The Alcubierre Drive

[Hex535]

The Alcubierre Drive is an FTL preposition that works by negating the mass of an object, and moving space around it to ensure it's arrival at a faster-than-light speed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

What's really funny is, it would seem this is what the entire Mass Effect game franchies is bassed around, and the Mass Effect is literally the negating of Mass for construction, travel, and functionality. It even works with it's own Exotic matter called Element Zero, deeming the plausibility even further.

So who thinks we still have a chance of finding the right exotic matter to make our drive work?

[Arnox]

Eh, methinks there would be a host of other problems we'd run into before we could actually use this for space travel. For example, doesn't traveling at light speed alone reduce you to pure energy? And even if we did get it to work, it may be insanely expensive to do anyway. Just look at how expensive it is to produce antimatter.

[lnfinityshock]

'the metric of this form has significant difficulties because all known warp-drive spacetime theories violate various energy conditions'

'...the energy requirements for some warp drives may be unfeasibly large as well as negative. For example, the energy equivalent of −1064 kg might be required[19] to transport a small spaceship across the Milky Way galaxy—an amount orders of magnitude greater than the estimated mass of the observable universe.'

yea...this idea is feasible.

[Hex535]

I just thought it was cool that we have the closes thing to a 'true' Mass Effect drive. I really do want to see humanity make it off the planet in my lifetime, maybe get a space colony going or a planetary colony maybe someday. this is one of the ways to do it right here if we could ever make it work.

Plus this forum section had no posts in it and I thought this would be a cool topic to kick it off with.

[lnfinityshock]

Humanity already has left the planet...its called the ISS

doing anything in space is too expensive and the governments would rather waste their money in ways that are easier to skim the money off of

[oppenheimmer]

i have seen no mention off the improbability drive?

and yes hax i too dream off colony's thou out space, but i do believe in aliens and i believe as soon as we have the ability to travel far distances in space they will turn up mostly likely to greet us and welcome us to the UN off space but being the self destructive cancer's we are, we'll end up having all trace off us wiped from existence cause we will launch nukes at something that can survive deep space

That being said i know they are developing rail guns to counter this problem, but seeing as the currant prototype is housed in a building the size off 3 footy pitches, they will have to invade at the right angle to the planet got a clean shot = more billions wasted on pointless shit 

[GothicSeraph]

So who thinks we still have a chance of finding the right exotic matter to make our drive work?

Just going to point out Professor Farnsworth has done this but is called a Dark Matter Engine.... and instead moves the universe instead of the object... after all in 2208 they raised the speed of light so they could go faster.

Futurama Physics and history ftw.

[GreenCore]

Ok this principal of moving space around an object is definatly the answer to the cosmic speed limit because space itself is not bound by it. As far as removing the mass of an object you would first have to eliminate the Higgs Field or at least the effect it has on the particles of said object, then you would have to devise a way to keep the particles in tact or manifest in some way. Being we are moving space not the object removing its mass wouldt be nessasary.

[GothicSeraph]

Ok this principal of moving space around an object is definatly the answer to the cosmic speed limit because space itself is not bound by it. As far as removing the mass of an object you would first have to eliminate the Higgs Field or at least the effect it has on the particles of said object, then you would have to devise a way to keep the particles in tact or manifest in some way. Being we are moving space not the object removing its mass wouldt be nessasary.

[crazzyass]

The idea is fascinating but the "exotic matter" required is something that can produce negative gravity - that is, expands space-time instead of contracting/curving it.


So you would have regular ol' gravity in front of you contracting space and negative gravity behind you, expanding space.

It would push you forward, despite the fact that you aren't really moving relative to space; just the bubble of space itself is moving.

Some new calculations showed that it doesn't require nearly as much energy as anyone thought to move objects though, of course, the idea of negative gravity thus far is completely ludicrous.

This is probably our best bet for FTL travel within the next 200 years or so. Traveling via wormholes seems even more problematic - equally exotic matter is needed to stabilize them. Plus, in my view, you would need to have already visited a point in space you wanted to tunnel to. So you could create highways for later explorers, but you couldn't explore with that technology.