Is the FTL drive feasible?

[chelly]

Ok I'm starting this thread for the simple reason that I'm overly curious what others think about this subject.

Would an FTL drive be feasible in the real world? What technology would be required to create an FTL drive? What type of power source would be needed to create it and does that technology currently exist in our world or even universe?

I really want to know. Go ahead and break the problem down & discuss it. I'd love to see what the physics behind it would be.

Also is the FLT drive the same concept as a warp drive and how do they differ.

Michele
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[startswithaj]

here's an article all about a possible hyperdrive that won an award recent;y and apparently could happen someday....

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg18925331.200.html

heres the first few paragraphs:
EVERY year, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics awards prizes for the best papers presented at its annual conference. Last year's winner in the nuclear and future flight category went to a paper calling for experimental tests of an astonishing new type of engine. According to the paper, this hyperdrive motor would propel a craft through another dimension at enormous speeds. It could leave Earth at lunchtime and get to the moon in time for dinner. There's just one catch: the idea relies on an obscure and largely unrecognised kind of physics. Can they possibly be serious?

The AIAA is certainly not embarrassed. What's more, the US military has begun to cast its eyes over the hyperdrive concept, and a space propulsion researcher at the US Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories has said he would be interested in putting the idea to the test. And despite the bafflement of most physicists at the theory that supposedly underpins it, Pavlos Mikellides, an aerospace engineer at the Arizona State University in Tempe who reviewed the winning paper, stands by the committee's choice. "Even though such features have been explored before, this particular approach is quite unique," he says.

Unique it certainly is. If the experiment gets the go-ahead and works, it could reveal new interactions between the fundamental forces of nature that would change the future of space travel. Forget spending six months or more holed up in a rocket on the way to Mars, a round trip on the hyperdrive could take as little as 5 hours. All our worries about astronauts' muscles wasting away or their DNA being irreparably damaged by cosmic radiation would disappear overnight. What's more the device would put travel to the stars within reach for the first time. But can the hyperdrive really get off the ground?
“A hyperdrive craft would put the stars within reach for the first time�

The answer to that question hinges on the work of a little-known German physicist. Burkhard Heim began to explore the hyperdrive propulsion concept in the 1950s as a spin-off from his attempts to heal the biggest divide in physics: the rift between quantum mechanics and Einstein's general theory of relativity.

[design_diety]

I wasn't going to post this, but I decided it's something. It wasn't the answer I was hoping for, but it's based on today's reality.

I spoke to a friend (who is working on his doctorate in Quantum Physics at Rutgers University) about the feasibility of Faster Than Light (FTL) drive. Below is his answers:

1. There's no *conventional* way to go faster than light. In other words, if you got into a spaceship and just kept accelerating you'll never reach the speed of light.

2. But that doesn't preclude unconventional ways involving "warping" space and time in the right ways... I don't really know about these speculations but I think there's a book called "The Physics of Star Trek" or something which would do a better job of explaining this idea.

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Dimitry
[aka Design Diety]

[startswithaj]

oh, i should've pointed out that the article in my post earlier wasn't actually talking about going faster than light(as far as i could tell...), I think it said something about using other dimensions and "sub-space" and other stuff like that. Which, sounds a lot like the hyperdrive in Stargate SG-1.
of course....I'm not a scientist....so i could be reading that wrong(could be I've watched too much scifi, eh?)....
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[Skiznot]

Hey All,

They talk about this very thing in Astronomy Cast Episode 53. It's actually the science advisor guy from BSG and Pamela Gay (a kick-a$$ astronomer) not done listening to it yet. . .
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Begin reintegration of right Hemisphere subroutines – There’s a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza - The long view returns patterns and repetitions – All this has happened before and all will happen again – End of Line.

[Solai]

Skiznot...please report back in...would love to hear your thoughts on the 'cast!
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[Monkeyking1969]

Please ignore this 14 months after the fact. I’m just babbling and you can ignore this necorposting.

If FTL is possible at all you’d be better of not having it on a ship in space. If you presuppose you would need to warp or enter a dimension outside of our universe to travel that fast that means there would be no bar of you just building it on earth and then stepping out ANYWHERE else. That is basically the idea behind StarGate I suppose....FTL travel with no ship...and no messy time distortion or time dilation effects. The expense, as they say, is say in the last mile, so why put your “go anywhere” device out in space where you have to use all sorts of energy and equipment to get to you to it. Also, space is the most hostile place to put something.

The only bar would be if it doesn’t work next to a gravity well (i.e. a solar system), but in that case why even bother with FTL except in very special circumstances. As I said going into space, get away form you gravity well and then zipping away is hardly easy when that whole going into space and escaping the gravity well is 99.9999999% of the expense and danger. It like that Daffy Duck gag where he tells a guy “I’ve got this great trick Mac. (He then swallows gasoline, black powder, and an A-Bomb....and swallows a lit match). After blowing his butt out his brains and his brains out his but the man says, “Wow! That’s was spectacular!” And Daffy says, “Yeah it's great but I can only do it once.”

If you need to go into space and escape a gravity well to do something you have already expended so much effort that even traveling anywhere in an instant might not be worth it.

If you read this far thanks! Sorry, I came so late to the party!