Warp drives are close.

[laserblazer]

Test jet sets new air speed record - Yahoo! News UK

[StewartKnight]

Warp drives are close.

 

No they aren't.

Einstein said that inorder to travel faster than light, you needed an engine that had unlimited power.

Now, if you said Cold Fusion was near... that would be a different matter!

[mossj]

Surely if we travel faster than the speed of light, the we travel back in time... and judging by the lack of people in silver jump suits it will never happen..

[synaesthesia]

Of course it will happen. Light speed is 88mph and there's a few DeLoreans around.

[sted]

speed of light isnt an issue with warp drives they dont break it they cheat their way round it anyway.

 

As to scramjets its not a new technology as far as im aware the problem is purely practical they need huge amounts of input air coming in very fast to start so cant be used for takeoff so you still need ordinary jet engines up to a certian speed (i think its in the mach range so think a Concorde esque plane with more engines and more weight drag etc) and as they need air the higher you go (and at speed that would be the only safe place to be) the less air is avaliable so they dont work that well at altitude

[laserblazer]

Einstein said that inorder to travel faster than light, you needed an engine that had unlimited power.

WTF did he know? You don't need unlimited power, simply enough power to travel faster than the speed of light.

[localzuk]

speed of light isnt an issue with warp drives they dont break it they cheat their way round it anyway.

 

As to scramjets its not a new technology as far as im aware the problem is purely practical they need huge amounts of input air coming in very fast to start so cant be used for takeoff so you still need ordinary jet engines up to a certian speed (i think its in the mach range so think a Concorde esque plane with more engines and more weight drag etc) and as they need air the higher you go (and at speed that would be the only safe place to be) the less air is avaliable so they dont work that well at altitude

 

Another problem is that with the amount of air and fuel burning at the speed it burns, it has a habit of melting the engine components during flight, hence only being able to fly for a few minutes.

[sted]

Another problem is that with the amount of air and fuel burning at the speed it burns, it has a habit of melting the engine components during flight, hence only being able to fly for a few minutes.

it really is more suitable to missiles than manned craft

[RTFM]

Another problem is that with the amount of air and fuel burning at the speed it burns, it has a habit of melting the engine components during flight, hence only being able to fly for a few minutes.

 

Sounds really useful.....I guess if you want to get to Leeds from Manchester quickly this is the way to go!

[localzuk]

Sounds really useful.....

 

More effective death and destruction!! I think we should hurry up with gravity research personally. We still know naff all about gravity, so how are we ever going to create anti-grav or artificial gravity in a space craft?!

[sted]

More effective death and destruction!! I think we should hurry up with gravity research personally. We still know naff all about gravity, so how are we ever going to create anti-grav or artificial gravity in a space craft?!

 

anti grav is easy butter a cats back

[TwoZeroAlpha]

More effective death and destruction!! I think we should hurry up with gravity research personally. We still know naff all about gravity, so how are we ever going to create anti-grav or artificial gravity in a space craft?!

 

Artificial gravity - simples

 

It's all based on forces created. (stepping into scientific linguistics minefield here) centripital (? or is it centrifugal i'm after here) force can be used. So all you need to do is set up a big ring shaped space station spinning about a hub. The floor (inner part of the wheel) will experience a gravity like effect. Or so having just read Ender's Game leads me to believe, anyhow, I'm a tech not a physicist, what do I know.

[localzuk]

Artificial gravity - simples

 

It's all based on forces created. (stepping into scientific linguistics minefield here) centripital (? or is it centrifugal i'm after here) force can be used. So all you need to do is set up a big ring shaped space station spinning about a hub. The floor (inner part of the wheel) will experience a gravity like effect. Or so having just read Ender's Game leads me to believe, anyhow, I'm a tech not a physicist, what do I know.

 

That's kinda cheating. I want proper anti grav. Like 'grav plating' in star trek etc...

[laserblazer]

I believe that what keeps us on the ground is not gravity but an involuntary muscle action a bit like the heart. That's why, sometimes when we are asleep, the muscles stop for a second and we levitate. Some Indian mystics can control the action and levitate at will.

[mac_shinobi]

Physics of the Impossible - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

There is or was a documentary on telly and one of the things they covered was warp drives, the closest they got was using anti matter in the engine to propel the space craft with a huge solar kite that used light from the sun to move it and also a star trek type shield around it to protect it from astroids and other objects as well as to make it pull and push at the same time to make the craft move faster but the amount of energy to create the shield was immense and if one small thing went wrong with that it would destroy the ship completely along with a lot of other stuff in space.

[srochford]

WTF did he know? You don't need unlimited power, simply enough power to travel faster than the speed of light.

 

His theory was that as you increase the velocity of an object, its mass increases. As the mass increases, the amount of energy you need to put in to make the object go faster increases. As I understand it, that means you need infinite energy to make something move at the speed of light and you can't make anything go faster than the speed of light - some more info here NASA's Cosmicopia -- Ask Us - General Physics - Speed of Light

[danrhodes]

WTF did he know? You don't need unlimited power, simply enough power to travel faster than the speed of light.

 

Wrong, you do need an engine with unlimited power, as the closer you get to the speed of light the enegry needed to go faster doubles, heard this on Stephen Hawkings Universe the other day. If we were are able to get to at least 99% of the speed of light then we would be travelling in time!

 

The particles that travel cern move at 99.9% the speed of light, so are they travelling in time?

 

D

[localzuk]

Wrong, you do need an engine with unlimited power, as the closer you get to the speed of light the enegry needed to go faster doubles, heard this on Stephen Hawkings Universe the other day. If we were are able to get to at least 99% of the speed of light then we would be travelling in time!

 

The particles that travel cern move at 99.9% the speed of light, so are they travelling in time?

 

D

 

Warp drive doesn't work by travelling at light-speed. It works by creating a 'warp bubble' which envelopes the ship, keeping it at sub-light speed. The warp bubble then 'bends' the space in front, and behind itself. Nothing actually 'moves'. So, unlimited power wouldn't be needed.

[TwoZeroAlpha]

Didn't we learn from "Event Horizon" what a bad idea messing around with bending space was. I'm not volunteering for the first jaunt to Proxima Centauri that's for sure.

[danrhodes]

Warp drive doesn't work by travelling at light-speed. It works by creating a 'warp bubble' which envelopes the ship, keeping it at sub-light speed. The warp bubble then 'bends' the space in front, and behind itself. Nothing actually 'moves'. So, unlimited power wouldn't be needed.

 

Now that is star trek! Im not game for the first trip in that either, so in theory if you could get in this bubble, very little power would be needed, infact a robin reliant would probably do?

 

D

[localzuk]

Didn't we learn from "Event Horizon" what a bad idea messing around with bending space was. I'm not volunteering for the first jaunt to Proxima Centauri that's for sure.

 

Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

 

Now that is star trek! Im not game for the first trip in that either, so in theory if you could get in this bubble, very little power would be needed, infact a robin reliant would probably do?

 

I think it needs a certain mass to work with also. Take a look at Alcubierre drive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for more information about the theories behind the 'real' idea (rather than the Star Trek version).

[Gatt]

The biggest challenge to Warp Drive is.. finding them damned Dilithium Crystals in order to regulate the deuterium/anti-deuterium mix without annilhilating everyone...

[SYNACK]

Right as others have said general relativity the current model by which we explain the stuff involved states that the absolute hard limit on speed of matter in the universe is light speed. It also puts foward that the closer you get to it the more energy t takes to go any faster, this is well tested in various particle accelerators around the world that use huge amounts of energy to accelerate a very few atoms up to near light speed.

 

A warp drive in theory creates a bubble of normal spacetime then moves this through general spacetime, in this way it gets around the matter speed limit because spacetime can move faster than lightspeed within the universe.

 

The science to actually bend spacetime like this had not been discovered yet if it is even possible, theories include using insane amounts of power to generate a hugely powerful electromagnetic field or somehow manipulating gravity neither of which we have power sources powerful enough to handle now.

[localzuk]

The science to actually bend spacetime like this had not been discovered yet if it is even possible, theories include using insane amounts of power to generate a hugely powerful electromagnetic field or somehow manipulating gravity neither of which we have power sources powerful enough to handle now.

 

Indeed. The numbers I've heard of were the equivalent energy of a planet the size of Jupiter would be needed to create a bubble with which to transport a gram of matter or similar. Do we really need Jupiter though?

[JJonas]

Indeed. The numbers I've heard of were the equivalent energy of a planet the size of Jupiter would be needed to create a bubble with which to transport a gram of matter or similar. Do we really need Jupiter though?

 

Yes we do need Jupiter. Jupiter is the solar systems vacuum cleaner it swallows up a lot of the space objects that would otherwise come into the inner solar system and near Earth.