US military to use warp drive for space travel

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-01-05 01:12am

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006000491,00.html

STAR Trek-style flights into space could become reality using a revolutionary form of propulsion, says a report out today.

The US military is probing the possibility of Captain Kirk-style “warp speed” using a concept called hyperdrive.

It would send craft through a new dimension and let them reach the moon in minutes.

A round trip to Mars would take five hours instead of 2½ years, according to scientists.

Their idea is to create an intense magnetic field that would produce an anti-gravity force and propel craft faster through space, New Scientist magazine reports.

However sceptics say the sci-fi is still a long way from becoming fact.

This concludes our tabloid headline of the month. In a related story, I would fuck the unholy shit out of the page 3 girl.

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-01-05 01:37am

Well, its not bad for a page 3 girl... A bit too much british skank for my tastes.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-01-05 04:45am

“warp speed” using a concept called hyperdrive.

It would send craft through a new dimension and let them reach the moon in minutes.

intense magnetic field that would produce an anti-gravity force

This is a joke, right ? Something like the Weekly World News ?

wautd · Post by **wautd** » 2006-01-05 05:01am

Five hours? But I want to get there now

[/Homer]

page 3 girl.

Blimey!

Thunderfire · Post by **Thunderfire** » 2006-01-05 05:41am

Bounty wrote: This is a joke, right ? Something like the Weekly World News ?

Just look at the source. "The Sun" is not a reliable source for news.

Raw Shark · Post by **Raw Shark** » 2006-01-05 06:35am

Bounty wrote:This is a joke, right ? Something like the Weekly World News ?

Nothing is quite like the WWN, at least not here in the States. Both are tabloid rags that present unreliable information, but the Weekly World News distinguishes itself from the competition by maintaining a hilarious ultra-right-wing put-on stance, by largely ignoring celebrity scandal in favor of conspiracy or supernatural topics, and by printing in honest, patriotic black ink on proudly nonrecycled paper.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-01-05 07:54am

Thunderfire wrote:
Just look at the source. "The Sun" is not a reliable source for news.

No, but is is a great source for daily boobies if you don't mind losing reporting integrity.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2006-01-05 09:03am

The sun is a fun read generally, not particularly stimulating but for a lunch break on a stressful job its great!

I need a thumbs up smiley...

Why would hte US military be doing this exactly? shouldn't it be NASA..

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2006-01-05 10:32am

Zac Naloen wrote:The sun is a fun read generally, not particularly stimulating but for a lunch break on a stressful job its great! :lol:

I need a thumbs up smiley... :oops:

Why would hte US military be doing this exactly? shouldn't it be NASA..

Because, if we were to take this seriously, it has a double-edged application. Yes, the space-travel aspect would be neat, but that sort of fine field control would permit a whole slew of useful Earth-based advances. Namely the production of 'anti-gravity' lifting devices, and potential technologies for shielding military materiel from attack.

A physics paper from a duplicate thread outlines the principles behind this in mind-bending, brain-exploding detail. Of course, the paper talks about generating this EM-spawned anti-gravity field for use in conventional propulsion. It postulates that a vessel might eventually achieve superluminal velocities by transitioning into a parallel-space, but that part is purely speculative, at best.

That NOS Guy · Post by **That NOS Guy** » 2006-01-05 10:42am

The page 3 girl.

Sheilds up.

Plekhanov · Post by **Plekhanov** » 2006-01-05 12:32pm

gah can't the sun get anything right? this new "hyperdrive" is clearly a starwars thing and as such will propel will propel astronauts at Solo not Kirk speeds.

nickolay1 · Post by **nickolay1** » 2006-01-05 01:12pm

I'm sure others have noticed that reaching "the moon in minutes" does not qualify as FTL.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2006-01-05 01:24pm

nickolay1 wrote:I'm sure others have noticed that reaching "the moon in minutes" does not qualify as FTL.

Yeah, but Mars in an hour is kinda getting there.

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2006-01-05 02:12pm

Ender wrote:In a related story, I would fuck the unholy shit out of the page 3 girl.

Good lord, yes. Hooah.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2006-01-05 02:12pm

Hurray for the Page 3 girl. She's pretty smoking indeed.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2006-01-05 02:37pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:
nickolay1 wrote:I'm sure others have noticed that reaching "the moon in minutes" does not qualify as FTL.
Yeah, but Mars in an hour is kinda getting there.

No, no it isn't.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2006-01-05 02:51pm

Mars at it's closest is 55.7 x 10^6 km, so that distance divided by the speed of light comes out to it taking roughly 185 seconds to get there, or a shade over three minutes at the speed of light. Of course, that's a straight line, and the planets would get further apart, so it's slightly low. Mars gets 401.3 x 10^6 klicks away at max, though you have to move in a curved line because of the sun, but even so such a trip would still be less than a half hour.

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2006-01-05 03:00pm

What the f***?!

I'm withholding further judgment until I see an article on this topic in 'Popular Science' or 'Aviation and Space Weekly'.

Metatwaddle · Post by **Metatwaddle** » 2006-01-05 04:37pm

Don't hold your breath. They're talking out of their asses.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-01-05 04:55pm

Sidewinder wrote:What the f***?!

I'm withholding further judgment until I see an article on this topic in 'Popular Science' or 'Aviation and Space Weekly'.

I'd not worry about Popular Science, they tend to print a lot of crap also, from what I hear. Same with Pop. Mech.

Prozac the Robert · Post by **Prozac the Robert** » 2006-01-05 04:59pm

There is an article on newscientist.com in the subscription only section. I could post it here if the mods think it's ok? Or perhaps a few quotes would be ok if the whole thing isn't?

It goes into a bit more theory, originaly from a bloke named Heim and later adapted by another guy whose name I can't remember anymore. Most physicists questioned by new scientist had never heard of the theory. The guys who they showed the theory to generally found it complicated and incomplete, but apparently Heim's earlier work on the subject is very good at predicting properties of elementary particles that can't be predicted by the standard model. Nothing by either of the guys seems to available in my university's online library catalogue.

(Shouldn't this be in SLAM?)

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2006-01-05 06:24pm

Admiral Valdemar wrote:
Sidewinder wrote:What the f***?!

I'm withholding further judgment until I see an article on this topic in 'Popular Science' or 'Aviation and Space Weekly'.
I'd not worry about Popular Science, they tend to print a lot of crap also, from what I hear. Same with Pop. Mech.

And assuming that was meant to be Aviation Week and Space Technology, there's a reason it's been spoofed as Aviation Weak and Spaced Technology.

That said, I do recall an article in Popular Science about NASA investigating FTL propulsion back in 1999. I no longer have that copy of the magazine, but NASA does have a series of pages up about the potential of FTL propulsion, looking primarily at wormholes and the Alcubierre negative energy drive.

Steel · Post by **Steel** » 2006-01-05 06:25pm

Just a small question, wont this drive, no matter how cleverly you use it to generate thrust, need you to supply enough energy equal to the KE of your ship at 0.3 or whatever speed you get to?

Otherwise screw the moon, i'll use it to accelerate water molecules to boil water and set up my own power station, around it, and use the free energy loop to create limitless free energy

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2006-01-05 07:04pm

weemadando wrote:Well, its not bad for a page 3 girl... A bit too much british skank for my tastes.

British skank is exotic for those of us in the states. Hell yeah I'd hit it.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-01-05 07:16pm

I put this here because I have no faith in its accuracy, thus my choice of OT rather then SLAM. The fact that there are other sites backing it (I figured they made it up, ALA "Batboy to assassinate Sadaam!") is interesting.

Even if a tiny tidbit of this is feasible, and we can on;y get an extremely low acceleration reactionless drive out of it though, it is really world changing. A reactionless drive would open the stars to us; particularily if you can get a useful acceleration out of it.

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US military to use warp drive for space travel

US military to use warp drive for space travel

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