Re: Interstellar Space Travel
Space is a marvelous thing. Not only is it vast beyond human comprehension, but within it lies giant stars, beautiful planets, enormous clouds of dust and gas, and perhaps even things that we cannot yet fathom. It is no wonder so many wish to explore the stars; to travel to other worlds beyond our little slice of the universe. However, there is just one itsy-bitsy problem in the way, an annoying boundary of sorts. The universe is really, really big, and it is kind of technically impossible to travel faster than light. This essentially means that even if we were able to travel as fast as a speeding photon, it would still take many years to get anywhere, and the same amount of time to get back.
Does this mean interstellar travel in science fiction is a lie? Does that mean it would take years to transport my goods to Jita as opposed to a few minutes of auto-pilot? Perhaps not. One potential way to work around this universal boundary is warp drive technology. While warp drives currently only exist in the realms of EVE or Star Trek, they may not be as fictional as one might think.
IT'S ALL ABOUT RELATIVITY
A significant part of our understanding of modern physics is based upon a foundation formed by one of Einstein's theories, his Special Theory of Relativity. This scientific theory is the accepted physical theory for the relationship between space and time, forming the basis for many scientific models. However, the postulations of special relativity in particular presents a problem for anyone wishing to travel faster than the speed of light.
EINSTEIN'S SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY
1. The speed of light (~ 3 x 108 m/s) is constant for all observers regardless of what reference frame they are in.
2. The laws of physics must be the same for all observers who are moving with uniform velocity relative to one another.
These postulations come together along with other scientific theories to create Einstein's famed equation, E=mc2, where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light. This equation has major implications, as it equates matter with energy, the two being the same thing! Thus the energy of an object, for example as a result of its motion, will increase the mass of the object in question as well. As an object moves faster and faster, its mass will increase and become greater.
Such an effect is not noticeable in everyday life, nor are the other effects of Special Relativity such as time dilation and length contraction. This is because in order for these relativistic effects to be felt, an object has to be moving very fast, such as 10% if the speed of light or faster. If an object were to travel at velocities approaching the speed of light, its mass will increase until it reaches infinity. An object that is traveling at the speed of light will have infinite mass. But in order to move that infinitely massive object an infinite amount of energy is needed. Thus, it is physically impossible for anything to travel as fast or faster than the speed of light; at least traditionally.
WARP DRIVE MECHANICS
Warp drive technology supposedly enables "faster-than-light" travel through a loophole-of-sorts in Einstein's other theory: the General Theory of Relativity. The theory states that all matter bends the fabric of space and time, with more massive objects bending space-time more than less massive objects. This can be visualised by imagining space-time as a sheet of fabric stretched at all sides. Objects with sufficient mass, such as a soccer ball, would bend the sheet around it. One of the effects of this bending is what we call gravity, which diverges from the traditional Newtonian view that gravity is a force. Even light itself bends around objects with significant "gravity wells".
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An illustration of the effects objects have on space-time. (yorku)
The Warp Drive is based on the idea that one can manipulate space-time itself in order to travel to a far-away location that would otherwise have taken years if not decades to reach. So while one cannot travel through space faster than light, perhaps one can simply bend space and bring it closer. Space itself is flexible, having been expanding ever since the Big Bang. In theory, a spaceship, for example, would not need to physically travel faster than the speed of light in order to reach its destination within a reasonable amount of time. Instead, the spacecraft would simply bend the space around it, contracting the space in front while expanding the space behind. The spacecraft would never technically travel faster than light, and would reach its location much faster than if it had used "conventional" means.
THE ALCUBIERRE DRIVE
In May 1994, Miguel Alcubierre Moya, a Mexican theoretical physicist, proposed in a paper a possible way of circumventing the physical principle that nothing can travel faster than light. In his proposal "The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast travel within general relativity," Alcubierre described the Alcubierre drive, which would allow the creation of a bubble of "flat space" that would be driven forward by the local expansion of space-time around it. A spacecraft would be able to travel through space by contracting and expanding the space around itself, effectively allowing the spacecraft to achieve faster-than-light travel.
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A illustration of the space bending effects of a warp drive. (unsolving)
The Alcubierre drive is based on Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, namely a solution of Einstein's field equations, and relies on the existence of exotic matter with negative mass. The design of the Alcubierre warp drive would involve having a football-shape spacecraft, with a ring of exotic matter with negative mass attached to it. This ring would cause the space-time around the spacecraft to warp, though the spacecraft itself would remain in a bubble of flat space-time. In this way, the spacecraft will be unaffected by the warping effects of the ring, while also being thrust forward through space. According to Alucbierre's initial proposal, this Alcubierre warp drive would allow a spacecraft to travel at effective velocities ten times the speed of light.
The Alcubierre drive is not without its problems though, such as the fact that it can only work if exotic matter with negative mass exists, and by extension negative energy as well. Exotic mass is a term used to describe matter that deviates from the norm, the norm being the matter that composes the observable universe. Dark matter, which is poorly understood, is a type of exotic matter. Exotic matter with negative mass and negative energy is a prerequisite for the Alcubierre drive to work, but the nature of exotic matter makes it difficult to quantify and research. If exotic matter that has the exact qualities needed by the Alcubierre drive does not exist, then the entire concept would be a moot point. Alcubierre, however, did argue that the Casimir vacuum between parallel plates could be used to substitute the negative-energy requirement needed by the Alcubierre drive.
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An illustration of the Alcubierre Drive in action. (dailygalaxy)
There are other issues plaguing the Alcubierre drive, most notably the amount of energy required for it to work. Calculations regarding the Alcubierre drive showed that the energy required by the device would exceed the mass-energy density of the planet Jupiter. Needless to say, at a mass of 1.9 x 1.9 × 1027 kilograms, that is a horrific energy requirement. Though the Alcubierre drive could indeed be technically plausible in nature, the immense energy needed for it to work makes it not only impractical but impossible with modern technology.
A NEW HOPE
While the Alcubierre drive apparently necessitates enormous amounts of energy (who needs Jupiter anyways, right?) further developments on the concept may actually make it a viable idea. In recent years, subsequent calculations and adjustments to Alcubierre's inital proposal have drastically decreased the energy requirements for the Alcubiere warp drive, allowing it to run on significantly lower, and realistically possible, amounts of energy. According to Harold White of NASA's Johnson Space Center, changing the shape of the ring encircling the spacecraft causes the amount of energy needed to power the warp drive to go down.
White's calculations showed that if the shape of the ring was modified to resemble that of a rounded donut, by making it thicker and more curvy, the warp drive would only need the mass-energy of an object the size of NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft. Going from 317 times the mass of the Earth to a mass of 722 kilograms makes the Alcubierre drive much more feasible, potentially opening the way for interstellar travel in the future. Other adjustments to the concept, such as making the intensity of the space warps move in an oscillating fashion over time, can help lower the energy requirement even more so.
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The new, adjusted shape of the Alcubierre Drive. (extremetech)
So far, White's theories are currently being tested at the Johnson Space Center. There, White and his colleagues use what they refer to as a White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer (a modified Michelson-Morley interferometer that detects small perturbations in space-time) to create microscopic warps in space-time. In order to test the feasibility of the concept, White and his colleagues intend to make one of the interferometer's legs appear to be a different length than it actually is, thereby having a proof-of-concept for his theory. Though the effectiveness of their laser interferometer is still being researched, the work done with it represents one of the leading research work done on the Alcubierre drive.
HELM, WARP ONE ENGAGE!
Warp Drive technology has long been something that only exists in science fiction, with television shows such as Star Trek showing the wonders that can be reached if one could travel faster than light. At the moment, warp drive technology is only a theory; a theoretical possibility made plausible due to a quirk in the nature of space-time. No physical evidence of the feasibility of the theory has been shown, let alone any practical applications. However, similar to how nuclear energy was only a theory in the past, all it takes is one small experiment proving the theory for progress to really begin.
Though it will be a long time before NASA and other space agencies are strapping warp drives to spacecraft, the research being done on the subject shows that warp drive technology may not be impossible after all. Perhaps one day humanity will break free of the universe's physical constraint that is the speed of light, allowing our species to become a true space-faring civilization.
taken from
https://www.themittani.com/features/eve-real-warp-drives/page/0/1?nopaging=1
more fact
http://www.enthea.org/docs/Warp-Drives-Engineering.pdf
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0712.1649v6.pdf
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015936.pdf
