Warp drive - an unattainable luxury or a real means of transportation? NASA scientists: building a WARP engine is theoretically feasible NASA's warp engine tests.

Last September, several hundred scientists, engineers and space enthusiasts gathered under one roof at the Hyatt Hotel in downtown Houston. The reason for the meeting is the second open meeting 100 Year Starship. The agency itself finances this high-tech get-together DARPA, and is led by a former astronaut May Jemison. The goal is simple: “make a reality of human flight beyond our solar system to another star in the next 100 years." Intriguing? An exciting story awaits you.

Most of those present at the conference agree that the development of manned cosmonautics is depressingly slow. Despite the billions of dollars that have been spent over the past 20-30 years, the space agencies have not moved much from the point laid back in the 60s. By the way, Elon Musk did not fail to take advantage of this by founding his own space agency SpaceX. 100 Year Starship plans to speed up the process of flying to another star, forcing the development of promising technologies. Well, let's buckle up.

Among the most anticipated presentations at the conference was this: "Warp Field Mechanics 102" ("Warp Field Mechanics 102"), presented by Harold "Son" White from NASA. A space agency veteran works on a special propulsion program at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) near the Hyatt. With a team of six, White recently laid out NASA's goals for the future of space travel. There was a lot in the new presentation: from all kinds of flight projects and improving chemical rockets to powerful engines based on antimatter and nuclear energy. However, the most interesting thing was this: warp drive. Or a warp engine. Call it what you will, but the warp is still the warp for many, from Star Trek lovers to Star Craft lovers.

Let's shed some light: warp drive could make faster-than-light travel possible. Of course, you will say that this is impossible, since it contradicts Einstein's general theory of relativity. White thinks not. In the half hour allotted to him at the symposium, he talked about the physics of potential warp motion, using concepts such as bubbles Alcubierre and hyperspace fluctuations. He also noted that his theoretical calculations had paved the way for warp propulsion, and he began physical testing at his NASA laboratory, which he called Eagleworks.

As you have begun to suspect, a working warp drive will be the number one word in the history of space travel. We will not only be able to fly to Mars in less than a year and a half, as planned, but also go beyond the solar system, and maybe even replace the power source on Voyager. A trip on a modern spacecraft to our nearest star, Alpha Centauri, would take 75,000 years. But if the ship was warp-driven, it would take two weeks to get everything done, according to White.

With the shutdown of the shuttles and the increasing activity of private segments in the field of near-Earth flight, NASA says that it will focus on daring forays farther into space, much further than the bored digging of the moon. But without fundamentally new engines, such sorties will be of little use. A couple of days after the 100 Year Starship meeting, NASA chief Charles Bolden echoed White's words:

“One day we want to get to warp speed. We want to move faster than the speed of light and not stop at Mars.”

Star Trek

Physicist Miguel Alcubierre developed the warp drive model after watching an episode of Star Trek.

The first use of the term "warp propulsion" dates back to 1966, when Gene Roddenberry launched Star Trek. For the next thirty years, the warp existed only as one of the most enduring science fiction concepts. But one day the episode caught the eye of a physicist named Miguel Alcubierre. Then he worked in the field of general relativity and asked himself: what it takes to build a warp drive? He published his work in 1994.

Alcubierre imagined a bubble in space. At the front of the bubble, space-time contracts, while at the back of the bubble it expands (as in the Big Bang). The warp will have little effect on the ship, like a normal wave, despite the turmoil outside the bubble. In principle, a warp bubble can move arbitrarily fast: the speed limit predicted by Einstein's theory only works with spacetime, not the distortions of spacetime itself. In the bubble, as predicted by Alcubierre, space-time will remain unchanged, and the space travelers themselves will be safe and sound.

The warp drive will be able to send travelers not only beyond the earth's orbit, but also the entire solar system. Einstein's equations of general relativity are very complex in a one-way solution—calculating how matter curves spacetime—but quite simple in reverse. Using them, Alcubierre figured out what distribution of matter is needed to create a warp bubble. But the problem is that the solution revealed a strange form of matter - negative energy.

In a primitive explanation, gravity is the force of attraction between two objects. Every object, regardless of its size, attracts the matter around it. In Einstein's understanding, this force is the curvature of space-time. Negative energy, however, is repulsive gravity. Instead of pulling space-time together, negative energy will push it apart. To put it bluntly, Alcubierre's engine needs negative energy to run the space-time behind the ship to expand.

And although no one has ever measured negative energy, quantum mechanics (to add to the list of paradoxes) predicts its existence, which means that scientists can very well create it in the laboratory. One way to create it would be Casimir effect: Two parallel conductive plates close enough to each other should produce a small amount of negative energy. Alcubierre's model collapsed at the moment when it took a huge amount of negative energy, far more than can be created - according to scientists.

White says he has found a way around this limitation. In a computer simulation, White was changing the strength and geometry of the warp field. It turned out that in theory it is possible to create a warp bubble using a million times less negative energy than Alcubierre had imagined, and enough to spaceship could make it himself.

“From the impossible, everything became plausible.”

"Son"

Harold "Sonny" White, engineerNASAdeveloping a warp drive in a labEagleworks.

Further narration - on behalf of Konstantin Kakaes withPopSci.

The Johnson Space Center sits next to the lagoons where Houston gives way to the port of Galveston. The smell of campuses where future astronauts train is in the air. On the day of my visit, White met me in the fifteenth building, a low-rise building with a labyrinth of corridors, offices and laboratories that together make Eagleworks. He wore a polo shirt embroidered with the Eagleworks logo: an eagle spreading its wings over a futuristic starship.

White didn't start his career in a movement lab. He studied mechanical engineering and joined the agency in 2004 as a contractor in the robotics group, where he has worked since 2000. He ended up taking control of the manipulator on the ISS while working on his Ph.D. in plasma physics. It was not until 2009 that White began studying engines, which he had been interested in for a long time, and the job at NASA was gone.

“The son is a unique individual,” said his boss, John Applewhite, who heads the propulsion systems division at the Johnson Center. “He's definitely a dreamer, but he's also an engineer. He can turn his imagination into a useful technical product."

After joining Applewhite's group, White requested permission to open his own laboratory dedicated to advanced engines. I chose my logo and got to work.

White took me to his office, which he shares with a colleague who searches for water on the Moon (he apparently found it on Mars), and then took me to Eagleworks. As we walked, he told me about the difficulties of opening the laboratory, which he described as "a long and tedious process of finding advanced engines that will help people explore space." He speaks with a slight drawl, the result of many years in the South, first at an Alabama college and then 13 years in Texas.

White shows me the apparatus and draws my attention to its central element, the Quantum Vacuum Plasma Thruster (QVPD). The device looks like a big red velvet donut with wires wrapped tightly around the core. It is one of the two main developments of Eagleworks, along with the warp drive. Of course, it's classified. When I asked about this device, White said that he could not divulge details, except that the development of this technology would take longer than the creation of a warp drive. A report published by NASA in 2011 said that it uses the quantum fluctuations of empty space as a fuel source (which, apparently, Tesla spoke about), so a spacecraft based on KVPD would not need "gasoline".

White's experiments with the warp were centered in a corner of the room. The helium-neon laser is mounted on a small table behind a perforated grille, along with a beam splitter and a black-and-white CCD camera. This is a White-Judy warp field interferometer, named after White himself and Richard Judy, a retired Johnson Center staffer who helped White analyze data from the CCD. Half of the laser light passes through the ring, White's experimental fixture. The other half is not. If the ring does not change in any way, White will notice this in the data from the CCD. If the space is distorted, then "the interference picture will be completely different."

When the device is activated, White's setup works like in the movie: the laser glows red and the two beams cross like laser swords. Inside the ring are four barium titanate ceramic capacitors, which White charges up to 23,000 volts. For the past year and a half, he has been modeling this experiment, and according to the engineer, "capacitors are gaining a powerful energy potential."

However, when I asked how all of this would generate the negative energy needed to warp space-time, White's response became evasive: “It works like this… I can tell you what I can say. I can't tell you what I can't." He referred to a non-disclosure agreement, so the details remained under the veil of secrecy. I asked with whom he signed such an agreement, to which the answer was:

“People come and ask about all sorts of things. I just can't go into more detail than I do now."

warp drive

White works in the shadow of a Saturn V rocket at the Johnson Space Center (JSC).

The theory of warp travel is intuitive - warp space-time and create a moving bubble. But in practice, it has several significant obstacles. Even if White manages to significantly reduce the required amount of negative energy than Alcubierra needed, there will still be much more of it than scientists can create. Lawrence Ford, a theoretical physicist at Tufts University, who has written dozens of papers on negative energy over the past 30 years, says so. Ford and other physicists say there are fundamental physical limits - not just engineering problems - as to how much negative energy can be concentrated in one place for a long time.

Another problem is that to create a warp bubble that travels faster than the speed of light, scientists will have to spread negative energy around the ship, including in front of it. White doesn't see this as a problem. When I asked him, he answered rather vaguely, saying that the warp drive will work, since "all that is needed is an apparatus that will create all the necessary conditions." But creating these conditions in front of the ship would mean distributing negative energy that travels faster than light, violating general relativity.

Finally, warp drive is a conceptual issue. In general relativity, traveling faster than the speed of light is equivalent to traveling through time. We have already discussed whether such travel is possible in principle. By saying that warp drive is possible, White is actually claiming that he can create a time machine.

Doubt creeps like night on earth.

"I don't think any of the usual understandings of physics suggest what he wants to see in his experiments," says Ken Olum, a physicist at Tufts University who attended the 2011 100 Year Starship meeting. Noah Graham, a physicist at Middlebury College who read two of White's papers at my request, responded with the following remark:

"I don't see anything scientific in these papers other than summarizing old papers."

Alcubierre himself, now a physicist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, also doubts:

“Even if I am sitting in a ship and I have negative energy, there is no way to get it where I need it,” he said by phone. - “It's a great idea. I like it because I wrote it myself. But it has a number of limitations that I have encountered over the years, and I do not know how to get around them.

To the left of the main gate of the Johnson Center lies a Saturn V rocket on its side. All stages are disconnected so that you can admire the intestines of the rocket. Just one of the many carrier engines is about the size of a small car, and the side-lying rocket is a couple of meters longer than a football field. This speaks volumes about the complexity of space travel. The rocket is forty years old, and the time when it was introduced - and when NASA was part of the big American dream to put a man on the moon - is long gone. Today, the Johnson Space Center is like a place where greatness once roamed but disappeared.

A breakthrough in engine development could usher in a new era at JSC and NASA that will last for years and never see an end. The Rassvet probe, launched in 2007, explores the asteroid belt on ion thrusters. In 2010, the Japanese unveiled Ikarus, the first interplanetary solar sail project, another experimental engine variant. In 2016, the ISS will begin the VASIMR experiment, a high-thrust plasma system. And while these systems could one day carry astronauts to Mars, they certainly won't get out of the solar system. That's why, according to White, NASA needs to take on risky projects.

The warp drive is probably NASA's most incredible propulsion project. The brightest minds in the scientific community claim that White cannot build it. Experts say it works against the laws of nature and physics. Despite all this, NASA supports this development.

"What he's trying to do doesn't need a lot of funding," Applewhite says. - “I think the authorities are very interested in him continuing to work. So far it's just a theory, but if it turns into reality, the rules of the game will change dramatically."

In January, White assembled his warp interferometer and took it to a new location. Eagleworks has moved into a new home that is larger and "seismically isolated," White enthuses. That is, it is protected from vibrations. But the best thing about the new lab is that NASA gave White the space to develop the Apollo program, the same one that once took Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon.

And it became such an incredible breakthrough that many still do not believe that the Americans landed on the moon.

warp drive

Star Trek (Star Trek)
TV serials
Original series - 80 episodes
Animated series - 22 episodes
Next Generation - 178 episodes
Deep Space 9 - 176 episodes
Voyager - 172 episodes
Enterprise - 98 episodes
Movies
Star Trek: The Movie
Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan
Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock
Star Trek 4: The Journey Home
Star Trek 5: The Last Frontier
Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek: Generations
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: Uprising
Star Trek: Retribution
Star Trek (XI)
Major civilizations
United Federation of Planets
Klingons - Romulans - Borg
Bajorans - Cardassians - Ferengi
Kazons - Tholians - Trills
Dominion - Breen - Hirogen
Xindi - Vulcans - Q
Information
Characters - Races - Klingon
Chronology - Telepathy - Physics
Starships - Classes of starships
Related products
Stories and books
Games
Star Trek Online
List of computer games based on Star Trek
Card Game (CCG) - RPG
Contribution
Contribution to culture - Trekkers

warp drive(English) warp drive, warp drive) is a collective, fantastic scientific and theoretical image of a technology or phenomenon from the fictional Star Trek universe that allows you to get from one point in space to another faster than light does. This is made possible by generating a special warp field (warp field) that envelops the ship and distorts the space-time continuum of outer space, moving it. The warp drive does not accelerate a physical body faster than the speed of light in ordinary space, but uses the properties of space-time to move faster than a plane electromagnetic wave (light) in a vacuum.

In Star Trek

Technology

In general terms, warp drives work by warping the space in front of and behind a starship, allowing it to travel faster than the speed of light. The space "shrinks" in front of the vessel and "unfolds" behind it. At the same time, the ship itself is in a kind of “bubble”, remaining protected from deformations. The ship itself inside the distortion field actually remains motionless: the distorted space itself, in which it is located, moves.

Using warp drives requires a lot of energy, so the warp systems of the United Federation of Planets are powered by a reaction between matter and antimatter, separated from each other by dilithium crystals. As a result of the reaction, a high-energy plasma is created, called electro-plasma. The electro-plasma is directed by special electro-magnetic pipelines of the electro-plasma system (eng. electro-plasma system, EPS) into plasma injectors, which in turn create a warp field. Different civilizations use different sources of energy, but in general the process is similar.

Warp field, Warp field

The warp field consists of many layers. These layers form a "subspace field". It is very much like a "mini-universe" that is separated from normal space. Due to the different laws in this mini-universe, relative to normal space, the mini-universe can move in excess of the speed of light. The more layers the warp field consists of, the deeper the ship sinks into subspace, the farther it separates from normal space, and the higher the speed. To achieve higher speeds, it is necessary to increase the number of subspace layers. More and more energy is required to create and maintain the next layer. The theoretical limit imposed on the operation of the warp engine is called the Eugene limit. According to which, the deformation factor can never be 10, since in this case the energy consumption, as well as the speed, became equal to infinity. The full remaining available speed range is compressed between Warp 9 (9 layers) and Warp 10 (infinite speed).

On Intrepid-class starships, special gondolas with variable geometry were installed, which made it possible to move at an even higher speed without causing harm to the surrounding space and objects located in it. The newer class of starships, the Sovereign, are fitted with more advanced warp nacelles, allowing them to move at higher speeds without changing their geometry.

System elements

• Container with antimatter
• Antimatter inductor
• Relay of antimatter
• Dilithium ammo
• Electro plasma
• Emergency Stop Mechanism
• The main line of the cooling device
• Magnetic conduit
• Magnetic block
• Gondolas

Part of the warp drive, usually in front is the Vortex assembler with its additional systems, then comes the Plasma Injector, which focuses the plasma flow exactly in the center of the Warp Coil and the actual row of coils along the entire remaining length. The de facto standard among warp drive races is to use two warp pods to the left and right of the ship's hull.

• • Bussard collectors

A device usually located (on Federation ships) at the front end of the warp nacelles, and serving for the initial collection of interstellar gas (other systems are already involved in the subsequent sorting and processing). The harvester is usually activated when the matter or antimatter in the ship's tanks is nearly depleted. The vortex collector consists of a set of coils that create a magnetic field and suck in interstellar gas like a funnel.

• • Plasma injector
  • Warp coil (warp coil)

A toroid divided into several parts that creates a warp field when activated by a passing stream of high energy plasma. A series of warp coils is located in the warp nacelle. Using a plasma injector, the ship can regulate the activation sequence of individual warp coils while moving, allowing the ship to maneuver at warp speeds.

• Annihilation core
• Pre-cooling line
• Inductor
• plasma pipeline
• Plasma intercooler
  • Coolant
• Plasma Regulator
• Energy transmission channel
• Power transmission network

The power distribution network used aboard Federation starships to power all sources of consumption, its operation and distribution of energy from sources to consumers is controlled by an EPS officer from his terminal. Energy is transferred in the power channel by high speeds of plasma particles. There are two main power sources: the warp core and the fusion reactors in the pulse engines. The core primarily powers the warp nacelles, shields, and phasers, while the pulse engines power all other consumers.

• Space matrix recovery coil
• Warp Plasma Pipeline
• warp core
  • Matter/antimatter reactor
  • Antimatter Injector
  • Dilithium Crystal Board
    • Dilithium Crystal

Perhaps the main component of the core of the curvature, inside which the flows of matter and antimatter are transformed into an electroplasma flow during a controlled annihilation process. Dilithium is the only element so far known to be inert to antimatter when exposed to a high-frequency electromagnetic field in the megawatt range. The efficiency of a reaction in a crystal depends on its quality.

• • • Crystal connection mechanism
  • Matter injector
  • Theta matrix compositor

Development of warp drives

Each space civilization developed warp technology independently and at different times. So the Vulcans had warp drives in the third century of Earth reckoning. In 2151 they passed a speed equal to seven warp factors. In the same year, the Klingons were able to reach sixth speed. It should be noted that the Klingons themselves did not develop warp technologies - they were "borrowed" from the Hurks, who once captured the Klingons' home world of Kronos (Chronos).

The United Federation of Planets recognized the creation of a warp drive as an important stage and a factor characterizing the development of any society. Starfleet directives forbid contact with alien races until they have entered the era of warp technology.

Federation warp technology

The first flight of the Phoenix

On Earth, warp drive was developed by scientist Zephram Cochrane shortly after the end of World War III. Despite the lack of resources, he managed to re-equip the space rocket "Titan V" for his experiments.

The first test flight of the Phoenix warp vessel took place on April 5, 2063 and was the cause of the "first contact" - the meeting of Terrans and Vulcans.

However, the further development of warp technologies was very slow (this is largely due to the position of the Vulcans, who consider humanity not ready for space exploration) and only 80 years later, in the 2140s, a new engine created by engineer Henry Archer was able to achieve a warp factor of 2 Soon Henry's son, Jonathan Archer, broke the 2-warp barrier, reaching a speed of 2.5 warp.

By 2151, the technology was advanced enough that humanity was ready to break the 5 warp factor barrier. The first ship equipped with the new engine was the starship Enterprise, which set a new speed record on February 9, 2152.

In 2161, speed 7 was reached and new engines began to be installed on starships.

In the 2240s, a speed of 6 warp factors became cruising (the maximum speed at that time was warp 8).

Higher speeds were only achieved through the intervention of other civilizations. So in 2268, the Kelvans made changes to the design of the starship Enterprise, as a result of which it was able to achieve warp 10 speed. In the same year, due to Losir's sabotage, the starship "overclocked" to warp 14.1.

At the same time, new gondolas began to be installed on starships, making warp 8 speed commonplace ("Star Trek: The Movie"). In the 2280s, "transwarp" technology was developed to allow even greater speeds, but failure to test new engines forced engineers to abandon their practical application.

By the time the Galaxy class arrived in the 2360s, advances in engineering had allowed starships to travel at warp 9.6 for twelve

Back in 2012, physicist Harold White, who heads the Eagleworks research group at the Advanced Propulsion Physics Laboratory at NASA's Lyndon Johnson Center, unveiled a project to build a warp-powered spacecraft. According to theoretical calculations, he will someday make real displacement in space faster than the speed of light, which will allow people to travel through time. After numerous scientific disputes about White and his project, everyone forgot. But recently on scientific conference in New York, dedicated to developments in the field space technologies, the physicist made a presentation, mentioning, in particular, that his laboratory is already engaged in the embodiment of a miracle engine, and along the way is developing all the missing technologies.

Everyone knows Einstein's theory that the speed of light in vacuum is a constant value and this is the limiting speed of particles and transmission of interactions. Given the magnitude of cosmic distances and the limitations of human life, the exploration of deep space becomes an insurmountable problem. For many years, not only science fiction writers, but also world-famous scientists have been looking for a way to get around Einstein's theory. But it turned out that it is possible to move faster than the speed of light without going beyond the Einstein model.

In 1994, Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed an engine based on space stretching technology. The scientist admitted that he was inspired to develop the popular science fiction television series Star Trek ("Star Trek"). There was a warp drive that allowed faster-than-light travel on the Enterprise starship. The theoretical concept of the fantastic device coincided with the real idea of ​​the world-famous Alcubierre engine.

The idea is relatively simple: outer space wraps around the ship, while he himself remains in place. The space in front is pressed against the ship, and what is behind, on the contrary, moves away with the same force. Thus, the speed of the ship is not limited: it does not move itself, but the compressible-expandable space moves. Astronauts inside the ship will feel like nothing is happening. That is, all the postulates of Einstein's theory of relativity are preserved.

The development of Alcubierre became, in turn, the main idea behind White's engine. Three years ago, scientists managed to obtain in laboratory conditions some "bubbles" inside which space is deformed and distorted, which was the basis for the operation of a new version of the warp engine. Using such a "bubble", it is possible to form the very wormhole through which the spacecraft will instantly fly to any distance. In 2012, to confirm their findings, White and his colleagues created the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer scientific device, with the help of which the “bubbles” deforming the space-time axis were discovered.

But if at that time scientists did not know how to put this development into practice, now, thanks to the latest technologies they are approaching their target. According to White, based on mathematical calculations on his ship, it will be possible to reach Alpha Centauri in just two weeks, counting the time from the moment of launch from Earth.

To date, scientists have already created a prototype spacecraft for travel at light speeds - IXS Enterprise. The ship for space travel is located between two rings, the purpose of which is to form a "bubble" that deforms space-time. In reality, a ship with a warp drive installed will not fly faster than light through space. As in the case of the Alcubierre engine, this universe will move at the speed of light around the ship inside the "bubble" - an artificially created wormhole.

By the way, the idea of ​​a warp warp drive did not come about as a crazy fantasy of a physicist who lost touch with reality: it appeared in the process of developing completely "terrestrial" ion and plasma engines. By the way, this is the main goal of the laboratory led by White.

For NASA, White's "creative experiments", including the warp drive, are relatively inexpensive - about $50 thousand, which, given the organization's total budget of $18 billion a year, is an insignificant amount. In general, NASA is much more focused on more realistic projects - building a new generation of Orion spacecraft, working on the International Space Station, and preparing for an asteroid capture mission.

Nevertheless, NASA management provided technical resources and additional staff of specialists at the disposal of White's group. A laboratory was also repaired and placed at White's disposal with a special pneumatic installation that completely suppresses seismic vibrations.

The White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer is currently working on detecting the time-space warp effect. The device is extremely sensitive, even the steps of people passing near the laboratory affect it, so the scientists had to move to a new laboratory. It is clear that the implementation of the warp drive is still far away, but the beginning of the trouble is beginning!

"The new research findings by my team have made the fantastic warp drive project a viable possibility and worthy of further research," says Warp, without elaborating on current innovations.

The concept of a warp drive, a space-time warp drive that comes to us from science fiction, in particular from the Star Trek series, has recently been considered a "theoretically feasible and worth further research" concept by some smart and maybe a little crazy NASA scientists. Moreover, these scientists went a little further than assumptions and created in their laboratory a scientific device inside which they managed to get, albeit tiny, but still, "bubbles" of space deformation.

The principle of a warp drive, an engine that works on the deformation of space, is quite simple. According to Einstein's theory, nothing that exists in the universe can move faster than the speed of light. But, using an artificially created space deformation, a kind of wormhole, it is possible to lay a straight and short cut from one point in space to another, regardless of the distance separating these points.

Such a technique allows, at least, the heroes of Star Trek to avoid a lot of paradoxes, problems and limitations associated with flying at light and near-light speeds.

According to NASA scientists, in order to fly faster than the speed of light, it is necessary to create a space deformation region using a ring of some exotic material, enclosing the spacecraft in a separate “bubble” of normal space, and somehow make the entire Universe move faster than the speed of light . As crazy as it sounds, this is a circumvention of Einstein's theory and it should work, at least it hasn't been proven that it shouldn't work yet.

From the point of view of a spacecraft in an isolated bubble, it would appear as if all space in front of the ship would be compressed and then expanded behind the ship, moving the ship over unimaginable distances almost instantly.

While the above thought experiment” seems simple enough, its implementation is an incredibly difficult problem, since it touches upon such fundamental concepts as time and space, which are the “fabric” of the Universe. The implementation of the warp drive principle may require the invention and creation of some absolutely incredible things, such as negative energy and some exotic materials that cannot exist under normal conditions, otherwise it would require an ocean of ordinary energy.

Speaking of this energy, physicists have tentatively calculated that to move several atoms of matter in the manner described above, it will take energy that is three times the energy contained in the Sun. And to move the spacecraft will require energies that are several orders of magnitude higher than the energy generated in the entire universe.

At the 100 Year Starship Symposium just recently, Harold White, a NASA scientist, presented some of his research, which indicates that building a warp drive is not all that hopeless. From his point of view,

A spaceship in the shape of a rugby ball can be surrounded by a ring of an exotic substance with absolutely incredible properties. The influence of this substance will make it possible to implement the principles of the warp drive with much, much lower energy costs than those that were announced above.

"Our mathematical calculations show that with the help of a warp drive, we can get to Alpha Centauri in two weeks from the moment we lift off from Earth," says White. “At the same time, the time of the onboard clock of the spacecraft will not differ from the time in the ground control center. All kinds of time paradoxes are completely absent, and the acceleration with which the spacecraft will move will not smear the crew with a thin layer on the bulkheads.

Using the laboratory scientific instrument White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer, created to confirm their guesses, Harold White and his colleagues were able to create tiny "bubbles" of space-time warp.

The degree of deformation obtained was very small, somewhere in the region of one millionth of a percent, this, of course, is not enough to take us to distant stars, but this is practical confirmation that someday this will become quite possible.