How NASA might build its very first warp drive
George Dvorsky
A few months ago, physicist Harold White stunned the aeronautics world when he announced that he and his team at NASA had begun work on the development of a faster-than-light warp drive. His proposed design, an ingenious re-imagining of an Alcubierre Drive, may eventually result in an engine that can transport a spacecraft to the nearest star in a matter of weeks — and all without violating Einstein's law of relativity.

io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-build-its-...?tag=Daily-explainer

^{thanks to Contracycle}

The link wasn't right mikey... fixed it now

Wery interestink

If we ever did make such a device it would be quite the game changer.
I wonder if ryanair will try and buy the patent lol.

I think that's the last thing the human race needs...something like a warp drive. As if we don't kill each off fast enough, now we have to do it "faster than the speed of light".

Which reminds me, haven't they already broken the speed of sound with Aurora (I think it was that one), from Nevada to New York in less than 10 minutes or some shit like that?

Edit: Passing thought here... NASA probably already has a warp drive, but now they wanna use it, so they have to tell the public they're starting work on it

We can't even get the buses running on time, but they're building a warp drive...yeah right

We're not quite ready for meeting other races I don't think...or maybe we are...fuck knows. It's interesting though...I read yesterday on yahoo news, some guy wants to make a colony of 80,000 on Mars. Warp drive, colony on Mars...hmmm

StarsChildren wrote:
Well, if we can warp space behind and in front of a vessel we can in theory transport huge volumes of raw materials from anywhere in the solar system at ridiculous speed and very little cost.
This would mean an end to war over resources although I can see there being a new war for control of this technology, most likely by the private sector.

The patent quip above although jokingly made is probably all too scarily real when you consider the likes of Apple of Monsanto who would sure as hell give it a go.

andyh wrote:
Who says we have any right to harvest raw materials off of other planets? Because we don't, we fucked up our own planet, we should have to live with the consequences and not destroy another world.

Human's don't have any right to leave this planet, not advanced enough, not smart enough, not moral enough... until we do achieve enlightenment (not just a few, but everyone), our asses should be glued here. I'm sorry, but just because we fucked up here doesn't give us any right to go somewhere else to try and keep living...humans destroy ecosystems and wipe out life, we're a parasite on anything we touch.

Sounds like 'Planet Cracking' for real

"Planet Crack is a term used to describe when a planet is literally split open to be mined for valuable resources. It is known that a large chunk is broken off with powerful lasers, and then brought inside a "Planet Cracker"-class ship via gravity tethers where it is then stripped and its ore content is studied. The USG Ishimura, owned by the Concordance Extraction Corporation, is the original and consistently largest of the planet crackers. Mining Vessels use gravity tethers to pull massive sections of the planet up to be processed from within the vessel's mining deck."
deadspace.wikia.com/wiki/Planet_Crack

StarsChildren wrote:
/shrugs
No-one says we don't have a right to it anymore than we do have a right to it.
Its there, so if its put to decent use, why not?

The same argument you applied can be used in reverse if you see what I mean. Its pointless to think about it tbh.
As far as I'm concerned our purpose in life is to evolve and expand. We're just playing about in the nursery at the moment.
There's no reason why we can't mature anymore than there's a reason stating that we will stay static.

I see your point Andy... I think humans need to learn to take care of what they've got and appreciate every small detail before they go wanting more, and expanding into territories they are not native to.

StarsChildren wrote:
Yep, and perhaps nature intended us to do precisely just that, expecting us to have matured to a more responsible point when we do come across the technology to leave the Earth having spent enough time here learning some harsh lessons perhaps.
I hope so anyway!

I don't know why anyone is thinking this is possible, it's only an idea
it's not possible to warp spacetime on a large enough scale to affect a spaceship
no-one knows what the effect of warping spacetime would be on the aging of the occupants or the structural integrity of a spacesship
this is so theoretical that you might as well be talking about the transporter devices star trek uses, although ironically unlike warping spacetime that has already been done experimentally. (on a subatomic scale)