Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Saxman on December 03, 2013, 10:12:30 PM
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http://io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-build-its-very-first-warp-drive
The short of it is, there's been a recent mathematical breakthrough that suggests a model which would require a mass of only 1600 pounds, as opposed to the Jupiter-sized mass required by previous hypotheses, by altering the shape of the warp bubble from belt-shaped to a torus. Physicist Harold White, who made the breakthrough in the mathematical model, is apparently beginning lab experiments towards proving the concept.
Wouldn't it be something to see a manned FTL flight in our lifetime?
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My name is "Zefram Cochrane" and I would like to volunteer my piloting services!
68valu
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My name is "Zefram Cochrane" and I would like to volunteer my piloting services!
68valu
Depends on your blood alcohol level :D
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Be sure to carry a CD of "Magic Carpet Ride"
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.... well you don't know girl... what WE can find, why don't you come with me! :devil
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I'm a conspiracy theorist. How my mind works is simple. I read something like this and presume, 'if this is what they are telling us, what have they already done!' I know, I know crazy but fun.
This is an awesome find! Thanks for sharing.
boo
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Actually, there are multiple research lines being explored for super-luminal (i.e. faster-than-light) travel. Google "Heim Quantum Theory for Space Propulsion Physics", otherwise known as "GRAVITOPHOTON FIELD PROPULSION". We may indeed see such a thing in our lifetime.
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Wonder what name they'll choose for the first manned ship? Enterprise would be the cheesy, easy way to do it. But if they want to go for the ULTIMATE nerdy reference, they'll name her Phoenix after Cochrane's warp ship.
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I have devised a warp engine but need donations to complete my research :old:
$5 each will support my design :old:
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I read something recently about a similar new scientific find, with regards to FTL, but it had to do with chemistry and the physics of matter. Apparently they've cracked a way to run different types of electricity through certain matter in order to make it 10 to the 4th power more dense. This will allow FTL as if you ran into even a tiny bit of debris at those speeds, it would tear anything we could make now apart, but if during high speed FTL flight they can harden the exterior of the vehicle with this new "method", most stuff would deflect off, at least that's the premise.
Interesting times for sure.
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Wonder what name they'll choose for the first manned ship? Enterprise would be the cheesy, easy way to do it. But if they want to go for the ULTIMATE nerdy reference, they'll name her Phoenix after Cochrane's warp ship.
Dont name it V'GER, thats for sure
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Dont name it V'GER, thats for sure
It's all good. We still have whales.
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I wonder how they're going to steer and navigate the first versions. Basically you could warp directly into the center of a planet, which probably wouldn't be nice. And if the spacecraft is actually stationary in its event field, what will happen to anything it will encounter on its path?
What's even more amazing and also suspicious is how closely the theories and promises match science fiction. '1600 pounds of exotic mass' -> Star Trek warp core. :noid
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(http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr149/Rich46yo/spock-old_zps87da6a29.jpg)
"Fascinating"
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I wonder how they're going to steer and navigate the first versions. Basically you could warp directly into the center of a planet, which probably wouldn't be nice. And if the spacecraft is actually stationary in its event field, what will happen to anything it will encounter on its path?
What's even more amazing and also suspicious is how closely the theories and promises match science fiction. '1600 pounds of exotic mass' -> Star Trek warp core. :noid
As far as warping into the middle of a planet, I imagine there will be a lot of complex calculations involved in setting a course and destination (IE, as with the hyperdrive in Star Wars).
I'd also imagine they would need to develop some sort of navigational deflector (y'know, that big glowy thing on the front of the many Enterprises) to clear the path ahead ship.
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As far as warping into the middle of a planet, I imagine there will be a lot of complex calculations involved in setting a course and destination (IE, as with the hyperdrive in Star Wars).
I'd also imagine they would need to develop some sort of navigational deflector (y'know, that big glowy thing on the front of the many Enterprises) to clear the path ahead ship.
It would be interesting to know if you could collide anything in general while warping. If your stationary in your event field and only the universe around you moves, in your point of view it should be impossible to hit anything moving - but you could possibly collect something in your event field if it happened to enter it along the way. Logically thinking if your ship is moved by the warp, anything that happens to be in it or enter to it should be moved along too. Objects flying in space would naturally have speed of their own and through that cause damage. Warping too close to a star or a planet would also kill most likely.
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KHHHAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!
(http://basementrejects.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/star-trek-ii-the-wrath-of-khan-kirk-yells-khans-name.jpg)
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In all seriousness though, this is very exciting for me. I've always dreamed of working on stuff like that; its the primary reason I decided to major in Aerospace engineering.
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In all seriousness though, this is very exciting for me. I've always dreamed of working on stuff like that; its the primary reason I decided to major in Aerospace engineering.
Are you sure?
REALLY SURE?
(http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120325025213/villains/images/7/76/Event_horizon.jpg)
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ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL :noid!
(http://www.w5d.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/mass-effect-3-reaper-capital-ship-h1n-net.jpg)
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It would be interesting to know if you could collide anything in general while warping. If your stationary in your event field and only the universe around you moves, in your point of view it should be impossible to hit anything moving - but you could possibly collect something in your event field if it happened to enter it along the way. Logically thinking if your ship is moved by the warp, anything that happens to be in it or enter to it should be moved along too. Objects flying in space would naturally have speed of their own and through that cause damage. Warping too close to a star or a planet would also kill most likely.
If the warp is not done correctly, it could cause a self generated wormhole (Star trek 1). One must be brushed up on their slow motion speech before that happens
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Wonder what name they'll choose for the first manned ship? Enterprise would be the cheesy, easy way to do it.
Constitution would be more traditional.
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(http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2009/362/c/d/Assimilation_by_hansime.jpg)
We are borg... prepare for assimilation
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Sonny White is running on alternate Woodward conjecture. Paul March is reportedly working with him, but till I'd heard this, most everyone was really skeptical, on (ironically enough) math basis, of White's projections. In any case it's just a matter of time since March (way more approachable) is under NDA since he started serious lab work at Eagleworks.
White & co still need to actually produce negative mass. The experimental data so far is all literally minuscule in amplitude. Just above measurement error. But sure is compelling for more investigation, no argument.
Warp travel issue is really not such a calamity. Overnight we'd go from earthbound to possibly star bound, with solar system colonization easily feasible.
In practice you could just run pusher ships shielded by comets. Lotta solutions worked out in SF literature. If you absolutely had to "icebreak" with ship hull, you could have precursor drones clearing the way to FTL-safe paths. Basically analogous to how soldiers today deal with pathfinding thru mine fields.
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Heim is broken, forget about that one. Excluded by data a couple years ago.
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More interesting than most of these is basic "cheap" propellantless propulsion like Woodward's Mach Effect Thrusters, allowing mundane solar system colonization which would literally change the world. And computational progress which would enable something like Kurzweil's Singularity - all sci/tech progress multiplied by AI smarts, etc within something like next 50-100 yrs. And most of all, curing aging (e.g. SENS, Calico...), which again changes the paradigm: the future need not happen so soon if you will live to see it anyway (e.g. Generation ships are different ball game).
Then there's the parallel but no less important developments, e.g. genetics. Sooner than later there'll be DIY there as for human livelihood there was Renaissance/IndustrialRev/Modern culture divergence and fractalism: people will be modifying themselves and make today's body-modification subculture look microbial in scale and implications for what it is and means to be Human (e.g. behavior mods. Intelligence mods (speed? multitasking? memory? etc, lotta dimensions). Extremophile mods (human photosynthesis? gills? radiation repair? strength?). Biointerface with synthetic prostheses?).
Then extreme basics - extra performance allowed by new materials - carbon compounds (graphene, CNTs, etc), stanene and others, metamaterials (invisibility cloaks etc), room and high temp superconductors, etc.
All of these make for more plausible "interesting times" than White and even Woodward's almost obsession with wormhole implications of their so-far borderline credible theorizing instead of more immediate and mundane tech that'd make the whole solar system as accessible as Antarctica today. I.E. no need for freakin wormholes if we've got longevity, true AI, and at least the entire asteroid belt to build with.
Sonny White so far isn't anywhere near most of these, yet these on their own could put us out there. White is thus mostly hype.
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I would hate for it to be to easy though. I can see RedNecks like me trying to drag a asteroid of mostly gold back to the planet.
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I would hate for it to be to easy though. I can see RedNecks like me trying to drag a asteroid of mostly gold back to the planet.
And there you have the plot premise for the next stupid "reality" show...
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Exactly what I was thinking :rofl And it will be called Space Gold.
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Turns out they figured it was gold based on the density, and it was really just lead :lol.
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Some lead can be as valuable as gold. Depends on its age.
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In all seriousness though, this is very exciting for me. I've always dreamed of working on stuff like that; its the primary reason I decided to major in Aerospace engineering.
let me take a while guess you started dreaming about stuff like that last two years of high school and all thru college? munchies must have been really bad. I know mine where.
when I was in high school back in early 80's our science and ecology club (dont ask me why they were together, nobody knew), found some sticks of solid rocket fuel in an old room that had been used as storage for 20 years. they were about 1 inch by perhaps 7 or 8 inches long. they were kind of greasy and all we could read was something and fuel. we showed it to our teacher, he looked at it, said "interesting, dont know what it is" and gave them back to us. we advertise on the school newspaper a contest over to build a rocket using the fuel with a field trip to go to the Mohave desert to see which could fly higher.
we had zero entries but we decided to make the field trip anyway. there were perhaps 7 or 8 of us, 3 girls included, no teacher wanted to go with us but we went anyway. we went for 3 days and we mostly sat around smoking looking at the stars and wondering how high the rockets would fly if we knew how to build one. not sure what happened to the sticks. but I will always remember that trip to the stars.
wonder what would have happened today if somebody found some rocket fuel sticks at school. :eek:.
semp
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wonder what would have happened today if somebody found some rocket fuel sticks at school. :eek:.
Homeland Security would be on them hard before you could say, "Hey y'all, watch this!"
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I would hate for it to be to easy though. I can see RedNecks like me trying to drag a asteroid of mostly gold back to the planet.
That would be a great idea. It would collapse all gold based trade and deflate gold value in an instant. The richest percentile would absolutely love you after that. Or perhaps the ex richest.
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let me take a while guess you started dreaming about stuff like that last two years of high school and all thru college? munchies must have been really bad. I know mine where.
when I was in high school back in early 80's our science and ecology club (dont ask me why they were together, nobody knew), found some sticks of solid rocket fuel in an old room that had been used as storage for 20 years. they were about 1 inch by perhaps 7 or 8 inches long. they were kind of greasy and all we could read was something and fuel. we showed it to our teacher, he looked at it, said "interesting, dont know what it is" and gave them back to us. we advertise on the school newspaper a contest over to build a rocket using the fuel with a field trip to go to the Mohave desert to see which could fly higher.
we had zero entries but we decided to make the field trip anyway. there were perhaps 7 or 8 of us, 3 girls included, no teacher wanted to go with us but we went anyway. we went for 3 days and we mostly sat around smoking looking at the stars and wondering how high the rockets would fly if we knew how to build one. not sure what happened to the sticks. but I will always remember that trip to the stars.
wonder what would have happened today if somebody found some rocket fuel sticks at school. :eek:.
semp
I'm still in college. And not quite.
The universe has always just been a fascinating place for me. Even the sheer scale of it is mind bending, and the nature of it, and all the things that fill it... its just a passion of mine, intoxicated or not.
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Heim is broken, forget about that one. Excluded by data a couple years ago.
Citation, please?
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I don't recall, but it shouldn't be hard to find. PhysicsForum probably has echoes about or whimpers over it. Immediate but very vague intuitive memory is that it's from non-kook forum users stating it as fact and going completely unchallenged (unheard of in nitpick-obsessed communities like those, unless it's almost undoubtedly irrefutable) that I heard about it. Now that I think about it, I remember reading the same assessment from multiple users on multiple independent forums.
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I don't recall, but it shouldn't be hard to find. PhysicsForum probably has echoes about or whimpers over it. Immediate but very vague intuitive memory is that it's from non-kook forum users stating it as fact and going completely unchallenged (unheard of in nitpick-obsessed communities like those, unless it's almost undoubtedly irrefutable) that I heard about it. Now that I think about it, I remember reading the same assessment from multiple users on multiple independent forums.
Thanks. I'll dig around. My day job is in the aerospace community, and came across some articles about Heim a back in 2005 or so. Hadn't heard much since then.
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Yeah there was lots of talk till then, and warranted given Heim's implications. Real shame it's probably dead. It was pretty elegant.
I'm really anxious for Woodward/White/March to come thru to something clear, positive or negative. Their non wormhole predictions are effectively cheap anti-grav like lift engines here on Earth, and solar system access better than even Bussard's Polywell powered concepts (76 days to Titan):
(http://i.imgur.com/0GDn4Ju.jpg)
It's pretty curious that March has gone (reportedly) over to White. Last I recall he had his own labwork (Eagleworks) and was skeptical of White's line of inquiry into Mach Effects. IIRC March is who had the most credible data recently (within 1-2 years).
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Yeah there was lots of talk till then, and warranted given Heim's implications. Real shame it's probably dead. It was pretty elegant.
I'm really anxious for Woodward/White/March to come thru to something clear, positive or negative. Their non wormhole predictions are effectively cheap anti-grav like lift engines here on Earth, and solar system access better than even Bussard's Polywell powered concepts (76 days to Titan):
(http://i.imgur.com/0GDn4Ju.jpg)
It's pretty curious that March has gone (reportedly) over to White. Last I recall he had his own labwork (Eagleworks) and was skeptical of White's line of inquiry into Mach Effects. IIRC March is who had the most credible data recently (within 1-2 years).
Yeah, the beauty of Heim's work was that it didn't rely on exotic materials/matter in any way; superconducting coils was the most exotic technology it required, IIRC. As you say, a real shame it didn't pan out. A small nuclear reactor to produce the large currents required is certainly easy enough to build; in fact, a pebble-bed HTGR would've been perfect for this type of vehicle, requiring less shielding than conventional, water-cooled nuke reactors, and without the need for the complicated cooling system. It would have allowed a modest 600 ton craft to lift directly from the Earth's surface and go to the moon in only four hours (and without even needing to transition to Heim space). Ah, well...Hopefully White and Co. are on the right track.