A Warp Drive Is Within Our Reach, Apparently.

[Spartan Altego]

not even going to continue this from the "we are gods kneel before us" and that "who wants to spend 20 years" comments...

So you've basically replied to contribute absolutely nothing? You might as well not said anything at all. It's quite obvious you haven't the slightest clue what you're talking about anyways. Not attempting to be rude, but let's be honest here.

We'd conquer the Universe, I'm fairly sure.

Unless we come across, like, the Covenant or something. Then we'd be more or less boned. I could see us conquering a fair bit of the universe, however. A few dozen Galaxies, star systems. But there's a good chance we run into a bigger and badder race than us and get curbstomped.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Yeah, if we found out that another species exits and it's inferior to us it's highly likely that we will loot, burn , pillage and enslave them.

We can't even get along with ourselves.

Quoted for truth.

We all know how many movies and books center around humanity's encounter with The Ultimate Badass From Beyond The Stars. I've read a couple books where humanity IS the badass.

The Posleen series isn't actually very good but it starts in a fantastic way. Aliens land on the White House lawn and say, "We are part of a federation of 200+ planets surrounding Earth. We are only contacting you because we are being invaded by a totally hostile force that never negotiates, never takes prisoners. We have been pacifists for hundreds of thousands of years. We have no weapons, no soldiers, no tactics, and no killer instinct. We are being slaughtered by the billions. We have mastered entire branches of science you humans don't even have names for. We will put every scrap of it to work for you.....if you just please kill these guys for us."

 

[Zen Bard]

Um...no.

Sometimes the science made some sort of sense, sometimes they used real scientific terms in a reasonably accurate sense, other times they threw random technobabble at the screen.

Think we're saying the same thing. Trek tech made some sort of scientific sense because they were based on scientific principles corresponding to accepted modern physics theory...at least at the time.

Seriously, engage a physicist in a conversation about "Star Trek" science and they're more likely to get into a thought experiment than tell you to go pound sand.

But yeah...technobabble on the show is just that.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA I am one step closer to reaching my ultimate goal.
Colonizing Uranus.

 

[AlexWinter]

We all know how many movies and books center around humanity's encounter with The Ultimate Badass From Beyond The Stars. I've read a couple books where humanity IS the badass.

The Posleen series isn't actually very good but it starts in a fantastic way. Aliens land on the White House lawn and say, "We are part of a federation of 200+ planets surrounding Earth. We are only contacting you because we are being invaded by a totally hostile force that never negotiates, never takes prisoners. We have been pacifists for hundreds of thousands of years. We have no weapons, no soldiers, no tactics, and no killer instinct. We are being slaughtered by the billions. We have mastered entire branches of science you humans don't even have names for. We will put every scrap of it to work for you.....if you just please kill these guys for us."

That. Sounds. Awesome. Disappointing that it wasn't very good overall.

Who wrote it, might I ask?

OT: I'm not going to get excited about this because even if it does turn out to be possible - which I'm very sceptical of considering the way the article is written - because it won't be ready even nearly within my life.

However I know that eventually we will be able to star-skip whenever we want because we're just so damn determined.

There won't be any enslaving or slaughtering however if we are the smarter race it's likely we'll rob their planet of most of its resources... Then again maybe by that point we will have developed a better energy system.

 

[talker]

I don't believe in alien lifeformes . But if they did exist , they would probably be more intelligent than us or are the very least more united and structured . That being said , if hypothetically , we were the more intelligent of the two races , it would be most likely to be hostiles , if only because we would be unable to communicate with each other . Hell we can't even get along with orselves. Thus leading me to believe we would attack them , but be wiped out due to the lack of unity . Assuming we are on their home turf .

but if we are technologically superior then we technically don't need to be wiped out. we can use our technologically superior technology to blow their technologically inferior technology out of the sky. technically.

i LOVE that word

 

[Something Amyss]

Here's the scoop:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49064028/ns/technology_and_science-space/

And I squeed audibly.

This, however, did give me a rather interesting thought...lets assume that all the UFO stories are "fake". That is to say, they're not alien crafts, but rather just super-secret military test-flights of super-secret aircraft.

Common belief. It seems unlikely that, with all the places they could test, they would choose such observable places like most of the major sightings.

Well what if that's a load of bullshit? What if we go out there and find that there is other intelligent life out there, societies and races we can only imagine...yet WE'RE the ones who are technologically superior to them. In fact, it turns out that humanity is the top species in the galaxy. What do you think would happen to us as a people and society should we one day find out that we're the dominant species in the galaxy?

Now that's quite interesting. The first thought I had would be that we would see Pocahontas in space. I suppose kind of like Avatar, but with a much larger scope of manifest destiny.

Personally, judging by the history of advanced cultures meeting more primative ones here on our planet, I honestly don't think we'd be very neighborly...

Depends on how you define "neighbourly." After all, "the White Man's burden" was once considered very neighbourly.

>.>

 

[Something Amyss]

But if they did exist , they would probably be more intelligent than us or are the very least more united and structured .

Why? I mean, seriously. Why would they more likely be more advanced/structured simply by virtue of existing?

 

[cerebus23]

Or the first planet we find we land on and die out to some super bacteria or virus, alien microbes would probably be the most dangerous thing out there for any off world species.

Even better war of the worlds style where we start the invasion are kicking the crap out of the helpless buggers and we all die off from their version of the common cold. karma is a *****.

I will give rodenberry trek many props for lest trying to get the technobabble in context and in some kinda proper usage. after the man died that show went to hell, and the newest trek was mind numbing from a techobabble being used wrong kinda way. they could not even get the decks right on the ships after rodenberry checked out, or know what elevator went where in the ships.

 

[Vigormortis]

warp (faster then light travel) PHYSICALLY impossible itll never happen unless einstein gets proven wrong which he wont. if wormholes get proven to existance then maybe that way but ftl travel is impossible even to put in perspective it would take like 100 thousand years at light speed to get from one of the galaxy to the other let alone other galaxies it would take over a year at light speed to get to the nearest star aswell and about 20 years to the nearest possibly habitable planet

There are a lot of presumptions in your post.

Firstly, faster than light travel is theoretically possible. Hell, Einstein himself theorized several ways, including wormholes.

A common misconception is that Einsteins theories of relativity prove that nothing can travel faster than light. This is false. What they prove is that nothing can accelerate to light speed or beyond. There is a difference.

Secondly, the ideas of warp drives and other faster-than-light travel methods aren't just the crazy ramblings of sci-fi writers. They are often the very real theories of very intelligent physicist. Like in the case of this particular news item. You should read the article before jumping to any conclusions.

Now, for clarity's sake, a few corrections. (It's kind of dickish of me, but sometimes I can't help myself. My apologies.)

The Milky Way is roughly one-hundred thousand light-years across. So, at light speed, it would take one-hundred thousand years just to cross our galaxy, let alone go to other galaxies.

Speaking of which, the closest large galaxy to us (not counting dwarf galaxies that orbit our galaxy, like the large and small Magellanic Clouds), is Andromeda. It is a little over 2.5 million light years away. Ergo, at light speed, it would actually take 2.5 million years to get there.

Our closest neighboring star, it's approximately 4.24 light years away, resulting in a 4.24 year travel time at light speed.

As for the closet habitable planet, well...that distinction actually belongs to Mars. But since we're talking extra-solar planets, we honestly can't say. There could be habitable worlds around Alpha Centauri, there could be ones farther out. We just don't know yet.

So one could be within 5 light years. Or, there may be no other habitable worlds for hundreds of light years. We just don't know yet.

 

[Basement Cat]

While studying biology back in college I wrote a short story with the title "The Impossible Conquest of Paradise".

It was a take on "The War of the Worlds", this time from humanity's point of view when visiting alien worlds.

Different star systems with different planets will have different native microbial populations. Because we'd lack the inherited resistance we enjoy on earth because we evolved here and have been exposed to countless pathogens over the ages landing on alien worlds would be insanely dangerous.

Basically every extraterrestrial world with alien life on it, even if it's only bacterial level, would be a Level 4 Hot Zone. And our native microbes would be hostile to the alien life forms as well.

So even if we come up with interstellar travelling capability--even Warp drive--we're not going to be able to "beam down" and take in the local fruits or do some hunting for lunch.

So much for Star Trek.

 

[Johnny Impact]

That. Sounds. Awesome. Disappointing that it wasn't very good overall.

Who wrote it, might I ask?

John Ringo.

The main series goes A Hymn Before Battle, Gust Front, When the Devil Dances, Hell's Faire. There are six or eight more books of side stories.

Ringo has some good ideas. His problem is his writing is poorer than most other scifi authors I've read. His prose doesn't flow and his characters seem flat. I didn't care much about the plotlines either -- we blow aliens up in one place, they blow us up in another, humans get some new weapons, massive pointless carnage and literal rivers of blood, rinse and repeat. It all blurs after a while.

He's also a little too in love with the military, by which I mean American Earth military. He must have been in the service at some point.

 

[Vigormortis]

Released merely days after the Steam game FTL was released...coincidence?

To be honest, this sounds like magic to me. MIT voodoo. But then, so does everything more advanced than a kettle...can anyone with some science knowledge tell me, yay or nay whether this is legit?

The simple answer is, it's theoretically legit. The issue is really a matter of specifics and logistics.

For example, the scientists in the article have shown that, huzzah!, it's technically possible to bend space-time, with much less energy than originally thought (but still quite vast), in such a way as to allow a craft to travel faster than light.

The question then is, just how in the flippity hell do we bend space-time like that and how do we generate those vast levels of energy? (and that's just two, over-simplified questions on the matter)

So again, theoretically "legit". Just...logistically unfeasible at the moment.

captcha: nobody home
Well then, apparently Captcha thinks I'm a moron. Guess you should disregard my post.

 

[Zen Toombs]

I don't believe in alien lifeformes.

Really? You do realize there are about as many stars in the galaxy as there are grains of sand on all of the beaches of Earth, and planets are even more common. There are so many that it would actually be all but impossible for there to NOT be life outside Earth.

Mind you, it does not follow from that argument that there are alien species above Earth right now, in process of abducting aliens and anally probing random humans.

You see all this sci-fi stuff, well it turns out that humanity may be the Vulcans, the Asari. We are the ancient race that discovers younger civilisations

Every sci-fi show was right all along! Humans ARE superior!

 

[Tippy]

10x light speed? WAY too slow, it would still take hundreds of years to get anywhere respectable. It would take over 4 months just to travel to our next-door star (Alpha Centauri), which the equivalent of traveling like...a tenth of a millimeter if our galaxy was as big as the US. Way, way too slow.

Yes I'm aware that time will probably stop (or even go backwards) for the people inside the spacecraft, but that doesn't change the fact that time will pass normally for everyone else outside the spacecraft (e.g. the people waiting back on earth), all relevant people will have long since died by the time said spacecraft returns.

Also you can't call this a "warp drive", the original idea behind the warp drive was something that could travel enormous distances in space via a wormhole. So thousands of lightyears could essentially be made instantaneous by traveling through a hole in space-time.

 

[Pfheonix]

Here's the scoop:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49064028/ns/technology_and_science-space/

Now, aside from the fact that I had heard about this a few months ago on a National Geographic show, it's still pretty neat to think that we're actually experimenting with stuff like this.

This, however, did give me a rather interesting thought...lets assume that all the UFO stories are "fake". That is to say, they're not alien crafts, but rather just super-secret military test-flights of super-secret aircraft. Tying this back into the notion of developing a warp drive, suppose we do and go out to explore the galaxy. Now, pretty much all scenarios of a First Contact situation seem to be of the assumption that whatever we find out there will be much more advanced than us.

Well what if that's a load of bullshit? What if we go out there and find that there is other intelligent life out there, societies and races we can only imagine...yet WE'RE the ones who are technologically superior to them. In fact, it turns out that humanity is the top species in the galaxy. What do you think would happen to us as a people and society should we one day find out that we're the dominant species in the galaxy?

Personally, judging by the history of advanced cultures meeting more primative ones here on our planet, I honestly don't think we'd be very neighborly...

Inb4 religious zealotry: Religious Zealotry.

We're going to try to convert them, then we'll systematically rape them of their resources, then we'll take their planet after killing them. Oh, and did I mention the slavery? Yes. Slavery. ALL OF THE SLAVERY.

 

[Basement Cat]

That. Sounds. Awesome. Disappointing that it wasn't very good overall.

Who wrote it, might I ask?

John Ringo.

The main series goes A Hymn Before Battle, Gust Front, When the Devil Dances, Hell's Faire. There are six or eight more books of side stories.

Ringo has some good ideas. His problem is his writing is poorer than most other scifi authors I've read. His prose doesn't flow and his characters seem flat. I didn't care much about the plotlines either -- we blow aliens up in one place, they blow us up in another, humans get some new weapons, massive pointless carnage and literal rivers of blood, rinse and repeat. It all blurs after a while.

He's also a little too in love with the military, by which I mean American Earth military. He must have been in the service at some point.

I love Ringo's work. His 'Legacy of the Aldenata' series, aka "The Posleen Wars" is a great read, but it's more for people who dig military sci-fi than just straight forward sci-fi. And he has a great sense of dark humor bubbling throughout his works. I suggest it to anyone who enjoys good sci fi--but start with the first book: A Hymn Before Battle. Good stuff.

Oh, and yeah, he was a military man. He was in the 82 Airborn Division. Yep, Airborne. That's what gives his stories the "realistic" touch so many other writers lack when writing about the military. And he's funnnnnyyyyy!

 

[deleted_by_strongbad]

Assuming we get to the point where we are exploring and we do encounter another species, I think that unless that species is equal or superior to us that there is a very good chance we won't acknowledge it as intelligent if they have resources that we want, if they don't they will probably just be forgotten except for shows on the Discovery: Galaxy channel.

In all honesty, if one of those DARPA synthetic-intelligent life programs went haywire and we unleashed a steel plaque upon the universe I would be more optimistic about the future of life here than us going to the stars.

 

[Redingold]

Now hold on here, the energy requirements aren't the only thing wrong with an Alcubierre drive.

There's also the problem that is has to be negative energy, which we have no idea how to produce (you can do fancy things with lasers to create small-scale effects in space-time which have similar properties, but these don't scale well). There's also the problem that once we've collected this matter, you can't shape it into the right shape without it travelling faster than light on local scales, according to work done by Sergei Krasnikov. This requires the existence of tachyons, which don't necessarily exist.

Furthermore, it has been suggested that Hawking radiation formed by the bubble would destroy anything placed inside it while the bubble moved at FTL speeds. The exotic matter also has to be compressed into a shell that is extremely thin, only a few thousand Planck lengths. Finally, it turns out that when such a warp drive is functional, the front becomes causally disconnected from the back, which means the signals cannot traverse the length of the ship and so the ship cannot be steered nor the warp drive turn off.

In short, don't get all excited over this, there are still many, many problems to be sorted out.

 

[Allthingsspectacular]

Not gonna happen. Because the great filter.

We will inevitably destroy ourselves before we are ever able to travel the stars. Mother nature wouldn't be that stupid.

http://io9.com/great-filter/

Given the rise of cybernetics, I don't think this is true at all.