ShareThis
“Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state anymore that a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.”
-William S. Burroughs-
Humanity must develop technologies to travel to the stars; it’s our only hope to stave off extinction. Books have been written, popular science magazines illustrate reasons, science fiction movies and television programs opine that humanity’s ultimate survival depends on colonizing habitable exoplanets. As an avid enthusiast of interstellar travel I know our current space vehicular fuel systems and engines are totally inadequate for the tasks ahead. Saving our species is a priority.
I’m a Trekie, a big fan of popular science fiction TV/movie series ‘Star Trek.’ The fictional U.S.S. Enterprise flag ship of the Federation flew at warp speed. The ships primary fuel that makes inter galactic travel happen is dilithium crystals a fictional element. As shown on the popular series streams of matter and antimatter are meshed into crystallized dilithium. The energy is generated in an annihilation chamber that causes a reaction that heats up excess deuterium gas to produce special plasma that powers the ship. This fuel enables the Enterprise to travel faster than light speed.
Star Trek though strictly Sy Fy is credited with turning objects we took as science fiction into science fact. Point—cellular telephones, optical tweezers, stun guns, voice recognition devises, retinal implants and force fields into everyday realities. Ever tried leaving a Jewel OSCO with one of their shopping carts only to find an invisible force field blocking your exit? What about the tricorder now a medical scanner used to measure heart rate, temperature, blood pressure, stress levels, respiration, and ECG all in the space of 10 seconds! If these science fiction inspired inventions are now physical realities the theory of faster than light space travel can and will in this writer’s opinion become actualized though no time soon.
Theoretically it’s possible to produce an energy source with accompanying machines to drive through space faster than light. Point—within a century humanity will have technologically advanced from horse and buggy travel to rockets that travel more than 20,000 MPH! Humans can live years underwater in submarines! Barring our innate moral flaws as a tainted species a constant threat of species annihilation I predict within the next two hundred years we’ll sail through the universe at light speed or close to it if we don’t blow ourselves up first.
Mexican physicist Miquel Alcubierre stated in 1994 that it is possible to create a warp drive vehicle able to course through space at speeds faster than light. According to Albert Einstein’s theory of relatively or E=mc2 (Go to: Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity A simplified Explanation.) material objects could never surpass light speed. To accelerate at light speed requires mega amounts of energy. The Alcubierre drive circumvents this problem by manipulating space time itself! The ‘A-drive’ causes space in front of the ship to contract while the space behind it expands. A ‘warp bubble’ allows space ships to reach destinations faster than a beam of light by traveling through ‘normal’ space time. Einstein implied that space being malleable enables an A-Drive devise to travel faster than light. Point—soon after the Big Bang our infant universe expanded faster than light. Space time expands faster though objects within the space time continuum can’t exceed the universe’s speed limit. Star ships propelled by the A-Drive remain intact but are carried along a warp bubble which acts like a boat riding on an expanding wave. This means that time dilation and other relativistic effects diminish in importance as your vehicle zips through inner galactic space.
Relativity time dilation is the real difference between time passed and time elapsed between two events. An example of time dilation is when astronauts return to earth from various missions examples being the International Space Station or ISS. Studies have shown they’ve aged a little less than mission control crew members on earth. Star travelers step up this process considerably; if we start our activities at the same point in time, you on a star ship me on earth performing my usual hum-drum routine and your ship launches just as I’m about to start my first class inching my way towards a baccalaureate degree. When my four years are up and you land your ship at O’Hare Airport at the very point they hand me that sheep skin topping off the four years it took me to get that engineering degree I’ve aged 4 years to your say 2 hours despite you’re traveled to Alpha Centari and back while I remained on the ground! Space travel slows time; light speed travel slows time considerable less. From my research the only way to ‘cheat’ the space time process is to build a ship of humongous proportions; the size of a Jovian moon for lack of a better example. For more information go ‘to time dilation explained’ on your search engine.
The Alcubierre drive or warp drive is purely theoretical. To propel an A-Drive vehicle through space at faster than light speed some scientists suggest placement of tachyons another hypothetical particle that moves faster than light (See: www.planet-tachyon.com) along the route before your trip. Your ship will act like a train traveling along a designated route though less than light speed. Before NASA, the European Space Agency or the private sector plan construction of a warp drive ship the age old problem remains; funding; you gotta’ pay to play.
The distance between Earth and exoplanets is mind boggling. A star ship designed for deep space travel must be able to contract the space in front of it but expand space behind it; this would result in faster-than-light travel. The laws of physics are the same for everybody. As things stand it is impossible for objects to travel at light speed within the space time continuum.
For further information go to sources listed below:
• Lobo, Francisco S. N.; & Visser, Matt (2004). Fundamental limitations on ‘warp drive’ spacetimes. Classical and Quantum Gravity
• Hiscock, William A. (1997). Quantum effects in the Alcubierre warp drive spacetime. Classical and Quantum Gravity.
• Berry, Adrian (1999). The Giant Leap: Mankind Heads for the Stars.
• T. S. Taylor, T. C. Powell, Current Status of Metric Engineering with Implications for the Warp Drive—Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit, Huntsville, Alabama, 20–23 July 2003
• H. E. Puthoff, SETI, the velocity-of-light limitation, and the Alcubierre warp drive: an integrating overview.
• Amoroso, Richard L. (2011) Orbiting the Moons of Pluto: Complex Solutions to the Einstein, Maxwell, Schrodinger & Dirac Equations and Holographic wormhole drive: Philosophical breakthrough in faster than light Warp Drive technology. (Amoroso claims to have solved problems of the Alcubierre metric such as need for large negative mass energy.)
• The SS Brotherhood of the Bell by Joseph P. Ferrell
Ever wanted to visit Count Dracula’s castle? Next edition we’ll visit Romania. We’ll meet Vlad the Impaler and members of Romania’s colorful Filipino community; peace and all things good. (vamaxwell@yahoo.com)