Warp Drive/Alcubierre drive now an actual possibity!

Discussion in 'Discussions' started by DavidB1111, Nov 29, 2012.

  1. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    http://news.discovery.com/space/warp-drive-possible-nasa-tests-100yss-120917.html

    The info is there. This is wonderful news for people like me, so I thought I share this news with you all.
    If the math and all that is right, you no longer need Jupiter's mass-energy to fuel a Alcubierre drive.

    Mind you, it's probably going to be 100 years before we get anywhere. But I'm extremely happy.
    I mean, look at this, guys, no longer are we going to be stuck on this planet and this solar system.
    If the calculations are right, at 10 times faster than the speed of light, you'd get to Alpha Centari in 1/10 the time it takes light to get here, so you'd be there in 4 months or so.

    Mars would take 3 minutes or something.

    I'm very happy for this, besides, we can get Voyager 1 masses anywhere. :) We can't just find Jupiter masses floating around anywhere. :)
    On a side note, people who believe in Nibru need to be hit with a science book. :)
     
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  2. Cream Magneto

    Cream Magneto Member

    that makes me proud as a mexican =)
     
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  3. Haldurson

    Haldurson Member

    Everyone ought to stay a bit skeptical about this -- first of all, this is very early in the research, and second, even NASA concludes that it is unlikely, because the bulk of scientific knowledge stands against it (always go to the source). It's Discovery News that is making these wild speculations, not NASA, and Discovery News has a bad record for jumping prematurely on the bandwagon for a lot of wild ideas.

    NASA really did have a project going on called the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project, where they were investigating alternative propulsion systems, including Warp drives. NASA, though, dropped all funding for the project about 4 years ago (I'm sure that NASA's own financial difficulties played a huge part in that).

    Here's a quote from NASA's website:



    That should give you a bit of an idea about what NASA would think about Discovery's recent article.
     
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  4. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    I dub thee Sir Buzzkillington. :)
    That said, I make no illusions this is going to happen anytime soon.
    Perhaps I should have gone with my original title, something mentioning within 100 years a question mark.

    But I seriously don't think it's going to be impossible. Especially since it doesn't violate any known laws of physics. The entire concept of a Warp Drive is to bend space/time itself.

    "Because the bulk of scientific knowledge stands against it" Please explain that to me. That goes against what I know about science in general. Unless I am confused.

    He already reduced to the requirements to need only the mass/energy of the Voyager 1 probe.
    I think reducing the energy requirements from Jupiter to something much smaller than that is a good first step in working on it.

    Seriously though, the fact that he's even trying a miniature experiment is a good step. There's always a reason to get excited when something this amazing gets even the first tiniest step being made towards it.

    Also, why would you trust NASA, if one scientist managed to reduce the Energy requirements, and NASA couldn't ever do that? :)
     
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  5. Haldurson

    Haldurson Member

    I used to go to science fiction conventions every year, and there were ALWAYS wild speculations sometimes by actual scientists about how you could beat the speed of light, about time travel, about all sorts of speculative things like this. Almost always they'd start out by saying that science doesn't support this "But"... In other words, they would admit that what they were about to say did not actually fit anything that was currently known to be true, but "IF" x turned out to be wrong or right, THEN just maybe you could do this or that. IT was fun but the general point would always be that everything they said was incredibly unlikely, and even if it turned out to be true, you'd be left with an impossible or near-impossible engineering problem, or that it would all be incredibly unwise or you'd die or you could only do this with elementary particles, or you'd require conditions akin to the big bang, and so on, depending on what sort of science-fictional pseudoscience they were talking about. And people (like one of my friends who I used to attend the conventions with) would leave those talks with a conviction that what those scientists were saying was that time travel was real, or that you COULD travel faster than light, or you could really build a transporter beam, or whatever. Because the human brain only hears the part of the story that they can comprehend (the non-scientific, speculative portion).

    And that's why these kinds of stories make me nervous.
     
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  6. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Could you break that into two or three paragraphs please? It all blends together, and I had to read it twice to understand it, because it kept blurring.
    Just the way my eyes and brain are wired. Nothing personal.

    And yeah, I can understand basic skepticism. I'm not trying to put you into a combine thresher over what you said. :)
    All I know is from that article, and the small amount I understand about the warp drive/Alcubierre drive, that this is possible, and yes, you and everyone else on this forum will long be dust by the time it's built, but still.
    I plan on living forever, so far, so good. :)
    Jokes aside, I know it will not happen for a very long time, but reducing the cost from a mass of Jupiter, with it's 1000 times the Earth's mass, to the cost of the Voyager 1 probe, is a hell of a first step.
    Heck, the Voyager 1 probe is only 722 kilograms, (1592 pounds). Heck of a mass difference.

    I mainly retired from this forum because I was bored of Dungeons of Dredmor. :( And I think a few people were starting to want to axe me a question with an axe.
     
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  7. Haldurson

    Haldurson Member

    Can you point me to anything from NASA that says anything about this? NASA's website, because of its downplaying of speculation, seems to contradict this story, at least in spirit. There's nothing about them even doing related research since 2008. That's my main problem right now with the story. The article that you linked to does not mention any NASA press release, just a talk about alternative propulsion systems akin to the type of speculative talks I used to attend at SF conventions. In other words, there's just some guy who apparently is off-script. Because so far as I've been able to tell, it's not something that NASA is talking about.
     
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  8. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    I mostly agree with Sir Buzzkillington. But it is fascinating to read stuff like this anyways.

    I doubt Humans will ever leave Earth and travel to another Star, much less another Earthlike planet.

    We could go to Mars, to be killed by the environment there, and to suffer a terrible death for no reason. But Earth is the only place we can exist without a hundred thousand massive scale projects to cleanup and teraform what would otherwise be a tomb.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mars

    We would need lots of water and a means to break it down into Oxygen and Hydrogen. Remember that around 99% of the fuel your body consumes for everything we do is pure Oxygen. Food is just a tiny spec of fuel for us.

    "An adult human in rest inhales 1.8 to 2.4 grams of oxygen per minute." That is from:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen

    This implies to me that one ship would be tiny, and the other a massive Water Jug in space.
     
  9. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Guys, whoa. I think there's been a breakdown somewhere.
    First: The article mentions that this scientist did manage to reduce the fuel cost of a warp drive to the mass of the Voyager 1 probe. That's undisputed. They're not going to make things up in this article. That's not even how Fox News would do it. :)
    Did you read the article? It covers its bases pretty well. There's no reason to think it's fake at all. I'm shocked that anyone would completely dismiss it out of hand. :(

    Nothing here has anything to do with NASA at all. You brought it up first, Halderson. That NASA once worked on this project.
    NASA is not the only people allowed to work on the Alcubierre drive. So, why can't a person, by himself, not connected to NASA in any way, not be allowed to actually advance scientific progress? Even by a tiny amount.

    I really don't get this. Why can't you both be happy that someone is doing a miniature scale experiment? I thought you both would find this exciting. That's why I shared it with you.

    I'm just pointing out that Discovery News Article.
    I don't see what the big deal is here.
    He hasn't even begun the very small scale experiment. You're both treating this like I said the Alcubierre was being made today. I'm not.

    I'm simply sharing something I thought was amazing. I don't know why everyone has to go and destroy it? :(

    Omni, Terraforming Mars is a really complicated process. It's not necessary to terraform it for a trip there for one group of people. That would be a tremendous waste of money
    I really don't see why you think we can't get off the Earth. We will destroy ourselves if we cannot.

    That's not for this topic though.

    Why pick on Discovery News. It's not Fox News. :p
     
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  10. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    The wind on Mars may have relatively amazing speed, but bear in mind the atmosphere is thin enough that that would be less than a 1 MPH wind here on Earth. And the Cyanide and Formaldehyde there would be many times more deadly to any seal we could make for flexible parts of suits than it is here.

    "The atmospheric pressure on the Martian surface averages 600 pascals (0.087 psi), about 0.6% of Earth's mean sea level pressure of 101.3 kilopascals. (14.69 psi)" (From the article linked in my previous post.)

    The radiation that breaches the atmosphere would be a million times more deadly than the wind though. We have the luxury of a nice thick atmosphere to absorb that stuff. Mars lacks a magnetosphere to absorb and deflect that though. So "Solar Winds" would be a danger too. Even a stray flare that misses the planet by a million miles would potentially be lethal to Humans there.

    But yes, buildings can be made to accommodate Humans without too much trouble.
     
  11. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Cyanide and Formaldehyde are not gasses except under a significant lack of pressure or at a very high temperature. :)
    Let's move that to another topic though, this one is going to get crowded, and I don't feel like amending the topic title with. "Also, let's talk about Mars!" :)

    Also, Omni, the winds aren't that strong because of a lack of atmosphere. The surface of Mars is flat. Kansas is flat and gets a lot of windstorms and tornadoes. :)

    And I hope Halderson isn't going to hold a grudge at me or anything.
     
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  12. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    If anyone was going to hold a grudge against you, they would have done so long ago, my friend. :)

    Lower pressure means lower resistance. Thus higher speeds are possible. But you are also right that Mars is pretty flat for the most part.

    But I will abide your request and stop blabbing about Mars. However I must ask, do you want to abandon this topic, or just get back to the root of it? Also, if it is not a total derail, where would we go if we had the means today?

    *Edit* I feel I must break my word to explain what I just said. Imagine the wind whipping you at 400 MPH here on Earth. You would be swatted like a fly. Now imagine the wind is moving just as fast, but there is one one-thousandth the pressure. You may not even notice it.

    You are a smart person, so I am sure you see where I am going with this. You would certainly need protection from the environment on Mars, but not from the windspeed.

    I will shut up on that for the moment.
     
  13. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    I'll have to look up the wind speed thing myself later. I thought it would be the same.
    As for where we'd go? Hell, probably anywhere we could. Or anywhere I could.

    I'm sorry to both you and Halderson for being a bit jumpy. My mom has surgery a week ago, and she's doing fine now. But it's been a bit hectic.
     
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  14. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    No need to apologize. We know you. :)

    Sorry to hear about your Mother having a surgery. I hope it was favorable and that she recovers quickly.

    I thought about where to go a bit and realized that the best use for this would be harvesting resources from the rest of the Galaxy. We could build mining ships with largely automated operations to collect valuable metals and rare elements for all purposes.

    We could send radio telescopes to areas far beyond where we can even see. And the different vantage point would show us things we cannot see from here, not to mention confirming possible data that is too fuzzy on the radio telescopes we already have deployed in orbit.

    We could actually build enough to survive when Sol goes into the Red Giant phase and envelopes the Earth entirely. At that point we would be entirely dependent upon this technology. But that is far better than burning to ashes.
     
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  15. mining

    mining Member

    The thing is, the mass energy of the voyager one probe is INSANE INSANE INSANE INSANE.

    https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(Mass+of+Voyager)+*+(speed+of+light)^2

    6.95×10^19 joules

    https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Tsar+Bomba

    Tsar Bomba - largest nuke ever - 2.4×10^17 joules.

    So you'd need 200 of the largest atomic bomb just to provide this amount of energy. For reference, that's a mass of ~5000 metric megatons. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=5000+MT

    (There's also fundamental issues with the Alcubierre drive, but lets save that for another time).
     
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  16. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Well, that puts it in perspective.
    However, it's still smaller than the energy/mass of Jupiter. :)

    I still think we could figure a way to work it out eventually.
    I was thinking though that the article meant that it needed the mass of Voyager 1, which was only 776 kg.
    Not that it needed 5000 metric Megatons of mass instead.
    I mean, the original ship design with the Jupiter mass wasn't larger in size or mass than the Earth. :) So, something seems weird here.
    Especially according to you, that shouldn't be possible. Since the mass of Jupiter is 1000 times that of the Earth give or take, and you would need many times more than that mass to convert to energy according to how we understand the formula.

    Assuming we could perfect mass to energy, which is impossible, due to several laws of reality, we would need only the 776 kg then. :) I guess I should have figured they didn't mean just the 776 kg mass.

    What do you mean it has fundamental issues? Other than time dilation I can't see any.

    Also, if we're still on this ball of rock in 5 billion years, we deserve to get burned to ashes for being lazy. :)

    I think we're going to reach beyond the stars someday. I know that much.
     
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  17. mining

    mining Member

    Mass-energy is where your issue is. We have no way to convert mass to energy with anything even remotely close to 100 to 1 efficiency, never mind 1:1 efficiency!

    Nuclear bombs are close to our best, and the largest one (perhaps not the most efficient, though) would require 5000 T of mass to provide that much energy.

    The fundamental issues with an A.D are: (weekeepeedeea, I know)

    This practice means that the solution can violate various energy conditions and require exotic matter. The need for exotic matter leads to questions about whether it is actually possible to find a way to distribute the matter in an initial spacetime which lacks a "warp bubble" in such a way that the bubble will be created at a later time. Yet another problem is that, according to Serguei Krasnikov,[5] it would be impossible to generate the bubble without being able to force the exotic matter to move at local faster than light speeds, which would require the existence of tachyons. Some methods have been suggested which would avoid the problem of tachyonic motion, but would probably generate a naked singularity at the front of the bubble.[6][7]

    Krasnikov proposed that if tachyonic matter cannot be found or used, then a solution might be to arrange for masses along the path of the vessel to be set in motion in such a way that the required field was produced. But in this case, the Alcubierre Drive vessel is not able to go dashing around the galaxy at will. It is only able to travel routes which, like a railroad, have first been equipped with the necessary infrastructure. The pilot inside the bubble is causally disconnected with its walls and cannot carry out any action outside the bubble. Thus, because the pilot cannot place infrastructure ahead of the bubble while "in transit", the bubble cannot be used for the first trip to a distant star. In other words, to travel to Vega (which is 25 light-years from the Earth) one first has to arrange everything so that the bubble moving toward Vega with a superluminal velocity would appear and these arrangements will always take more than 25 years.[5]

    A paper by José Natário published in 2002 argued that it would be impossible for the ship to send signals to the front of the bubble, meaning that crew members could not control, steer or stop the ship.[17]
    A more recent paper by Carlos Barceló, Stefano Finazzi, and Stefano Liberati makes use of quantum theory to argue that the Alcubierre Drive at faster than light velocities is impossible; mostly because extremely high temperatures caused by Hawking radiation would destroy anything inside the bubble at superluminal velocities and lead to instability of the bubble itself. These problems do not arise if the bubble velocity is kept subluminal, but exotic matter is still necessary for the drive to work.[18]
     
  18. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Ah. Okay then.
    That really does blow it out as a possibility in the next 30 thousand years or so.

    Well, that's a bit depressing.
    But still, reinventing the model to only require Voyager 1's mass is still a step in the right direction. :)
    I mean, if that scientist successfully does his miniature tests and affects local space/time, we'll be another step closer.

    I just want to get to Alpha Centari in a time span that's not measured in centuries, so sue me. :)
    Maybe Winged Diggles can take me there. :)
     
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  19. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    Yeah. Those Winged Diggles will be the way. :)

    I bet if Humans are not extinct in another 30K years, we will have a means to get to other stars.

    I have no idea what it will be, and it will likely be something that was discovered and pieced together largely by accident and experimentation. But it will happen.

    Anyone reading this, please spam the like button for mining. He did loads of work in that post. Well done. :upvote:
     
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  20. mining

    mining Member

    The big thing to remember is that recorded human history is only 3k-4k years tops.

    We can't accurately predict discoveries tens of years in advance (in the late 1800s early 1900s eminent physicists thought that physics was nearly 'complete', with relativity and quantum mechanics shaking everything up by the 1950s).

    The interesting discoveries won't be in things we've 'predicted', or 'expect'. It'll be the guy who finds out that, say, a nucleus with 170 protons provides its electrons with the energy necessary to create a two way wormhole.

    Anyway, I guess if you guys have any big questions on physics/chemistry I can probably do some digging around and look at answering them :).
     
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