't exactly include the whole world, mostly just europe.

Believe me, such a giant project can't be done by any individual government or company. Not within our principles of economy.
Take a look at the ISS... its gonna be something like that. We already have this kind of collaboration and for exploring a new world, we ll have it again.

[NYSEF816]

The problem isn't that we're not co-operative, the problem is the governments, the military-industrial complex and their attitudes. That's why we're so uncooperative. Within our own little groups, we're fine, but even there we still had to learn to co-operate over the course of history. The problem is that governments and such have used the social paradigms of present day society and the old paradigms from history to be as anti-social as they possibly can without causing incessant wars. It's bad enough as it is. Now we have large economic systems thrown into the mix and that makes things even harder to get past. It all revolves around power...who can beat their chest the loudest and look tough. It's stupid and totally unnecessary. They're promoting discord and suspicion in order to further their own little fiefdoms and spheres of influence. It's like a bunch of teenagers and what they need is a good smack in the head to make them wake up to themselves.

yea that is a very good distinction. imagine what humanity would be like if we put military money into science.

i realize this is a ridiculous communist-type notion, but its nice to think about.

[Prometheus]

yea that is a very good distinction. imagine what humanity would be like if we put military money into science.

i realize this is a ridiculous communist-type notion, but its nice to think about.

There's nothing ridiculous about that notion at all. What it needs is for someone mature enough to take action and make the first move. Once you make an example, you'll find that peer pressure will force the others into doing the same....like I said, it's much like a bunch of teenagers.

Like with climate change...if the US decided it was actually going to do something really concrete about it, most of the rest of the world would fall into suit so fast you wouldn't even see them actually do it. There'd be a few niggling arguments, but on the whole things would move very quickly. But, it's not going to happen because the big oil, banking and energy companies (might as well say megacorporations of all types) run the place and it's not in their interests to have a clean, functioning, stable world.

[Afkeu]

There's nothing ridiculous about that notion at all. What it needs is for someone mature enough to take action and make the first move. Once you make an example, you'll find that peer pressure will force the others into doing the same....like I said, it's much like a bunch of teenagers.

Like with climate change...if the US decided it was actually going to do something really concrete about it, most of the rest of the world would fall into suit so fast you wouldn't even see them actually do it. There'd be a few niggling arguments, but on the whole things would move very quickly. But, it's not going to happen because the big oil, banking and energy companies (might as well say megacorporations of all types) run the place and it's not in their interests to have a clean, functioning, stable world.

I agree, This is like Critical Mass (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_mass_(sociodynamics)) (similar to The Bandwagon Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwagon_effect)). Once a few big countries begin to really and truly "go green" everyone else will follow suit. The problem is that this isn't about to happen... The Prime Minister can, I've heard, be quoted as saying something like "I will not do anything to fight climate change that will hurt the economy" - those are almost certainly not the words he said but the same idea. The economy is what is stopping everything! All the politicians are like "The economy is more important than anything else."
The same thing will apply to any sort of international collaboration on FTL travel...

['ew]

The U.S would have to convice the rest of the world that it will be werth the cost. America would have to show the world all the money in the world won't matter if we are all dead.

[Afkeu]

The U.S would have to convice the rest of the world that it will be werth the cost. America would have to show the world all the money in the world won't matter if we are all dead.

that shouldn't be too hard to convince people about. The problem is this:
1. People don't care because they know/think they know that they will be dead long before this happens so i doesn't concern them.
2. People don't believe in climate change. Yes there are people out there who think global warming is a load of <insert vulgar/insulting word here>.
3. People do care about the environment, believe in global warming, but still care even more about the economy.
4. etc...

But lets keep this thread on topic shall we. :nwink:

What we can all glean from this little talk on climate change is that international collaboration on FTL travel technologies will NOT happen on a large scale if it doesn't "agree" with the economy and the many corporations that it is comprised of.

['ew]

The world needs to see that the planet is going down unless we do something, but apparently the earth of Avatar didn't do anything even after everything died. Maby that is our fate. People don't give a sh@# as long as thay get there instant gradification and that really pisses me off.

[Afkeu]

The world needs to see that the planet is going down unless we do something, but apparently the earth of Avatar didn't do anything even after everything died. Maby that is our fate. People don't give a sh@# as long as thay get there instant gradification and that really pisses me off.

pretty much...

[Neonium]

No government can manage such a venture on its own. But lets put the things into a string of happenings, likely possible from now.

NASA's current budget isn't even a rounding error in the USA annual budget and it could easily finance such an endeavor in the event that they had the publics support.


This would pave the way for an international project, probably the biggest ever done by humans, to spur development of a fast sublight ship, partly funded by governments, partly funded by corporations. Give it another 20 years, and we may have a go for lift off. But thats a very optimistic plan. However, it could work like this.

Firstly the comment was made assuming that M theory worked out and methods of traveling faster then light proved to be feasible.

Secondly there is no way that the international community could come to any sort of agreement on how to approach extraterrestrial life, differences in ideology and practices would make such a cooperative effort impossible.

Also,


i realize this is a ridiculous communist-type notion, but its nice to think about.

Thats in no way a communist-type notion, it's just a in the way we spend the money, not who has the rights to it. It's also not at all ridiculous to hope for this, it's only be ridiculous to think that this may become possible in the foreseeable future.

['ew]

Forgive the video game reference, but in Halo all space travel was done and controlled by the military, every ship in the fleet was a war ship that would transport civilions as well as soldiers.

[Afkeu]

NASA's current budget isn't even a rounding error in the USA annual budget and it could easily finance such an endeavor in the event that they had the publics support.
Haha! A rounding error! I like that analogy.


Secondly there is no way that the international community could come to any sort of agreement on how to approach extraterrestrial life, differences in ideology and practices would make such a cooperative effort impossible.

That's not true, it would not be impossible, just extremely hard. Even within countries people rarely, if ever, all agree on new laws and such. There have been international treaties about space in the past though...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law


Forgive the video game reference, but in Halo all space travel was done and controlled by the military, every ship in the fleet was a war ship that would transport civilions as well as soldiers.

hopefully our world does not come to this...
Anyways if we cannot collaborate internationally in a peaceful manner, then what makes you think we could do so in a military sense? In oder for use to unite militarily we would have to have a common enemy to fight against. In Halo they had the covenant for this.

[Inny Binny]

I'm really surprised that everyone is just in some unspoken agreement that competition is inherently a bad thing. In fact, when it is not founded in ill-feeling, it is probably the best way to get things done as efficiently as possible. The way the moon landing was handled was not particularly good, fuelled by the Cold War and all, but things like the X Prizes (http://www.xprize.org/) (which are completely different to be fair) are wonderful.

A nationalistic 'competition' where the first to develop FTL travel is the winner would be a great thing. Again, people here seem to be assuming that a collaborative effort would be quicker. However, collaboration removes the incentive to be first, as there is no-one that is trying to steal your thunder. Competition means that you have to keep to schedule, otherwise you'll fall behind other competitors. As long as the competition can be in good spirit, then it should be fine.

And of course the project could be funded by a single country. All you need is money, and pretty much anything is possible. If there was really enough need to get it done, the US would find plenty of room for space. NASA took up over 5% of the budget during the peak of the moon landing furor...now it gets a tenth of that.

Hell, I think there could even be a private competition to demonstrate the technology, and then the government could take over when it comes to building a workable craft that could take people to other places.

Anyway, I think a second space race would be perfectly fine.

I think it'd be pretty awesome if India or someone got to the moon next.

[Prometheus]

As long as the competition was fair and in the spirit of being good for everyone, then it's alright. But when it's being done for militaristic and/or jingoistic, bombastic nationalistic reasons (or pure commercial gain), then it's not so good. Isn't it about time we put such trivially nonsensical things behind us.

I'm afraid, though, that most of the space efforts being done now are for just those tawdry reasons and have little to do with any benefit to mankind as a whole.

[Spock]

I'm really surprised that everyone is just in some unspoken agreement that competition is inherently a bad thing. In fact, when it is not founded in ill-feeling, it is probably the best way to get things done as efficiently as possible. The way the moon landing was handled was not particularly good, fuelled by the Cold War and all, but things like the X Prizes (http://www.xprize.org/) (which are completely different to be fair) are wonderful.

Yes, but competition is a pure biology, the same goes for humans, our dreams and imaginations will only take us so far, what really gets us going is the need to better ourselves over another.



A nationalistic 'competition' where the first to develop FTL travel is the winner would be a great thing. Again, people here seem to be assuming that a collaborative effort would be quicker. However, collaboration removes the incentive to be first, as there is no-one that is trying to steal your thunder. Competition means that you have to keep to schedule, otherwise you'll fall behind other competitors. As long as the competition can be in good spirit, then it should be fine.

Yes, thats right.



And of course the project could be funded by a single country. All you need is money, and pretty much anything is possible. If there was really enough need to get it done, the US would find plenty of room for space. NASA took up over 5% of the budget during the peak of the moon landing furor...now it gets a tenth of that.

Yeah, it was at about 60 billion dollars during the height of the cold war.



Hell, I think there could even be a private competition to demonstrate the technology, and then the government could take over when it comes to building a workable craft that could take people to other places.

Virgin Galactic?



Anyway, I think a second space race would be perfectly fine.

So do I, just imagine the advances in technology.



I think it'd be pretty awesome if India or someone got to the moon next.

Meh.

[Afkeu]

As long as the competition was fair and in the spirit of being good for everyone, then it's alright. But when it's being done for militaristic and/or jingoistic, bombastic nationalistic reasons (or pure commercial gain), then it's not so good. Isn't it about time we put such trivially nonsensical things behind us.

I'm afraid, though, that most of the space efforts being done now are for just those tawdry reasons and have little to do with any benefit to mankind as a whole.

I agree, if the competition had fairness and the outcome would benefit everyone regarless of who "won" then it would be great. However, the way the world is today thats not likely to happen.
If there could somehow be set up a MASSIVE X Prize for the first country to create a FTL traveling space craft that can carry humans, then that would be great! It could be a global competition (even though it would mainly be between NASA (USA+Canada) - USA might ditch Canada I don't know, ESA (EU), and Russia. (Plus possibly China).The prize could be the right to have veto power in the creation of interstellar laws or some thing (I'm just looking for something big that everyone would want a lot that isn't money, this might be a bad choice though). A second space race would certainly be a great thing if it was, as stated in the spirit of benefiting all of mankind, not just the winner.

P.S. - did I emphasize "Massive" too much? :ntongue:

[Spock]

P.S. - did I emphasize "Massive" too much? :ntongue:

No, if anything its an understatement. Should be something like this:

MASSIVE

[Afkeu]

No, if anything its an understatement. Should be something like this:

MASSIVE

lol I had it a size larger, but I made it smaller because I thought it stood out too much over the other text which was just as important.

[Spock]

lol I had it a size larger, but I made it smaller because I thought it stood out too much over the other text which was just as important.

Meh, anyone that was following the discussion would have paid attention to the text on either side of the statement.

[PnkMaister]

that is one way to use warp drives, there is another. A man, currently trying to research a particle that apparently moves faster then the speed of light (this is where i stress "trying" because i don't like where its going) and it does this by "hiding" itself from the universe... Once he figures this out he said he will put it on space craft...

the other way is using light to create a vortex (wormhole) by using light bouncing around mirrors to create a gravity well. (this one also only works in theory.)
What something like so called Tachyons? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon)

[Afkeu]

What something like so called Tachyons? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon)

I think he does mean Tachyons

Those are what NYSEF816 was(is?) working on. He didn't seem to expect it to go anywhere any time soon though...

[Spock]

I think he does mean Tachyons

Those are what NYSEF816 was(is?) working on. He didn't seem to expect it to go anywhere any time soon though...

Was. They shut down the Tachyon operation remember.

[Afkeu]

Was. They shut down the Tachyon operation remember.

Yeah but what is he working on at CERN? He said he was doing his PhD thesis on Tachyons. If he isn't finished then he might still be working on them.

[Spock]

Yeah but what is he working on at CERN? He said he was doing his PhD thesis on Tachyons. If he isn't finished then he might still be working on them.

Perhaps, I think you should ask him if you want to know. But I remember him telling me that he definitely wasn't doing tachyons anymore. However this isn't to say that he isn't still doing his theses on them.

[Afkeu]

Perhaps, I think you should ask him if you want to know. But I remember him telling me that he definitely wasn't doing tachyons anymore. However this isn't to say that he isn't still doing his theses on them.

Maybe he will tell us when he has time. :nsmile:

[Spock]

Maybe he will tell us when he has time. :nsmile:

Maybe the answer already lies before us, go and read through my visitor messages, you might have to go back a page or two, but he explained a few things to me.

[Afkeu]

You are right:

For now I have been assigned to a team who is studying/predicting the number of Neutrino particles in a given collision at a given energy using Bose-Einstein Statistics. so this is much more tangible and within my field of expertise then NASA.

[Spock]

You are right:

:victory:

[NYSEF816]

hey guys,

sorry i haven't been on this thread lately, haven't been on this site as much since moving. just to clarify: I have enough information on tachyons to write a thesis, but i was offered this job at CERN for a 3-month stint and decided to take it. So this is kind of a joyful detour before i go back to MIT and start writing my thesis, which should take another 5 to 6 months.

I have considered changing my thesis (because tachyons are.. well.... useless at this point), but i would have to be re-admitted and appointed a new advisor, so i will still write my thesis on tachyons and do more interesting stuff later on.

but for everyone interested in tachyon propulsion, there is a wealth of information earlier in the thread!

EDIT: I read a few pages back about rotating a superconductor to create a wormhole? does anyone have any ideas or hypothesis about this?

[Tsyal Makto]

Not really sure about that wormhole idea. I could see using a superconductor to direct and concentrate electrons to the point of collapsing in on themselves to create a black hole. The problem then is stabilizing it, which we require negative energy, which brings me to my next question...

How do we harness negative energy? It's what dark energy is hypothesized by many to be, how can we manipulate the stuff?

Michio Kaku mentioned something about virtual particles and negative energy, though I'm not sure how to put 2 & 2 together, since the particles have positive energy for the split second they exist. :nconfused:

[Afkeu]

Not really sure about that wormhole idea. I could see using a superconductor to direct and concentrate electrons to the point of collapsing in on themselves to create a black hole. The problem then is stabilizing it, which we require negative energy, which brings me to my next question...

How do we harness negative energy? It's what dark energy is hypothesized by many to be, how can we manipulate the stuff?

Good question! Alas I have no ideas...:nsad:

[Mobius]

http://www.avatar-forums.com/images/imported/2010/03/61.jpg

This is my avatar on another forum.

Magnetoplasma ftw ^^

[Afkeu]

http://www.avatar-forums.com/images/imported/2010/03/61.jpg

This is my avatar on another forum.

Magnetoplasma ftw ^^

Magnetoplasma? I know that plasma is effected by magnetic fields... but explain what you mean please. How does this lead to space propulsion? Unless you are talking about some form of ion engine style system, in which case that is not nearly powerful enough to get us much farther than mars within any decent amount of time.

[Inny Binny]

Negative energy? Don't really know how we could harness any useful quantities of that, not sure if the Casimir effect could be scaled up and then be useful in any way.

[Afkeu]

Negative energy? Don't really know how we could harness any useful quantities of that, not sure if the Casimir effect could be scaled up and then be useful in any way.

Doesn't the Casimir effect only happen on very small scales though?

[Wanderlust]

What Mobius is reffering to is the Magnetoplasma Rocket. VASIMR Or the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket.

Very promising technology that could get a ship to Mars in 39 days.


Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_Specific_Impulse_Magnetoplasma_Rocket)


http://www.avatar-forums.com/images/imported/2010/03/222.jpg

http://www.avatar-forums.com/images/imported/2010/03/12.png


Currently under development by Ad Astra Rocket Company in coorperation with NASA. The lead scientist flew on the shuttle 7 times.

http://www.adastrarocket.com/aarc/

YouTube - VASIMR at Full Power

YouTube - Record Power Level For The VASIMR VX-200i, HD

http://www.avatar-forums.com/images/imported/2010/03/223.jpg

A test article is going to go up to the ISS in 2012-13.

[Afkeu]

So I was half right. It is essentially a form of ion engine except with a twist. Ion engines are highly promising for travel within our solar system, however they are not of much use for larger distances. even getting to pluto with one would take a long time.

[Feyd]

In my fictional universe they travel from place to place using "unfolder ships". Basically the way this is works is the ship unfolds space in front of it. This effectively "removes" all obstacles from directly in front of the ship. What is actually happening is the ship is passing through a dimension (in which nothing, not even space, exists) smaller than a molecule.

To the outsider observer nothing appears to happen except the ship shrinks to oblivion. And then reappears elsewhere growing back to full size.

Now in the absence of even space itself, theoretically (at least I think, maybe) infinite velocities can be reached. However that poses an engineering problem because how do you create an engine that travels at infinite speeds? Hehe. Using Durium (a liquid psuedo-crystal) powered engines, the vessels in my Universe effectively travel faster than light. Effectively because the only way to measure their speed is to time departure and arrival.

[NYSEF816]

In my fictional universe they travel from place to place using "unfolder ships". Basically the way this is works is the ship unfolds space in front of it. This effectively "removes" all obstacles from directly in front of the ship. What is actually happening is the ship is passing through a dimension (in which nothing, not even space, exists) smaller than a molecule.

To the outsider observer nothing appears to happen except the ship shrinks to oblivion. And then reappears elsewhere growing back to full size.

Now in the absence of even space itself, theoretically (at least I think, maybe) infinite velocities can be reached. However that poses an engineering problem because how do you create an engine that travels at infinite speeds? Hehe. Using Durium (a liquid psuedo-crystal) powered engines, the vessels in my Universe effectively travel faster than light. Effectively because the only way to measure their speed is to time departure and arrival.

do you mean something like slipspace technology, like in the halo universe? i.e., traveling in the 'space between space'?

and thats very creative. its that kind of outside-the-box thinking that proves to have the largest scientific breakthroughs in the history of mankind.

[Feyd]

do you mean something like slipspace technology, like in the halo universe? i.e., traveling in the 'space between space'?

and thats very creative. its that kind of outside-the-box thinking that proves to have the largest scientific breakthroughs in the history of mankind.

Damn are you saying someone already thought of my idea?

Now I gotta come up with something else. F*ck.

Oh on a positive note.

Back in the early 90's it was concluded that with current technology it would take 180,000 years (give or take) to travel to the nearest star.

Now with updated information and technologies available to us, using an ion engine (slow accelerated by vast velocity potential) and/or nuclear pulse propulsion (blowing up nukes behind the craft) and using the sun and large gas planets in our system as "gravitational slingshots", we could reach the nearest star in as little as 100 years.

HMMMMMM what about an ship with the engine in front, a ship that "grabs" onto the fabric of space and pulls itself forward? Every time you "grabbed" you would gain faster speed since there's no resistance in space (other than relativity).

Which is where I got the idea for my nospace or "unfolder" ships... there's no relativity in the absence of space and time.

[NYSEF816]

do not be upet! the idea that you independently came to the same conclusion as some leading theoretical physicists is not such a bad thing! the only difference is, as we can currently postulate, slipspace travel would be FTL but it would not be instantaneous and would most likely be measured in 'light years/day'.

the grabbing onto spacetime is an interesting idea, but there would either have to be an engine on the back as well for deceleration purposes. either that or the ship could turn around 1/2 way through the trip (assuming constant acceleration/deceleration). But this technology would be bound to the laws of relativity.

[Afkeu]

Those are all great ideas! Personally I still like the warp drive idea the best because it seem the most plausible.


Btw, I just found out I have been accepted to the University of Waterloo for their physics program!

[NYSEF816]

Those are all great ideas! Personally I still like the warp drive idea the best because it seem the most plausible.


Btw, I just found out I have been accepted to the university of Waterloo for thier physics program!

congratulations!!!! well done! keep the grades up, dont get discouraged, and one day we shall write the journal article which explains how warp drive is possible :)

[Afkeu]

congratulations!!!! well done! keep the grades up, dont get discouraged, and one day we shall write the journal article which explains how warp drive is possible :)

We will do even better! We will build one!

[NYSEF816]

We will do even better! We will build one!

thats it! and when we do build one we will bring spock along. because every spaceship needs a spock. and an exobiologist.

[Tsyal Makto]

Interesting discussion going. I've been doodling over a positronium engine and I'll post it later if I have the chance.

[Spock]

Btw, I just found out I have been accepted to the University of Waterloo for their physics program!

I would formally like to convey my congratulations to you. You must be very pleased. I am sure you will achieve much satisfaction from the road now laid before you.


thats it! and when we do build one we will bring spock along. because every spaceship needs a spock. and an exobiologist.

Thankyou.

[Afkeu]

So this thread has been a little dead lately... It would be to0 bad if it where to become un-stickied due to inactivity!

So here is a discussion point:
I was reading this thread: http://www.avatar-forums.com/science-forum/9250-origin-gravity-found.html and as mentioned there, if Erik Verlinde's theory turns out to be true, even in part, then it could have huge implications with regard to space travel! It could provide a way to build a Warp Drive like Miguel Alcubierre envisioned without requiring vast, vast amounts of energy as our current theories require. The dynamics that dictates the "data changes" could turn out to be quite simple and easy to manipulate, but on the other hand they could also be extremely complex... further hampering our search for FTL travel.
Thoughts?

[Spock]

So this thread has been a little dead lately... It would be to0 bad if it where to become un-stickied due to inactivity!

So here is a discussion point:
I was reading this thread: http://www.avatar-forums.com/science-forum/9250-origin-gravity-found.html and as mentioned there, if Erik Verlinde's theory turns out to be true, even in part, then it could have huge implications with regard to space travel! It could provide a way to build a Warp Drive like Miguel Alcubierre envisioned without requiring vast, vast amounts of energy as our current theories require. The dynamics that dictates the "data changes" could turn out to be quite simple and easy to manipulate, but on the other hand they could also be extremely complex... further hampering our search for FTL travel.
Thoughts?

That wouldn't be good. Anyway this theory sounds intreaguing, thats all I can say, NYSEF816 needs to pick that up. As a studying biologist I would sound like an idiot trying to debate the origin of gravity. I will take a line out of "NYSEF816"'s book: I would pwn myself. (Not exactly but close enough)

[NYSEF816]

hello people! i agree, lets not have this thread become unstuck. Tonight, I am off to bed. But tomorrow morning I am going to digest the article mentioned above, Afkeu's theory, and we will have a discussion. I will come back and edit this post.

Alright peoples. I read Mongo's posts on the other thread, and even though it is enough to answer your question, I read the original paper more out of personal interest. I would say this theory isn't yet at a stage where i would call it promising, but it is certainly worthy of discussion. And it is precisely this type of 'out of the box' thinking that really allows for scientific breakthrough.

Although Mongo and the other author did a fine job summing up the paper in 3 posts, we should not think of the universe as a holograph as stated; Verlinde only used this as a way to relate his theory for certain examples in his paper.

The first person to seriously derive the importance, nay the existence, of bits of information was Leonard Susskind in his now infamous "Black Hole" war with Stephen Hawking, where Hawking said matter going into a black hole 'disappeared', where Susskind retaliated that this matter was smeared along the event horizon as bits of information. the only thing scarier then Tachyons to a physicist is that information could somehow disappear as Hawking postulated, so Susskind's rebuttal was a welcome move for the entire scientific community.

Alright, back to the point. I agree that if Verlinde's theory were true, as Afeku stated, we could simply change these bits of information to create a warp around our ship, which is a huge positive as we would not have to set of 100 hydrogen bombs to do so.

Earlier in the thread, we came to the conclusion that, using star trek as a template, the real thing missing for humanity were the 'warp coils' present in that design. This was the one thing in that universe that made warp drive possible. So if Verlinde's theory is true, would these warp coils be any more complex then a small microprocessor?

yet this brings us to Afeku's second point, what if our current view of warp drive, using immense amounts of energy, actually turns out to be easier then manipulating this data? what if something like HAL 9000 or mendicant bias couldn't even deal with it (an unrampant one)?

On a more practical note, how could we interact with this subatomic information? does it respond at all to the electromagnetic spectrum? can it be affected by a flux of gravitons? probably not, if gravitons are an affect of entropy of other, primary forces created by this information.

I realize I have created more questions then I have answered, but such is the way of science. I feel another good discussion coming on....

[Spock]

hello people! i agree, lets not have this thread become unstuck. Tonight, I am off to bed. But tomorrow morning I am going to digest the article mentioned above, Afkeu's theory, and we will have a discussion. I will come back and edit this post.

Alright peoples. I read Mongo's posts on the other thread, and even though it is enough to answer your question, I read the original paper more out of personal interest. I would say this theory isn't yet at a stage where i would call it promising, but it is certainly worthy of discussion. And it is precisely this type of 'out of the box' thinking that really allows for scientific breakthrough.

Although Mongo and the other author did a fine job summing up the paper in 3 posts, we should not think of the universe as a holograph as stated; Verlinde only used this as a way to relate his theory for certain examples in his paper.

The first person to seriously derive the importance, nay the existence, of bits of information was Leonard Susskind in his now infamous "Black Hole" war with Stephen Hawking, where Hawking said matter going into a black hole 'disappeared', where Susskind retaliated that this matter was smeared along the event horizon as bits of information. the only thing scarier then Tachyons to a physicist is that information could somehow disappear as Hawking postulated, so Susskind's rebuttal was a welcome move for the entire scientific community.

This is amazing, but far beyond what I can deal with due to my failures in mathematics and physics.



Alright, back to the point. I agree that if Verlinde's theory were true, as Afeku stated, we could simply change these bits of information to create a warp around our ship, which is a huge positive as we would not have to set of 100 hydrogen bombs to do so.

Earlier in the thread, we came to the conclusion that, using star trek as a template, the real thing missing for humanity were the 'warp coils' present in that design. This was the one thing in that universe that made warp drive possible. So if Verlinde's theory is true, would these warp coils be any more complex then a small microprocessor?

Therefore simplifying the way forward, well, to an extent.



yet this brings us to Afeku's second point, what if our current view of warp drive, using immense amounts of energy, actually turns out to be easier then manipulating this data? what if something like HAL 9000 or mendicant bias couldn't even deal with it (an unrampant one)?

On a more practical note, how could we interact with this subatomic information? does it respond at all to the electromagnetic spectrum? can it be affected by a flux of gravitons? probably not, if gravitons are an affect of entropy of other, primary forces created by this information.

I realize I have created more questions then I have answered, but such is the way of science. I feel another good discussion coming on....

Offensive bias was the unrampant one wasn't he? Meh, I can't even remember. But you make a good point, lets plunge into the world of warp before ploughing resources into deciphering said data. As for the last two paragraphs here. Would you be able to apply some sort of equation to get the answers to those questions?

[NYSEF816]

Offensive bias was the unrampant one wasn't he? Meh, I can't even remember. But you make a good point, lets plunge into the world of warp before ploughing resources into deciphering said data. As for the last two paragraphs here. Would you be able to apply some sort of equation to get the answers to those questions?

no, you are correct, but mendicant was always the better AI, from what i remember the forerunners had to hastily build offensive bias when mendicant became rampant, therefore offensive bias was a brilliant military tactician but not much more. however, I may be wrong

as for the mathematics, I will get on it. There were plenty in the paper that i can post here (and cite, of course) and run through. perhaps as we discuss the formulas in the paper we can come up with new ideas which need further mathematication.... or something like that...

p.s. - does all this talk about entropy remind anyone else of Asimov's "The Last Question?". before i turn in for the night, I am going to read it again right now.... The Last Question -- Isaac Asimov (http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html)

EDIT: Spock i see where i lost you, i meant an un-rampant Mendicant Bias and HAL9000, not that Mendicant was un-rampant

[Spock]

no, you are correct, but mendicant was always the better AI, from what i remember the forerunners had to hastily build offensive bias when mendicant became rampant, therefore offensive bias was a brilliant military tactician but not much more. however, I may be wrong

as for the mathematics, I will get on it. There were plenty in the paper that i can post here (and cite, of course) and run through. perhaps as we discuss the formulas in the paper we can come up with new ideas which need further mathematication.... or something like that...

p.s. - does all this talk about entropy remind anyone else of Asimov's "The Last Question?". before i turn in for the night, I am going to read it again right now.... The Last Question -- Isaac Asimov (http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html)

EDIT: Spock i see where i lost you, i meant an un-rampant Mendicant Bias and HAL9000, not that Mendicant was un-rampant


My bad, I just misenterpreted you is all. I think i'll leave the physics to you and afkeu. Possibly others as well.

[NYSEF816]

alright guys unfortunately the in-depth mathematics will have to take a backseat for atleast a few days (unless someone needs practice with integral calculus & statistics): LHC takes a step closer to full power | Cutting Edge - CNET News (http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-20000779-76.html)

seems i may actually be BUSY with RESEARCH the next few days? who would have thought? but keep coming up with ideas ill comment on them from time to time, just nothing mathematically ind epth

[Afkeu]

Looks like I've missed a bit after only Bering gone 2 days! (not that I didn't expect that) anyways, I can't read everything right now... I will edit this post in a few hours.

[Afkeu]

My bad, I just misenterpreted you is all. I think i'll leave the physics to you and afkeu. Possibly others as well.

alright guys unfortunately the in-depth mathematics will have to take a backseat for atleast a few days (unless someone needs practice with integral calculus & statistics): LHC takes a step closer to full power | Cutting Edge - CNET News

seems i may actually be BUSY with RESEARCH the next few days? who would have thought? but keep coming up with ideas ill comment on them from time to time, just nothing mathematically in depth

Unfortunately the only thing I can contribute to with regard to Physics is the purely theoretical stuff not involving an math... I'm only just taking Calculus in High School (began in Feb) and we have not yet gotten to integrals or anything beyond that. We have only done limits and derivatives, and only on a very basic level. Stats was also cut from our regular math curriculum... so I can't help there either.

Sounds like things are starting to get exciting over at CERN though! We are going to have to wait until late 2012-2013 for 14 TeV collisions though, right?

[mp2]

i am new to this thread, i have always had a fascination with space, here is a sugestion,

take solid fuel rockets, combine them with project orion, and solarsails
stage 1, solid fuel rockets get the vehicle out of earths magnetic feild
stage 2, the orion project begins and starts pushing towards the speed of light, well at least 1/10 the speed of light
stage 3, solar sails, when these engage over a period of time you could theoreticaly get moving fairly fast.

i would enjoy criticisim, and i think that we need to start a pettition to re-start project orion.

[Sempu]

i would enjoy criticisim, and i think that we need to start a pettition to re-start project orion.

Regrettably, nothing that involves launching nuclear bombs into space has a snowball's chance in hell of being approved. Only if they were manufactured in space to begin with and never deployed inside the Moon's orbit would there be a remote chance in the current climate of this happening.

[mp2]

well i know that the estimate of the people that each launch kills because of nuclear fallout is between 1-10. thats why it was originaly shut down. still, as you said if you could get the manufacturing facilities set up in space, and get everything approved, you have to admit, it would be worth looking into.

[MarkD]

Here is an article on ISV and anti matter Atomic Rocket: Realistic Designs (http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3ap.html)

[Prometheus]

All talk about so called "advanced" rocket (i.e. reaction mass explusion methods of propulsion) types are a complete waste of time so far as interstellar and/or intergalactic travel goes. They're too cumbersome, too wasteful of energy, too inefficient in so many ways and too primitive. All they really are, is glorified fireworks...900 year old technology. Nothing wrong with nuclear fusion/ion drive motors for local (solar system and immediate interstellar...within 1 light year) space travel. Impulse drives and/or any other high sublight speed engines are good auxiliaries but not what you'd use for your main drive units.

The only practicable and efficient method for for interstellar and/or intergalactic travel is the manipulation of spacetime itself, whether that be via wormholes, warp fields or jumps into other spatial dimensions (hyperspace/subspace).

[Spock]

All talk about so called "advanced" rocket (i.e. reaction mass explusion methods of propulsion) types are a complete waste of time so far as interstellar and/or intergalactic travel goes. They're too cumbersome, too wasteful of energy, too inefficient in so many ways and too primitive. All they really are, is glorified fireworks...900 year old technology. Nothing wrong with nuclear fusion/ion drive motors for local (solar system and immediate interstellar...within 1 light year) space travel. Impulse drives and/or any other high sublight speed engines are good auxiliaries but not what you'd use for your main drive units.

The only practicable and efficient method for for interstellar and/or intergalactic travel is the manipulation of spacetime itself, whether that be via wormholes, warp fields or jumps into other spatial dimensions (hyperspace/subspace).

This is my train of thought too.

[Afkeu]

All talk about so called "advanced" rocket (i.e. reaction mass explusion methods of propulsion) types are a complete waste of time so far as interstellar and/or intergalactic travel goes. They're too cumbersome, too wasteful of energy, too inefficient in so many ways and too primitive. All they really are, is glorified fireworks...900 year old technology. Nothing wrong with nuclear fusion/ion drive motors for local (solar system and immediate interstellar...within 1 light year) space travel. Impulse drives and/or any other high sublight speed engines are good auxiliaries but not what you'd use for your main drive units.

The only practicable and efficient method for for interstellar and/or intergalactic travel is the manipulation of spacetime itself, whether that be via wormholes, warp fields or jumps into other spatial dimensions (hyperspace/subspace).

That is quite true!
Like Spock said:

This is my train of thought too.

That is why I see Miguel Alcubierre's Warp Drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive) or a variation as our best chance. However, as I know was stated previously, our current understanding only allows for such a drive if it consumes vast vast amounts of energy, like the energy of a star.

[Prometheus]

The energy requirements can be met with two types of power/energy production systems...either matter/antimatter annihilation or tapping the zero point vacuum energy potential of spacetime (the ZPE field).

[Tirea Nantang]

Anti-matter is the way to go imo. Pretty effective, nice power, but once it runs out.. unless the ship its powering has a particle collider then IDK BRO


oooo or wormholes :)

[Afkeu]

The energy requirements can be met with two types of power/energy production systems...either matter/antimatter annihilation or tapping the zero point vacuum energy potential of spacetime (the ZPE field).

Ok so I have also read that the Alcubierre drive would require negative energy just now... and you know the funny thing is... it was the same guy who said it required vast amounts of energy! (DR. Michio Kaku)
In this video: Sci Fi Science: Traveling at Warp Speed : Video : Science Channel (http://science.discovery.com/videos/sci-fi-science-traveling-at-warp-speed.html) Dr. Kaku says that it would require vast amounts of energy, however, in his book "Physics of the Impossible" which I am currently reading, he says it requires Negative energy. Further, i found this old post on the physics forums (http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=73028) via google that says that in the book "Hyperspace" also by Dr. Kaku, he says it requires both positive and negative energy!!
Prometheus, your studying astronomy, could you help me clear this up? Are these all different solutions to Alcubierre's theory? Or is it all really saying basically the same thing somehow?
I will say though, if vast amounts of positive energy is required, then your going to need an enormous amount of antimatter, more that is practical in any way, plus the same amount of regular matter to annihilate with it...


Anti-matter is the way to go imo. Pretty effective, nice power, but once it runs out.. unless the ship its powering has a particle collider then IDK BRO


oooo or wormholes :)

Like I said above, it would require too much anti-matter to be practical. Not that I'm being defeatist here, but that just means we have to come up with a work around for this of otherwise a practical way to produce that much energy.
Also, wormholes are very problematic in so many ways...

[StratoNa'vi]

From what i know, anti-matter being blasted into special sails is the best... or maybe warp bubbles powered by negative energy.

[Afkeu]

From what i know, anti-matter being blasted into special sails is the best... or maybe warp bubbles powered by negative energy.

Warp bubbles is what I have been talking about, but I've never heard of making some sort of sail with antimatter... could you explain how that is supposed to work? Or post a link to somewhere that explains it.

[Spock]

I think he meant that hydrogen ramjet thing. Like in Star Trek where the warp nacells emit a magnetic field that captured hydrogen and used it as propellant. Bussard ramjet was it? I can't remember.

[Afkeu]

I think he meant that hydrogen ramjet thing. Like in Star Trek where the warp nacells emit a magnetic field that captured hydrogen and used it as propellant. Bussard ramjet was it? I can't remember.

The Problem with the Bussard ramjet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bussard_ramjet) is that it was designed based on a much much larger estimate of free hydrogen atoms floating around in space that there actually is.

[Prometheus]

I'd have to read up on Alcubierre's paper again, but what you have to do is create a gradient in the local spacetime metric around your ship, such that you have a flow of spacetime from positive (in front of your ship) to negative (behind your ship). You essentially create a wavefront which moves the ship forward through space. In order to do this you have to start generating a large electrogravitic field around the ship. Preferably a multilayered field that has a potential difference gradient between the layers of the field. This generates the same conditions as having negative energy present...which in fact it essentially is as the fields act like the two plates in a casimir effect experiment. The way to generate the field is to use either a large superconducting ring or plate, spinning at high rpm (over 20000), that is being made to resonate at 3GHz, or, to use a supercooled E-B condensate like ferroliquid spinning at high rpm and at high pressures (several thousand atm or more). What they do is to use frame dragging to warp the space around the craft. You then create the field around your ship by using waveguides to distribute and direct the field being produced. You might even be able to produce a device similar to the warp coils in a star ship nacelle, like on Star Trek, where you can induce the same field in a series of superconducting coils/magnets by creating a resonance field in the coils, creating fame dragging and having them act as waveguides as well. The way you'd get them to act as waveguides and set up the layered field would be to have them rapidly switch on and off in sequence, creating a rippling effect which would drive the wave along the coils/guides.

Here's some sites you can read that will help you to follow what I have written...

Martin Tajmar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Tajmar)

Scientific Commons (http://de.scientificcommons.org/m_tajmar)...plenty of papers there

Tau Zero Foundation (http://www.tauzero.aero/index.html)

Superconductors and Hyperdrives (http://da_theoretical1.tripod.com/warptohyperdrives.html)



Physics Review Letters (http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v98/i7/e071102)...some paper on gravitomagnetism

[Spock]

I'd have to read up on Alcubierre's paper again, but what you have to do is create a gradient in the local spacetime metric around your ship, such that you have a flow of spacetime from positive (in front of your ship) to negative (behind your ship). You essentially create a wavefront which moves the ship forward through space. In order to do this you have to start generating a large electrogravitic field around the ship. Preferably a multilayered field that has a potential difference gradient between the layers of the field. This generates the same conditions as having negative energy present...which in fact it essentially is as the fields act like the two plates in a casimir effect experiment. The way to generate the field is to use either a large superconducting ring or plate, spinning at high rpm (over 20000), that is being made to resonate at 3GHz, or, to use a supercooled E-B condensate like ferroliquid spinning at high rpm and at high pressures (several thousand atm or more). What they do is to use frame dragging to warp the space around the craft. You then create the field around your ship by using waveguides to distribute and direct the field being produced. You might even be able to produce a device similar to the warp coils in a star ship nacelle, like on Star Trek, where you can induce the same field in a series of superconducting coils/magnets by creating a resonance field in the coils, creating fame dragging and having them act as waveguides as well. The way you'd get them to act as waveguides and set up the layered field would be to have them rapidly switch on and off in sequence, creating a rippling effect which would drive the wave along the coils/guides.

Here's some sites you can read that will help you to follow what I have written...

Martin Tajmar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Tajmar)

Scientific Commons (http://de.scientificcommons.org/m_tajmar)...plenty of papers there

Tau Zero Foundation (http://www.tauzero.aero/index.html)

Superconductors and Hyperdrives (http://da_theoretical1.tripod.com/warptohyperdrives.html)



Physics Review Letters (http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v98/i7/e071102)...some paper on gravitomagnetism

Holy ****, build one for me please.

[Afkeu]

Holy ****, build one for me please.
Thats all you can say?

What I want to know is if this requires a certain size or if you could create a warp bubble around a marble, for example, as well as a large space craft such as a space shuttle or even a Valkyrie Shuttle (form avatar). If it is possible at smaller sizes, is it easier to accomplish? Would it require less energy/negative energy? I'm currently reading those webpages that where posted... I'll come back later (probably more like tomorrow).

[Spock]

Thats all you can say?

As a biologist, yes.



What I want to know is if this requires a certain size or if you could create a warp bubble around a marble, for example, as well as a large space craft such as a space shuttle or even a Valkyrie Shuttle (form avatar). If it is possible at smaller sizes, is it easier to accomplish? Would it require less energy/negative energy? I'm currently reading those webpages that where posted... I'll come back later (probably more like tomorrow).

The experimentation with this technology should start on a very small scale. Then move up until the warp field can encompass an entire spacecraft.

[Afkeu]

The experimentation with this technology should start on a very small scale. Then move up until the warp field can encompass an entire spacecraft.
That would be the ideal scenario yes, but sometimes things just don't work the same way on small scales.

[Spock]

That would be the ideal scenario yes, but sometimes things just don't work the same way on small scales.

Obviously yes, but that is where the experimentation should at least try and start at. If not, big is good.

[Afkeu]

Obviously yes, but that is where the experimentation should at least try and start at. If not, big is good.

Unfortunately Big always = expensive. That means that there would have to be lots of data supporting the success of such an experiment and in this case that would have to be in the form of complex calculations that likely only physicists could understand. If there where no supporting data then funding would never be found anywhere in the public sector; and private sector... well they would want good solid data too, but you might find someone willing to take a bigger risk.

Anyways I can't read all the pages that Prometheus posted right now but I will post tomorrow about it.
In the mean time, if Prometheus or NYSEF816 are around I would love to know if the warp drive theory is easily scalable. :nwink:

[Prometheus]

You'd have to start at a scale you could easily manage. A disk 2-3 feet in diameter would be a good start if you're using a superconducting ring/plate. Or, if you do a similar experiment as T.T. Brown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Townsend_Brown) did in the late 20's-early 30's, you could try that with a 2 foot plate (Biefeld-Brown Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biefeld-Brown_effect)). But, like anything else, if you can make it large, you can also make it small. It would all depend on how advanced your technology and capability for nano-engineering was, to be able to build a marble sized craft.

Might make a great "foo fighter" :)

I'd say we'll probably be looking at craft about 2-3 feet and larger, once we perfect the technology.

[Spock]

Unfortunately Big always = expensive. That means that there would have to be lots of data supporting the success of such an experiment and in this case that would have to be in the form of complex calculations that likely only physicists could understand. If there where no supporting data then funding would never be found anywhere in the public sector; and private sector... well they would want good solid data too, but you might find someone willing to take a bigger risk.

Anyways I can't read all the pages that Prometheus posted right now but I will post tomorrow about it.
In the mean time, if Prometheus or NYSEF816 are around I would love to know if the warp drive theory is easily scalable. :nwink:

Then we need to provide incentives to the private sector, for example mining rights to Io, Jupiter's moon. Something like that. The public sector would really need to sell the idea, sell the theories that they have to get the private sector to bite. Otherwise the state will have to fund it, but it would pay off in the end.

I'm sorry if I can't contribute any more than that. Its just so fitting that a biologist started up a thread about space travel propulsion of all things. :) Forgive me?

[josie20]

Nope, never heard of that. But I do know of two efforts, one Australian and the other American, that have both developed ion drives that using the appropriated energy source to power the engines could get you to Mars in 35-45 days.

They already developed these? Why isn't this bigger news??? Do they have the appropriated energy source already? If so, what is it and will they be put in use soon? Why haven't I heard of this????


EDIT: Okay, after reading about this a little, it seems acceleration may be dismal at best. Hopefully something that will be improved in the future.

[Afkeu]

You'd have to start at a scale you could easily manage. A disk 2-3 feet in diameter would be a good start if you're using a superconducting ring/plate. Or, if you do a similar experiment as T.T. Brown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Townsend_Brown) did in the late 20's-early 30's, you could try that with a 2 foot plate (Biefeld-Brown Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biefeld-Brown_effect)). But, like anything else, if you can make it large, you can also make it small. It would all depend on how advanced your technology and capability for nano-engineering was, to be able to build a marble sized craft.

Might make a great "foo fighter" :)

I'd say we'll probably be looking at craft about 2-3 feet and larger, once we perfect the technology.

2-3 feet still sounds great (although we should really be using the metric system, for science at least!!)
You make this sound so easy though, there has to be a catch. What is it? If there isn't a catch then why don't we have small scale warp drives already?


They already developed these? Why isn't this bigger news??? Do they have the appropriated energy source already? If so, what is it and will they be put in use soon? Why haven't I heard of this????


EDIT: Okay, after reading about this a little, it seems acceleration may be dismal at best. Hopefully something that will be improved in the future.

This is Page 17... not page 1... We are talking about Warp Drives now. Do please join the discussion though.

[josie20]

This is Page 17... not page 1... We are talking about Warp Drives now. Do please join the discussion though.

My bad...:nembarrassed:

[Prometheus]

2-3 feet still sounds great (although we should really be using the metric system, for science at least!!)
You make this sound so easy though, there has to be a catch. What is it? If there isn't a catch then why don't we have small scale warp drives already?


Power....that's still the big bugbear:)

Most of the work being done on this sort of thing is being done by the US military in their black budget projects.

[Afkeu]

Power....that's still the big bugbear:)

Most of the work being done on this sort of thing is being done by the US military in their black budget projects.

By power do your mean energy? I wouldn't think it would need vast amounts of energy on such a small scale (well it would require a lot but not as much as a spaceship right?)
Also, How would you know if the US military where working on this? Black Projects are Classified... thats why they are "black" or "dark".
More to the point though, if the military is doing most of the work, is that because a 2-3 foot warp drive device would cost many billions? From what you described on the last page, You need to rotate a superconducting disc at >20000 rpm and the disc also has to resonate at ~3GHz. You then need to use wave guides to direct the field. Are the waveguides the expensive part? Actually more to the point, what sort of waves are we talking about here anyways? Gravitational Waves I assume? How would to make a waveguide for gravitational waves? I'm interested in your idea about making "warp coils" like in star trek by doing what you said on the previous page but I don't fully understand all this so I don't really know how that would work. (please keep in mind that I'm only a high school student so I only understand these theories partly in concept, not at all in mathematics.)

[Prometheus]

By power do your mean energy? I wouldn't think it would need vast amounts of energy on such a small scale (well it would require a lot but not as much as a spaceship right?)
Also, How would you know if the US military where working on this? Black Projects are Classified... thats why they are "black" or "dark".
More to the point though, if the military is doing most of the work, is that because a 2-3 foot warp drive device would cost many billions? From what you described on the last page, You need to rotate a superconducting disc at >20000 rpm and the disc also has to resonate at ~3GHz. You then need to use wave guides to direct the field. Are the waveguides the expensive part? Actually more to the point, what sort of waves are we talking about here anyways? Gravitational Waves I assume? How would to make a waveguide for gravitational waves? I'm interested in your idea about making "warp coils" like in star trek by doing what you said on the previous page but I don't fully understand all this so I don't really know how that would work. (please keep in mind that I'm only a high school student so I only understand these theories partly in concept, not at all in mathematics.)

Despite all their best efforts, information does leak out of these black projects. For sure, it's not the whole story, but some does get out, or gets out before it's swallowed up in the vault, so to speak. There's even a good dose of educated guessing based on sightings and such. But what confirms it is when the guys that are part of the "grand design" come out and give hints and spill some info. People like Ben Rich, who was the head of Lockheed-Martin Skunkworks and Vice President of the main company, Lockheed-Martin Aerospace. He worked out at Area 51 for years and knew exactly what was going on there and elsewhere. It's not entirely leak proof, but it's pretty damn tight.

The waves that are generated by the system are electrogravitic waves....they're essentially extremely powerful EM waves that by the nature of their energy density and physical properties, bend spacetime. The waveguides are essentially antenna-like. Basically hollow resonance tubes that help propagate the waves generated, along the insides of the tubes, with little or no loss of energy. The waveguides themselves are cheap...it's the power supply needed to generate the waves which is the expensive part...that and the motors themselves (control devices and whatever else is needed). The sort of power you need for a spacecraft is something equivalent to the Z Machine, at the Sandia National Laboratory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_machine). That's just for starters. It's the same with using coils as I mentioned. For small scale experiments, you wouldn't need much power but scaling that up to a system large enough to power a ship is an entirely different matter.

Go and have a look at this video...."Antigravity" (http://www.youtube.com/user/AlienScientist#p/u/48/9xnh5Nd4DzM). This will help you understand it to a point. Actually, go through this guy's site....you'll find some very interesting things :)

[toudimg]

The whole antigravity things are very interesting all up to the UFO propulsion via rotating superconducting superfluid (if i get this right) and the idea of Gravitomagnetism is very intresting. Thats why Unobtanium was (or might be) so important for space travel.

an insteresting read can be found here: Take a leap into hyperspace - physics-math - 05 January 2006 - New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18925331.200-take-a-leap-into-hyperspace.html?page=1)

also Gravity's secret - physics-math - 11 November 2006 - New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19225771.800-gravitys-secret.html)