Updated: NASA Shows Off Gorgeous Concept for a Real-Life Enterprise

[zehydra]

How could they possibly come up with an appropriate design for a ship when they don't even have the design for the drive? It's like picking a box to hold books in, but you have no idea how exactly how many books you're actually going to be putting in it.

You design the box for the amount of books you WANT. Picking a design for space travel to meet the needs of the crew, for energy, for moving around period (maneuvering), etc. is as important as the drive. The most you're worrying about in terms of drive when outlining the ship is where to put it when it's done.

My point was, its very possible they could design a ship and then find out that there's no room in the current design to allow for the drive (because they didn't know the details of how it would work + how big it is).

They can continue to work on the design of meeting the needs of the crew in general, but I would think you should wait to design the ship itself once you know the exact sizes of what you're dealing with.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

Warp drive vessel design: Check!

Remotely feasible warp drive design: ...

Even theoretically possible warp drive design that doesn't require not only new technology, but new physics: ...

About sixty years ago, some very smart people thought that it would never be feasible to build computers smaller than an a house.

Rule 1 of Science: Science is wrong.

This is what scientists are working to fix. To turn our lack of knowledge into knowledge.

If any scientist claims to know science, they're a bad scientist.

 

[RicoADF]

This needs to be a thing. Before I die. Please.

Also, IXS?! That's only one S off from ISS, or.. the Terran Empire! That does not inspire confidence..

X is used for eXperimental, so I would guess it stands for International eXperimental Ship Enterprise.

 

[Remus]

but what are its weapons capabilities?

During deceleration the mammoth amounts of energy and exotic matter in the bubble are released in violent energy flares directly ahead of the ship.

So, explosive forcefield energy projection. That doesn't sound like it could be weaponized at all.

 

[RA92]

snip

You are so clueless, it hurts. Private sector? Do you think the private sector will put anywhere the amount of money NASA puts for pure scientific research that isn't about putting a satellite payload in orbit? And anyway, as for private sectors, who do you think NASA is working with to realize their CCDev project? Ever heard of Blue Origin, Paragon Space Development, Sierra Nevada Corporation, United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, etc? All private companies NASA works with. And because NASA scientists have an inkling on mission parameters and requirements, they don't dole out money based on lobbying. And NASA has nothing to show for in the last two decades? Did you just miss how we sent 3 rovers on Mars? Do you see any private institution doing that, purely for research purposes?

 

[FalloutJack]

How could they possibly come up with an appropriate design for a ship when they don't even have the design for the drive? It's like picking a box to hold books in, but you have no idea how exactly how many books you're actually going to be putting in it.

You design the box for the amount of books you WANT. Picking a design for space travel to meet the needs of the crew, for energy, for moving around period (maneuvering), etc. is as important as the drive. The most you're worrying about in terms of drive when outlining the ship is where to put it when it's done.

My point was, its very possible they could design a ship and then find out that there's no room in the current design to allow for the drive (because they didn't know the details of how it would work + how big it is).

They can continue to work on the design of meeting the needs of the crew in general, but I would think you should wait to design the ship itself once you know the exact sizes of what you're dealing with.

To which my point is that unless it's like completely ridiculous in shape and size, they can probably attach it properly. Yes, it IS rocket science, but these are the rocket scientists. A little faith, please.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Hm. This sounds familiar.

Are we quite certain it's not going to leap outside the known universe and into another dimension, a "dimension of pure chaos, pure evil?" I'm just sayin', if it returns in a decaying orbit around Neptune do not board to search for survivors.

And if you value your eyes, for God's sake do not decode and watch the ship's log!

 

[Strazdas]

well, this design is much better than Enterprise. a dist is not good in a firefight. its a big easy target. you want a cilinder or a ball (or a square - borgs almost got it right, deathstar is even more efficient though). that way even if they fire and hit you they only damage the outer layer and cant split your ship in two.

FIrst order of business. FIre everyone at NASA and and close the space program down for 20 years.
Next. All the funds that would have gone into NASA sink it into training teachers and building more schools.
Next. The firstwave graduates are placed and allocated to key areas to create the new maths, materials, biochemistry and compueters needed for the lofty goals.
Lastly Restart NASA.

so shut down the most profitable institution in history? especially when instead we can take the exact same money from military budget and they would not even feel it how much money they spend. thats some good plan you got.

Shall I list the technology they thought we would have, but don't? For I assure you, it vastly outnumbers the one technology that has surprised people with its continual improvement.

well, we can also list the technology they said we would have, and we do. such as microwaves, flat screen TVs, electric cars, artificial climate (air conditioning), ect

NASA gets about a billion dollars a year. The Pentagon gets 750 billion dollars a year.

actually in 2012 its budget was 17,770 millions. you are right though that military budget is close to a trillion every year.

Human starships will most likely be framework spheres. Peter Hamilton portrayed this quite nicely in his Neutronium Alchemist series.

this assumes humans ho go erfficiency over fasion, and we know that not even Borg managed to do that (they did a cube instead of sphere).

but what are its weapons capabilities?

dumping wartp drive every episode to distract potential enemies.

Smart ideas always seem like stupid ideas to those who lack the ability to comprehend them.

likewise stupid ideas can sound like smart ideas to same people.

There's a reason the military is always very well funded in every country

is there a reason you just lied? because no, its not.

Yeah because NASA has soooo much to show for itself

Most useful inventions in economic, politic and social sense in human history is quite a lot to show i think.

 

[vallorn]

i'd be happier if it was a design to tour the solar system using actually existing technology (ion drive, nuke reactor etc).

i've been hoping/calling for a ship like that for years...

We could always work on the Orion drive again.

For those not in the know, the Orion drive is a drive where you eject nuclear weapons behind the ship and detonate them, catching the emitted energy in the back of your ship and propelling you forwards, releasing the weapons faster and faster to accelerate towards the speed of light in a vacuum.

The theory behind the technology is completely sound and doesn't require exotic matter or 'negative energy' to accelerate the ship and while it can't go super luminal it is still a highly efficient possibility for deep space travel, however the technology has been on ice for decades due to the Partial Test Ban treaty of 1963 which banned orbital tests of nuclear weapons.

Hm. This sounds familiar.

Are we quite certain it's not going to leap outside the known universe and into another dimension, a "dimension of pure chaos, pure evil?" I'm just sayin', if it returns in a decaying orbit around Neptune do not board to search for survivors.

And if you value your eyes, for God's sake do not decode and watch the ship's log!

Eyes? Where we're going we won't need eyes to see... I have such wonderful, wonderful things... to show you...

 

[CloudAtlas]

Edit - on topic:
That is a beautiful, functional space ship design (functional in the sense that it would work within whatever real and 'fictional' rules (i.e. warp drives) the design had to follow).
Not the stupid crap you get in all too many sci fi shows/movies/games with all these spaceship designs that couldn't even fly (accelerate) straight.

Also many seem to forget the one interesting thing they're saying. They don't care if humans reach space they want AMERICA to reach space and get out there. COme on you think NASA is the ONLY space agency in the world. It may *currently* be one of the best buuut the others have been catching up quickly. So shutting down NASA wouldn't hurt things much, and shunting it to education would only ensure that this other international agencies will be hiring your freshly trained scientists.

Of course this brings up the whole issue of getting into space. We we're like 3 year olds with rifles. Capable of figuring out how stuff works and using the tool but no where near mature enough to know when we shouldn't. We have other problems that need to be fixed before space. Otherwise we'd just be taking all our petty fights, divisions, bigotries, and insecurities and taking them to orbital missile platforms/space stations.

Seems to have worked well enough with the ISS so far. You know, the one big international space project that already exists.

If we got the space agencies that already do work together here, and give them the proper funding, we'd probably be able to reach Mars and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn soon enough. That would be a big, inspiring moment for humankind, similar to the moon landing.

 

[RandoUser]

Hm. This sounds familiar.

Are we quite certain it's not going to leap outside the known universe and into another dimension, a "dimension of pure chaos, pure evil?" I'm just sayin', if it returns in a decaying orbit around Neptune do not board to search for survivors.

I FEEL THE WARP OVER TAKING ME!

OT: Sounds pretty awesome, hopefully nothing goes wrong. Also hope to see something amazing happen in my lifetime if they get this working.

Mankind will finally recognise the True Powers, For the Dark Gods!

And Terra will finally become a Daemon World!

GLORY TO CHAOS UNDIVIDED!

 

[Nomad]

You can tell the number of hippies on this forum, by how often the idea of 'take money from the millitary comes up. Seriously. Do you know any country that has done that? It's been done mind you, several times in fact. Those countries aren't around any more... their lands and resources now belong to other countries who didn't cut their military budget. So to all those who reflexively through up that suggestion... pick which foreign language you want to learn because I can promise you won't be speaking english for very long. Chinese maybe, or French.

It's not even remotely hard to find examples of massive military budget cuts. Sweden is a prime example, going off the top of my head since I happen to live there. Our chief of defence complains about this every single year, even going as far as saying we literally would not last a week against an invader. All he gets is more budget cuts.

Revolutions do not normally happen in stable democracies. Nor does war happen between stable democracies - see Democractic peace [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace]. Military warfare is overall rather insignificant these days; modern warfare is, unlike what CoD teaches, a matter of economics, culture and infrastructure. Conflict is now primarily covert, not overt, because it is more effective and less expensive. Heck, you'll probably even profit from your opponent's demise.

Also many seem to forget the one interesting thing they're saying. They don't care if humans reach space they want AMERICA to reach space and get out there. COme on you think NASA is the ONLY space agency in the world. It may *currently* be one of the best buuut the others have been catching up quickly. So shutting down NASA wouldn't hurt things much, and shunting it to education would only ensure that this other international agencies will be hiring your freshly trained scientists.

No, NASA isn't the only space agency in the world. There are a lot of them, actually. But their capabilities vary massively, and only a few more than NASA even have theoretical capability of manned space flight. Practically none have practical capability. This article [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_agency] can provide useful insight into the space flight capability of various nations. A rather significant part of the reason for this is that while NASA's funding is insignificant in terms of an American budget, it is gargantuan in terms of a Bulgarian budget.

Education is the first step to getting around these is education. Space is not going anywhere...we have time, and fixing the social problems of the world only gives us *more* time. However on our current path welll lets just put it this way. Did you ever think why the Military gets so much money.. because believe it or not they actually do a lot of research or at least fund. Haven't you noticed the trend in human history. The first thing we try to do with any new tech is to find a way to kill other people with it. Go ahead, check your history books. So again...if we continue with that attitude. the first use for the warp core will be as a super nuke bomb, which will of course kick off another cold-war esque arms race and a lot of itchy trigger fingers, We'll blow ourselves off the plaent before we figure out how to install it in a ship.

The thing is that it's not an "either-or" situation. First of all because we're dealing with different wallets here. NASA is funded federally, while US education is primarily funded at the state and local levels. The federal level cannot directly influence the educational spending of an individual state or municipality or whatever.

Secondly, as people have been trying to tell you, the money NASA receives is literally pocket change compared to most any other area of expense. Putting that money into education would literally not be noticed at all. NASA gets about 0.5% [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA] of the federal American budget, i.e. around 19 billion dollars. The US spends about 1000 billion dollars on education every year.

 

[CloudAtlas]

Yup.. the moonlanding. Tell me... when was the last time humans bothered visiting the moon?

The Chinese are working towards that goal. Maybe that'll shake the US up... and Europe with them.

See it's all well and good to talk about inspiration but the real reason for the space race was less discovery and more a dickwaving contest. And once the contest was one they moved on to other dickwaving contests...So please do expound upon the vast gains we made from that lunar landing.

Isn't NASA famous for doing all kinds of research that lead to all sorts of useful inventions? And I want to believe that the size of their dicks is not the only thing humankind cares about. I want for humankind to reach for the stars - figuratively and literally. Out of curiosity, a drive for exploration alone - we never know what we will learn, what we will find until we set sail.

And depending on what kind of science fiction you happen to subscribe there are other possible reasons too: Mankind might have to leave Earth behind one day - or sexy blue aliens will make them want to.

 

[Alexei F. Karamazov]

Hm. This sounds familiar.

Are we quite certain it's not going to leap outside the known universe and into another dimension, a "dimension of pure chaos, pure evil?" I'm just sayin', if it returns in a decaying orbit around Neptune do not board to search for survivors.

I FEEL THE WARP OVER TAKING ME!

OT: Sounds pretty awesome, hopefully nothing goes wrong. Also hope to see something amazing happen in my lifetime if they get this working.

Mankind will finally recognise the True Powers, For the Dark Gods!

BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!

 

[John Horn]

Why do the people who write these articles just read the headlines, look at the pretty screenshots, and start to scribble their sensationalist nonsense? Harold "Sonny" White and NASA are not building a warp drive. They are not even close.
Watch the video to see what is going on, and how far away we are. The ship design is not something NASA is building, it's a tantalizing render made by 3d artists for Harold White's program and NASA. It's important to inspire young people to study astrophysics, general relativity, et al.

What Dr. White did was to make the mathematics behind the energy requirements of the warp bubble more feasible in the real world. Originally, the warp field metric from 1994-2011 was so inefficient that it required the total negative mass-energy of a Jupiter amount. Rendering the whole prospect practically impossible - even though feasible in mathematics.
What White did, was reduce that from Jupiter amount to 1 ton of the negative energy. And no.. that is not "anti-matter", it is "negative vacuum energy", of which you can find miniscule amounts when you observe the Casimir Effect.

So now it's at least feasible both mathematically and theoretically. Though there is nothing close to the practical, which is why Harold states that he is waiting for the "Chicago Pile" moment. The first tested practical functioning of it.

We may be less than a century away, or more than 500 years away.. we simply have no way of knowing. At the moment, we have no idea how to capture, compress and harness that amount of negative vacuum energy.

What is exciting for now, is the White-Juday Interferometer, which is the only real experiment into space warp bubbles going on at our planet right now. It's an effort to warp york time (compression/expansion of space time), while a laser fires through it. Then they will look for ever so slight tiny perturbations of the laser light.

I share your excitement though. It's just important to get a reality check now and then. If you look to the bottom of the link, there is a video of Harold having a very technical talk on the warp field dynamics. The space ship designs are simply artistic renderings, made to inspire people. Maybe inspire people to study astrophysics, general relativity, etc.. so in a sense, it's still a great thing. It's very easy to get the wrong impression from a story. Put it like this.. we may be as close to warp bubble dynamics, as Leonardo Davinci was close to creating a helicopter.

NASA have been pursuing studies of faster than light travel for at least a decade now, they've had it on the backburner for specially gifted individuals like White. The great news of the improvements made on the mathematical model by White came in 2012.