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Warp Drive, Geekbait

tyr_13

Penultimate Amazing
tyr_13
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Aug 8, 2008
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I looked but didn't see a thread on this. Dr. White of NASA has his Eagleworks projects, yes named after the old 'Skunkworks', which I've been following on an off for a few years now. It's mostly plasma drives and thrusters, and a lot of it looks very promising.

He's been also working on an Alcubierre Drive. Well, he got together with 3D artist Rademaker to produce a new rendering of what such a ship could look like, updating the iconic Alcubierre drive concept art.

And they named it the Enterprise.

It's obviously geekbait, and I'm alright with that. It has all the hyperbole of calling it 'NASA's concept' and all. The design itself isn't too out there, unless you consider the drive in and of itself too out there. I enjoy that they added a saucer section to the front. :p
 
It's missing the huge heat radiators that will probably needed for the power source required to generate such a warpbubble (if such a thing is even possible). I think they would end up sticking out of the bubble.
 
"This drawing of an imaginary spaceship based on a propulsion system that doesn't exist is not a fantasy sci-fi ship."

No, of course it's not.:rolleyes:
 
Cuddles said:
"This drawing of an imaginary spaceship based on a propulsion system that doesn't exist is not a fantasy sci-fi ship."

No, of course it's not.:rolleyes:
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No, no! It's based on equations. :p

I love that line.
 
And it has pointless design features, like the "bridge on upper deck" thing.

I think it would be more realistic to have a "storm cellar" for the bridge, and then a small alcove or cupola with a porthole for manual stellar navigation tasks and docking maneuvers.
 
theprestige said:
And it has pointless design features, like the "bridge on upper deck" thing.

I think it would be more realistic to have a "storm cellar" for the bridge, and then a small alcove or cupola with a porthole for manual stellar navigation tasks and docking maneuvers.
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Wait, is that a bridge? I thought it was a viewing area. Still almost pointless, but not as negative a hit as having the control area be the spot most likely to hit something. I though the dual windows at the edge of the saucer was the manual navigation area.

Slowvehicle said:
Not to mention the "iconic" "forward is front" as opposed to "forward is up" design.
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Would that really have saved much/any space on a design of this scale? Besides, I haven't seen any interior shots that would confirm this apart from that viewing area/possible bridge at the front.
 
Regarding a theoretical warp drive, would passengers actually experience time dilation? I understand that it works by warping time-space versus traveling through it. So would that actually negate the time dilation that would be expected from moving a similar distance through space-time in the same time frame?
 
tyr_13 said:
Wait, is that a bridge? I thought it was a viewing area. Still almost pointless, but not as negative a hit as having the control area be the spot most likely to hit something. I though the dual windows at the edge of the saucer was the manual navigation area.

Would that really have saved much/any space on a design of this scale? Besides, I haven't seen any interior shots that would confirm this apart from that viewing area/possible bridge at the front.
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If the strip of window in front is, in fact,the bridge (as it seems to be, given the "ST"-like mien), then "down" (inside the ship) appears to be perpendicular to the drive vector. Like driving a truck...

It is not as much a question of saving space, as it is the fact that (absent inertial dampers and gravity generators) running the engine will push everything on board against the aft bulkhead. Why not make that the deck, to start with?
 
The Alcubierre Drive is perfectly practical - if a source of matter with negative mass can be found.

I think I have some behind the couch. Hang on.
 
Marasmusine said:
It's missing the huge heat radiators that will probably needed for the power source required to generate such a warpbubble (if such a thing is even possible). I think they would end up sticking out of the bubble.
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Heat radiators would be a bit useless if the entire ship were inside a giant warp bubble and there was nowhere for the heat to radiate to.

Radiators would also act like heat-absorbers for the heat returning to the ship after reaching the edge of the bubble and being reflected/refracted/warped/(whatever the right explanation is) back again.
 
Slowvehicle said:
If the strip of window in front is, in fact,the bridge (as it seems to be, given the "ST"-like mien), then "down" (inside the ship) appears to be perpendicular to the drive vector. Like driving a truck...

It is not as much a question of saving space, as it is the fact that (absent inertial dampers and gravity generators) running the engine will push everything on board against the aft bulkhead. Why not make that the deck, to start with?
Click to expand...

Running the Alcubierre Drive itself wouldn't push everything backwards. That is one of the points, the ship itself doesn't accelerate. Of course, even if the drive could be made to work in more than theory, such a ship would still need standard rocketry to change it's velocity in relationship to it's destination. If you activate a warp drive to head toward something that is moving away from you at 1000 kph when you reach it and drop out of warp, it will still be moving away from you at 1000 kph.
 
Fizil said:
Running the Alcubierre Drive itself wouldn't push everything backwards. That is one of the points, the ship itself doesn't accelerate. Of course, even if the drive could be made to work in more than theory, such a ship would still need standard rocketry to change it's velocity in relationship to it's destination. If you activate a warp drive to head toward something that is moving away from you at 1000 kph when you reach it and drop out of warp, it will still be moving away from you at 1000 kph.
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...and the Acubierre would be practical for le grande voyage, less so for tootling out to a parking orbit or bumboating around in-system. The ship should still be oriented so that acceleration is parallel with up-down.
 
Brian-M said:
Heat radiators would be a bit useless if the entire ship were inside a giant warp bubble and there was nowhere for the heat to radiate to.

Radiators would also act like heat-absorbers for the heat returning to the ship after reaching the edge of the bubble and being reflected/refracted/warped/(whatever the right explanation is) back again.
Click to expand...

What if the heat traverses the boundary and arrives at an external observer blueshifted or redshifted, similar to light that has been redshifted by cosmic expansion?

It's not like light from distant stars is bouncing back instead of reaching us, after all...
 
Slowvehicle said:
...and the Acubierre would be practical for le grande voyage, less so for tootling out to a parking orbit or bumboating around in-system. The ship should still be oriented so that acceleration is parallel with up-down.
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What acceleration?
 
bob_kark said:
Regarding a theoretical warp drive, would passengers actually experience time dilation? I understand that it works by warping time-space versus traveling through it. So would that actually negate the time dilation that would be expected from moving a similar distance through space-time in the same time frame?
Click to expand...

I'd like to know about that too.

They pretended there wasn't any in Star Trek, didn't they?

But how would it be in actuality?

This article in the Washington post says:

A warp ship such as the IXS Enterprise could allow travel to interstellar space in a matter of weeks rather than, say, centuries.
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Is that "weeks" also from the perspective of people remaining on earth?
 
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