Scientists Are Starting to Take Warp Drives Seriously, Especially One Specific Concept

[ZiprHead]

https://www.sciencealert.com/how-feasible-is-a-warp-drive-here-s-the-science

However, in recent years, the scientific community has become understandably excited and skeptical about claims that a particular concept – the Alcubierre Warp Drive – might actually be feasible.

This was the subject of a presentation made at this year's American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Propulsion and Energy Forum, which took place from August 19th to 22nd in Indianapolis.

This presentation was conducted by Joseph Agnew – an undergraduate engineer and research assistant from the University of Alabama in Huntsville's Propulsion Research Center (PRC).

As part of a session titled "The Future of Nuclear and Breakthrough Propulsion", Agnew shared the results of a study he conducted titled "An Examination of Warp Theory and Technology to Determine the State of the Art and Feasibility".

Make it so.

 

[Jokodo]

https://www.sciencealert.com/how-feasible-is-a-warp-drive-here-s-the-science

However, in recent years, the scientific community has become understandably excited and skeptical about claims that a particular concept – the Alcubierre Warp Drive – might actually be feasible.

This was the subject of a presentation made at this year's American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Propulsion and Energy Forum, which took place from August 19th to 22nd in Indianapolis.

This presentation was conducted by Joseph Agnew – an undergraduate engineer and research assistant from the University of Alabama in Huntsville's Propulsion Research Center (PRC).

As part of a session titled "The Future of Nuclear and Breakthrough Propulsion", Agnew shared the results of a study he conducted titled "An Examination of Warp Theory and Technology to Determine the State of the Art and Feasibility".

Make it so.

"Scientists also estimate that the total energy requirement would be equivalent to the mass of Jupiter"

Hm

 

[Bronzeage]

In the meantime we're trying to figure out if the radiation absorbed during a flight to Mars will kill the astronauts, or if the loss of bone mass will leave them unable to function in gravity.

 

[bilby]

That's all very nice, but there's not much to be excited about until engineers start to take warp drives seriously.

Scientists have an unfortunate habit of declaring something "possible" and then muttering under their breath about "within fifty kilometres of the event horizon of a rotating black hole", "assuming the existence of matter with negative mass", "as long as the energy available is at least six days of total solar output", and/or "for a spherical, frictionless horse, in a perfect vacuum".

 

[ZiprHead]

LOL, I did consider putting it in pseudoscience.

 

[Jokodo]

That's all very nice, but there's not much to be excited about until engineers start to take warp drives seriously.

Scientists have an unfortunate habit of declaring something "possible" and then muttering under their breath about "within fifty kilometres of the event horizon of a rotating black hole", "assuming the existence of matter with negative mass", "as long as the energy available is at least six days of total solar output", and/or "for a spherical, frictionless horse, in a perfect vacuum".

Are there non- rotating black holes?

Also it does say, right there in the article, the energy equivalent of one Jupiter mass. I believe that's ever so slightly more than six days of solar output.

 

[bilby]

That's all very nice, but there's not much to be excited about until engineers start to take warp drives seriously.

Scientists have an unfortunate habit of declaring something "possible" and then muttering under their breath about "within fifty kilometres of the event horizon of a rotating black hole", "assuming the existence of matter with negative mass", "as long as the energy available is at least six days of total solar output", and/or "for a spherical, frictionless horse, in a perfect vacuum".

Are there non- rotating black holes?

Probably not, but they were the type first hypothesised by Schwarzschild, mainly because the maths is a lot simpler if you ignore angular momentum. Most black holes are presumed to rotate very rapidly indeed due to their small radii, and the large angular momenta of their parent stars.

Also it does say, right there in the article, the energy equivalent of one Jupiter mass. I believe that's ever so slightly more than six days of solar output.

Which rather underscores my point.

 

[Jokodo]

Probably not, but they were the type first hypothesised by Schwarzschild, mainly because the maths is a lot simpler if you ignore angular momentum. Most black holes are presumed to rotate very rapidly indeed due to their small radii, and the large angular momenta of their parent stars.

Also it does say, right there in the article, the energy equivalent of one Jupiter mass. I believe that's ever so slightly more than six days of solar output.

Which rather underscores my point.

I did a quick calculation. According to these figures, one Jupiter mass equivalent is more than 14 billion years worth of total solar output (at current levels).

 

[bilby]

Probably not, but they were the type first hypothesised by Schwarzschild, mainly because the maths is a lot simpler if you ignore angular momentum. Most black holes are presumed to rotate very rapidly indeed due to their small radii, and the large angular momenta of their parent stars.

Also it does say, right there in the article, the energy equivalent of one Jupiter mass. I believe that's ever so slightly more than six days of solar output.

Which rather underscores my point.

I did a quick calculation. According to these figures, one Jupiter mass equivalent is more than 14 billion years worth of total solar output (at current levels).

Thanks. How many frictionless spherical horsepower fortnights is that?

 

[Jokodo]

I did a quick calculation. According to these figures, one Jupiter mass equivalent is more than 14 billion years worth of total solar output (at current levels).

Thanks. How many frictionless spherical horsepower fortnights is that?

According to their data (5.4e41J for earth's mass equivalent, which I multiplied with 318 earth masses from another source), about 1.72e44 watt seconds. I believe that's about 1.9e35 horsepower fortnights.

 

[barbos]

We have been over this. Even if you are somehow able to make warp drive work it would be practically pointless.
Because in order for Captain Kirk to travel to some 20 light years away star system he would have to wait 20 years to establish appropriate space-time metric and only then he would start "moving". Basically you have very fast train but no rails, you can build them and it would be big-bangly costly and would take the same time as simply walking to your destination.

 

[steve_bank]

A book I had in cosmology covered some of the FTL theories. They all seem to have an insurmountable detail.

One theory creates a bubble around the ship and inside the ship sees no motion. The theory requires energy with a negative sign. Currently energy is always proportional to a magnitude squared. E = mc^2. KE = 0.5 mv^2. Another theory requires immense amounts of energy.

In Reitman Geometry I believe an imaginary solution to a set of paramours can lead to a short cut across space.

One problem ST did not address was heat. A starship is a vacuum bottle. Even a small amount of heat generated in the ship will eventually reuse temperature to unlivable levels. Any propulsion system and energy system not 100% efficient would be impossible.

One can create consistent mathematical models that can never be physically realized. Mathematically I can write a differential equation for an LC electric circuit. It will oscillate forever mathematically without any resistance. Physically impossible to build.

It is not that the effort should be abandoned, but a math model that can be simulated does not mean it can actually be implemented. It is the same with pop science shows and time travel. Passing through a black hole to time travel.

Scientists certainly take it seriously, but it does not sound near plausible yet.

As stated there is also the problem of navigation.

There was a show on the science behind the movie First Contact and the worm hole transportation system. Apparently at the time there was a small group of scientists working on such theories who exchange ideas. Credible theoretical scientists. Who knows, someday they may find something.

 

[barbos]

One problem ST did not address was heat. A starship is a vacuum bottle. Even a small amount of heat generated in the ship will eventually reuse temperature to unlivable levels. Any propulsion system and energy system not 100% efficient would be impossible.

So how ISS, satellites and other space probes manage to work? How Earth itself manage to keep more less constant temperature? Or Sun?
Ever heard about heat radiation?

 

[steve_bank]

One problem ST did not address was heat. A starship is a vacuum bottle. Even a small amount of heat generated in the ship will eventually reuse temperature to unlivable levels. Any propulsion system and energy system not 100% efficient would be impossible.

So how ISS, satellites and other space probes manage to work? How Earth itself manage to keep more less constant temperature? Or Sun?
Ever heard about heat radiation?

Radiation heat transfer to the cosmic round. The heat loads are low enough. The space shuttle could not stay up if the bay doors could not open exposing radiators.

Search on ISS heat radiation cooling. A liquid coolant is run through the station and out through radiators. At a given temperature differential between the radiators and background X watts/square meter can be transferred. X depending on radiator parameters like emissivity.

The heat load on Starship Enterprise would cook the crew.

You can look at the size of the ISS radiators. Then imagine a nuclear reactor on an interplanetary ship generating thousands of kilowatts.

 

[barbos]

One problem ST did not address was heat. A starship is a vacuum bottle. Even a small amount of heat generated in the ship will eventually reuse temperature to unlivable levels. Any propulsion system and energy system not 100% efficient would be impossible.

So how ISS, satellites and other space probes manage to work? How Earth itself manage to keep more less constant temperature? Or Sun?
Ever heard about heat radiation?

Radiation heat transfer to the cosmic round. The heat loads are low enough. The space shuttle could not stay up if the bay doors could not open exposing radiators.

Search on ISS heat radiation cooling. A liquid coolant is run through the station and out through radiators. At a given temperature differential between the radiators and background X watts/square meter can be transferred. X depending on radiator parameters like emissivity.

The heat load on Starship Enterprise would cook the crew.

You can look at the size of the ISS radiators. Then imagine a nuclear reactor on an interplanetary ship generating thousands of kilowatts.

Black Body radiator at 293K radiates 5.67e-8*pow(293,4) = 418 W/m^2
According to google Enterprise is 289.7 meters so it can easily have 80,000 m^2 of radiators. That's 33.4 megawatt of radiation.
Crew size ranges from 1000 to 6000. So in worst case it's about 5 kilowatt per person, more than enough. Fully passive cooling. With 350K radiators output doubles to 850 W/m^2, of course one would have to use heat pump for that. Also not all equipment have to work at 293K, engine can work at 2000K and have their own passive cooling, even computers can be kept separate and have higher temperature.

 

[steve_bank]

​

Radiation heat transfer to the cosmic round. The heat loads are low enough. The space shuttle could not stay up if the bay doors could not open exposing radiators.

Search on ISS heat radiation cooling. A liquid coolant is run through the station and out through radiators. At a given temperature differential between the radiators and background X watts/square meter can be transferred. X depending on radiator parameters like emissivity.

The heat load on Starship Enterprise would cook the crew.

You can look at the size of the ISS radiators. Then imagine a nuclear reactor on an interplanetary ship generating thousands of kilowatts.

Black Body radiator at 293K radiates 5.67e-8*pow(293,4) = 418 W/m^2
According to google Enterprise is 289.7 meters so it can easily have 80,000 m^2 of radiators. That's 33.4 megawatt of radiation.
Crew size ranges from 1000 to 6000. So in worst case it's about 5 kilowatt per person, more than enough. Fully passive cooling. With 350K radiators output doubles to 850 W/m^2, of course one would have to use heat pump for that. Also not all equipment have to work at 293K, engine can work at 2000K and have their own passive cooling, even computers can be kept separate and have higher temperature.

Multiply by something like 0.5 for emissivity and other factors. A true BB is theoretical. Here on Erath using something like carbon lamp black you can get 0.98 emissivity under controlled conditions. No cooling system is 100% efficient.

Any power generated in the ship shows up as heat. It is distributive, it does not matter how you separate it. Using heat pumps only makes the heat load worse. I have used thermoelectric coolers.
Of course sttar ship Enterprise will warp trailing trailing radiators. The old SciFi show Andromeda trailed cables as radiators.

And what materials would you use for 2000k?

Considerer a atypical heat sink with multiple parallel fins for electronics. On inner fins they radiate to each other for a net radiation of zero. Imagine a space ship with a nuclear reactor on a boom. First there is thermal conduction along the boom to the ship. Second the reactor section will radiate to the rest of the ship. The ship will want to go to equilibrium with itself as well as the background.

It is far more difficult than you think.

The solar panels generate about 100kw, plus body heat of crew. The radiators are about 500ft^2.

100kw/500ft^2 for approximately .2kw/ft^2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Space_Station#Systems
https://www.nasa.gov/content/cooling-system-keeps-space-station-safe-productive.

80,000 m^2 easy?

 

[barbos]

I can multiply by 0.5 and it would still work. But 0.5 is way too low. one can easily get 95%.

And what materials would you use for 2000k?

plenty of materials have melting point over 3000K.

Considerer a atypical heat sink with multiple parallel fins for electronics. On inner fins they radiate to each other for a net radiation of zero.

They are designed to work in air, having fins in space would be pointless.

It is far more difficult than you think.

I have shown it's easier than YOU think. In fact you seemed to be saying that it was IMPOSSIBLE in the vacuum.

80,000 m^2 easy?

Yes, 80,000 m^2 is more than enough to provide adequate cooling for 6000 people.

 

[Gun Nut]

https://www.sciencealert.com/how-feasible-is-a-warp-drive-here-s-the-science

However, in recent years, the scientific community has become understandably excited and skeptical about claims that a particular concept – the Alcubierre Warp Drive – might actually be feasible.

This was the subject of a presentation made at this year's American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Propulsion and Energy Forum, which took place from August 19th to 22nd in Indianapolis.

This presentation was conducted by Joseph Agnew – an undergraduate engineer and research assistant from the University of Alabama in Huntsville's Propulsion Research Center (PRC).

As part of a session titled "The Future of Nuclear and Breakthrough Propulsion", Agnew shared the results of a study he conducted titled "An Examination of Warp Theory and Technology to Determine the State of the Art and Feasibility".

Make it so.

"Scientists also estimate that the total energy requirement would be equivalent to the mass of Jupiter"

Hm

In 1960, it took a medium sized building to hold the equipment needed to store 1 GB of data. A mere 50 years later, the same amount of data can be stored on something the size of your thumbnail.

Mass of Jupiter? That's nothing (some day)!

 

[steve_bank]

I can multiply by 0.5 and it would still work. But 0.5 is way too low. one can easily get 95%.


plenty of materials have melting point over 3000K.


They are designed to work in air, having fins in space would be pointless.

It is far more difficult than you think.

I have shown it's easier than YOU think. In fact you seemed to be saying that it was IMPOSSIBLE in the vacuum.

80,000 m^2 easy?

Yes, 80,000 m^2 is more than enough to provide adequate cooling for 6000 people.

You miss the points as usual.

I am sure Space X is looking for expert cooling engineers. Send them a resume. They are looking towards Mars and beyond.

 

[steve_bank]

One other question.

In this warp drive theory what happens to photons at the boundary or interface? Is it a bubble of sorts or a trasition to some other dimension?

If so what will happens to EM thermal radiation? Is it prated or reflected or absorbed and re radiated?