Paul Gilster over at Centauri Dreams calls attention to a scientific paper reported in Spaceflight (the journal of the British Interplanetary Society) back in April and now available on arXiv that highlights an updated take on Miguel Alcubierre's 1994 proposal for a warp drive.
It is impossible for any object in the universe to travel faster than the speed of light (according to Einstein's theory of relativity). But, it turns out, space-time itself is expanding, and has been doing so ever since the Big Bang. What Alcubierre realized was that a spacecraft does not have to be moving itself through space-time (and thus will not violate Einstein's theory) if it can cause space-time to contract in front of itself and expand behind itself. Basically, the hypothetical craft creates a bubble of space-time around itself and uses the expansion and contraction of that space time to move, while remaining stationary with respect to the space-time inside the bubble.
What the authors of the paper—Richard Obousy and Gerald Cleaver—did was to combine Alcubierre's warp bubble with supersymmetry. Their work shows a theoretical maximum speed of 1032 times the speed of light, although moving that fast would required more energy than exists in the universe.
Of course, Cleaver and Obousy's approach will be meaningless if supersymmetry is ever proven to be invalid. And even if supersymmetry is validated, there are a large number of challenges ahead for the Alcubierre drive. But, as Paul points out in his write-up, this theoretical foundation is a first step on a long road. Much more research is needed, but perhaps the Tau Zero Foundation will be able to fund some additional steps along this road in the future.
Showing posts with label propulsion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label propulsion. Show all posts
Friday, July 25, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Introducing the Tau Zero Foundation
Thanks to Paul Gilster at Centauri Dreams I stumbled this morning onto the website of the Tau Zero Foundation. The TZF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to making incremental advancements in science, technology, and education with the eventual goal of interstellar flight and colonization.
A bold goal, to be sure. Tau Zero is led by Mark Millis of the NASA Glenn Research Center (although the foundation itself is not associated with NASA in any way). Millis is best known as the coordinator of the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program for NASA between 1996 and 2002. I followed BPP closely during its existence and was disappointed when NASA was forced to terminate the program. I read all of the papers that came out of the original studies (although I didn't understand everything that was in them). If Tau Zero is going to pursue and encourage the same type of work—and it appears that they will—I will be following their work very closely, as well.
I have long critized space-themed organizations whose only function seems to be to tell other people what to do ("advocacy"). I feel that if you want something done, you should do it, not advocate for someone else to do it. And Tau Zero seems to be focused on doing things. The foundation's plan is to start with educational and informative projects, including one or more books and possibly videos. TZF will also organize researchers to work together and share information. Eventually, once the foundation has the funds, they will sponsor research and possibly open an institute where researchers can collaborate and share ideas in person.
Check back here and, better yet, read Paul's blog, to get updates on this fascinating organization. I wish them the best and, when I can afford it, I'll be supporting them.
A bold goal, to be sure. Tau Zero is led by Mark Millis of the NASA Glenn Research Center (although the foundation itself is not associated with NASA in any way). Millis is best known as the coordinator of the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program for NASA between 1996 and 2002. I followed BPP closely during its existence and was disappointed when NASA was forced to terminate the program. I read all of the papers that came out of the original studies (although I didn't understand everything that was in them). If Tau Zero is going to pursue and encourage the same type of work—and it appears that they will—I will be following their work very closely, as well.
I have long critized space-themed organizations whose only function seems to be to tell other people what to do ("advocacy"). I feel that if you want something done, you should do it, not advocate for someone else to do it. And Tau Zero seems to be focused on doing things. The foundation's plan is to start with educational and informative projects, including one or more books and possibly videos. TZF will also organize researchers to work together and share information. Eventually, once the foundation has the funds, they will sponsor research and possibly open an institute where researchers can collaborate and share ideas in person.
Check back here and, better yet, read Paul's blog, to get updates on this fascinating organization. I wish them the best and, when I can afford it, I'll be supporting them.
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