I am a bit of a nerd when it comes to Sci-Fi. I love movies such as The
Empire Strikes Back and Stargate, and as a kid I really enjoyed
escaping reality by watching TV series like Star Trek.
To me, the idea of traveling to distant stars or planets via wormholes
or using a spacecraft, still gives me a sense of wonder. Maybe someday
we will accomplish these feats and it won’t just be in the minds of
people like George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry.
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| Could this be the concept design for our future FTL spacecraft? |
If it is going to happen, then I suppose mankind’s best efforts would come out of
NASA.
Faster than light (FTL) travel, may not be so far off in the future
after all. NASA’s Harold White has been working over the last four
years to develop a warp drive, which will allow a spacecraft to travel
at speeds faster than light. White’s team has been working on a warp
drive that would transcend space and shorten the distance between two
points. This would allow the craft to break the speed of light and
would be a spaceship with no speed limit whatsoever.
White
currently heads up NASA’s Advanced Propulsion Team. He spoke about the
concept of an FTL starship at a conference last year. His project has
reached a new level of interest this week however, when he unveiled
images of what the craft may look like. The images were created
by artist Mark Rademaker, who has based them upon White’s designs. They
show a technologically detailed spacecraft, which took more than 1,600
hours to complete.
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| Matthew Jeffries’ 1965 sketch of the Enterprise from Star Trek |
Last November in Phoenix, US at the
SpaceVision 2013 Space Conference,
White discussed his design, the concepts, and the progress that’s been
made in warp-drive development. The idea of a “space warp,” is a
loophole in the theory of general relativity, which would allow for
colossal distances to be travelled quickly, thereby reducing the travel
time from thousands of years to just days.
During his speech,
White described space warps as distant galaxies, which can bend light
around them. The idea works on a principle of bending space in front of
and behind a spacecraft. This would theoretically allow for the empty
space behind the spacecraft to expand. The result would both push and
pull it forward simultaneously.
White said at the conference,
“There’s no speed limit on the expansion and contraction of space…You
can actually find a way to get around what I like to call the 11th
commandment: Thou shall not exceed the speed of light.”
Obviously the technology to create an FTL spacecraft or the warp drive
itself, dose not exist as yet. But the artistic renderings Rademaker
created may potentially be a model for the future. White says he drew
from Matthew Jeffries’ 1965 sketches of the starship ‘Enterprise’ from
“Star Trek,” in his design, as he says parts of that ship were
mathematically accurate. He worked alongside Rademaker and graphic
designer Mike Okuda to update the mathematics and produce what he
believes to be a viable spacecraft.
