We've all heard of hyperspace and hyperdrives. Star Trek has warp engines. What's the best way to get a space ship from point A to point B when the two points are seperated by lightyears?
This isn't a homework assignment.
If it makes any difference, the ship in question is extremely large.
Posted by Intelligence3 (Member # 6944) on :
With current technology?
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Ummm, propulsion-wise or path-wise? Eintein-Rosen bridges (wormholes) are the only vaguely related-to-reality theory that would allow for a better than straight-line path. It does require negative-virtual energy creation in vast quantities, not to mention that even then there's really no way of making it end where you want, only starting it where you create the negative energy...
Propulsion-wise there's a lot stuff out there but none of it will break light speed, so path-wise is the only way you can really make that type of change (though keep in mind that with relativistic effects you could make a trip to the nearest star feel like only a few days with through convential, straight-line travel, but everyone you left behind would experience all those years).
Hobbes Posted by Derrell (Member # 6062) on :
No, in a sci fi setting. I know they use hyperspace in the Star Wars universe. Is there a better way?
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
I remember reading in my Animorphs serials about Z-space, that isn't really space, but a sort of non-space...space. Thinking about it later, it seems pretty similar to Card's faster-than-light travel in Xenocide and Children of the Mind.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
What would make it "better"? Faster? More realistic? Something else?
Hobbes Posted by Derrell (Member # 6062) on :
I found a web page that talks about the physics of hyperspace and hyperdrives as found in the Star Wars universe. It made my head spin.
I want to know if there's a better means of achieving long distance space travel in a fictional setting.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Yeah, but what do you mean by better? Simpler?
Hobbes
[ January 24, 2005, 04:44 PM: Message edited by: Hobbes ]
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Star Wars hyperspace, if I recall correctly, is travel in another dimension that allows something similar to shorter than straight line travel.
Posted by Derrell (Member # 6062) on :
Hobbes, that's what I'm asking. I came up with an idea for a story and am looking at ways to get the ship from point a to point b.
In your opinion, is hyperspace the best idea that science fiction authors have come up with?
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
By the way, if you're travelling between points in the known universe, something akin to gates would seem a reasonable way to overcome the limitations on wormholes mentioned by Hobbes.
The civilization could send robots out to predetermined places, set up the gate, and 100 years later the civilization could use it.
Dagonee
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Oh, then I have to figure out what best means on my own do I?
For me, I prefer reality, well obviously not reality, but something I could conceive of existing in this universe, as opposed to say Star Wars, so I'd go with what Dag said, though I wouldn't be totally put off by the idea of creating wormholes with known end points since I'm pretty sure that's a practical barrier and not a theoretical one...
Hobbes Posted by Intelligence3 (Member # 6944) on :
Well, then the sky is not the limit.
The coolest I've ever seen is the Stutterwarp drive in the old sci-fi RPG 2300AD. Essentially, this is a similar idea to that behind warp/hyper drive, just with a twist.
The typical warp drive idea is that there is a dimension outside space and the ship actually moves through that instead of space in order to move.
In the Sci-Fi universe I have used as a setting for my own sci-fi gaming, my A-drive (Absolute drive, as opposed to "relative") basically operates because the drive can manipulate gravity to create a gravity well in front of the ship. Space itself is not bound by C (according to some cosmologists/physicists, at least), so space can expand faster than the speed of light. My idea is basically that the ship is constantly being carried along by space that is falling into a really powerful gravity well in front of the ship. This well also acts as a "ram" of sorts, with debris in front of the ship falling into the well instead of hitting the ship. I'm sure the physicists here just experienced apoplexy, but...
Posted by IanO (Member # 186) on :
isn't that some sort of after-the-fact explanation of ST's warp drive technology? That space-time is warped in that manner you described to move a ship at whatever (theoretically, anyway) speed you want, irrespective of the limitation of c for an object traveling through space-time.
Posted by Derrell (Member # 6062) on :
I3, that sounds very interesting. Do you, by chance have anything written up about this means of space travel? If so, could you possibly email it to me? My email's in my profile.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I want to know if there's a better means of achieving long distance space travel in a fictional setting.
Since we're arbitrarily defining "better" to mean absolutely nothing, I'm personally partial to the Gerbil Drive. It's a set of infinite hamsters suspended within an infinite space which borders our space on the intersection of a finite wheel. This wheel is turned by the motion of the hamsters, who are fueled by water and food pellets provided by ship's systems. While the hamsters themselves are safe from harm, their extradimensional nature makes it difficult to monitor them -- and the wheel itself is fragile and unique to each pocket universe, meaning that it has to be protected at all costs.
---
Another option: since nothing travels faster than bad news, and lies are more powerful than the truth, ships employ special Liars -- attached to the front of the ship by tethers -- to lie about bad news at high speed, thus propelling them in the direction the news would travel. The danger lies in any accidental truth telling; this would imbalance the tether, possibly sending the ship off-course.
[ January 24, 2005, 04:59 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Intelligence3 (Member # 6944) on :
Nothing more than that written up, I'm afraid.
Posted by Architraz Warden (Member # 4285) on :
I'm more partial to folding space than transversing it.
Feyd Baron, DoC
Tom: Don't forget that any ship powered by bad news (or lies) would likely be unwelcome where ever it went (thank you DNA).
[ January 24, 2005, 05:03 PM: Message edited by: Architraz Warden ]
Posted by Derrell (Member # 6062) on :
Tom, how would you define better, in this instance? I suppose a less complicated system would be better.
How do wormholes work as a means of space travel?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Hm. Okay, if we have to fold space.
Space is time. And time is money. And money is the root of all evil, indicating that evil is a more concentrated form of money.
Ergo, each ship has within it a single very evil person to whom evil things are done by an automated mechanism. The amount of evil done determines the speed, and can be finely manipulated to determine course. To avoid throwing off the ship's progress, the crew must avoid performing anything notably evil while space-time is being mistreated. Ships are speed-rated based on the evilness of the person incarcerated in them, using a complex formula designed to objectively measure that individual's overall wickedness.
[ January 24, 2005, 05:09 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Derrell (Member # 6062) on :
I guess I could just install an Infinite Improbability drive in the ship, but I want to have control over where the ship goes.
edited for spelling and to add the following: Tom, I like the hamster idea.
[ January 24, 2005, 05:05 PM: Message edited by: Derrell ]
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Architraz: That's simply an engineering problem. In that case, you'd simply attach the tethers to the back of the ship, and let the Liars lie about the place they just left. You could use very small white lies to keep the nose pointed at your destination.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
quote:How do wormholes work as a means of space travel?
Well wormholes are a kind of shortcut through space, they're an actual physical thing, kind of like a highway or a road I guess, so they're not technically a means so much as a a very good opportunity for some other means (a conventionally power spacecraft) to get from place to place quickly by reducing the distance from point A to point B. Now something very large you could just stick a wormhole generator on the front (not a theoritically impossible thing to do, though it would take a while to build up a sufficent amount of inverse energy, not that you'd have to limit yourself to time since this is fiction) or have gates as Dag suggested that create the wormhole to leap through (remember though, wormholes don't represent instant travel, just shorter, like instead of 18 light-years maybe it's 18 miles, or heck, maybe it's 15 light-years, there's no rule to it).
Hobbes Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
Might wanna take a look at Cramer's columns on SpaceDrives and GeneralRelativity, then google up some more explanatory pages-with-diagrams using the names&jargon found there.
Personally, I wouldn't bother trying to describe any of the physics behind FTL travel except minimally as it applies to the plot, ala "folded-space congruencies" in Heinlein's StarmanJones or the quasi-wormholes of Cherryh's MerchanterUniverse. Just give it a name and move on with the story.
[ January 24, 2005, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by skillery (Member # 6209) on :
quote:create a gravity well in front of the ship
Yeah, gravity drive.
But for it to work, you would have to throw the Big Bang out the window and start over with a universe containing an infinite amount of randomly distributed matter.
Let's say that in addition to plus/minus polarization and north/south polarization of matter, there is also up/down polarization, and possibly, there's light/dark polarization as well.
If you could resolve +/- and N/S into vectors, then up/down would appear at right angles to the electrical and magnetic vectors (assuming that the right-hand rule for electromagnetism also applies to gravitation). Now you align the up/down vector in the direction you want to travel, and you've got constant acceleration. You are pushing against all the matter in the universe behind you, and you are attracting all the matter in the universe in front of you. Hopefully, the matter is distributed evenly.
Oh, and if there is such a thing as light/dark polarization, we can bring back those old, supposedly disproven theories pertaining to the aether.
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
I like OSC's "outside" method of travel (to refresh memories: Think of the universe as a sphere, when the ship transports itself outside the sphere, it then is able to enter the sphere again at any point).
It's nothing flashy, and allows one to pop from point A to point B nearly instantaneously. Only problems are that you'd need someone/something like Jane, and you might run the risk of recreating long lost relatives while "outside".
--j_k
Posted by kwsni (Member # 1831) on :
Wormhole. Normal space. Wormhole. Normal space.
Ni!
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Yeah, I'm surprised only one person has mentioned Outside.
Posted by MEC (Member # 2968) on :
But do the wormholes allow two way travel, like in Star Trek, or only one way travel, like Stargate?
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