Many of us have been hearing the term warp drive since the late 1960s. It’s been used in science fiction shows and in movies and was particularly noticeable in Star Trek the television series and in the Star Trek movies. If we listened to Einstein and believe what he said, then we know we can never travel faster than the speed of light, however this presumes Mister Einstein was correct in what he said. Some scientists now feel that Einstein could have been in error when he calculated breaking the light barrier was impossible. Others have said it might be possible to reach a destination far faster than we would going as fast as we are capable of. Yes this sounds like a very strange statement, but what the scientists were talking about was bending space and in so doing bending time. Some people look at it this way, traveling with a true warp engine would mean space was being pulled toward you not that you were traveling faster than the speed of light, but the space which was being pulled toward you in front of the ship and expanding behind it was traveling faster.

This brings me to a point. That point is NASA has designed a concept spacecraft which they claim if built and everything works as planned could reach Alpha Centauri, the closest star, in about two weeks. This would be quite a feat considering that star is about 4.3 light years away. The warp engine which would power the ship is known as the Alcubierre drive. It is based on a solution of Einstein’s field equations of general relativity by Miguel Alcubierre, a theoretical physicist. I can’t help but wonder when I see things like this, if we might have already solved this problem years ago. I base this idea on the fact there have been so many deathbed confessions by people who were commanders of industry and operatives in secret government organizations who came out and said we are capable of traveling to the further stars.

The Alcubierre drive was said to work just as I stated it would by pulling space toward a ship and accelerated it behind the ship and that is how the ship would move. Perhaps move is the wrong word since it is space that is moving. If we take a sailboat and anchor it in a river so that it stays in the same place, the river moves around it. When this happens water which was upstream will pass by the boat which is like space passing by the ship. One of the problems one cannot help but notice may have to do with what is in that space we are moving. Would our theoretical ship be pulling astronomical bodies out of their places? Could we be destroying the very fabric of space? It doesn’t seem to me moving space itself is a good idea, but the question might never be answered, because the whole concept may be in error. You have to wonder how an idea which became popular in the late 1960s science fiction has stoked some scientists to think it was actually possible. Could it be we already had this capability and somehow the fact leaked out? Some have said that our ship would generate something akin to a shock wave which was far more deadly since it would be full of forward facing energetic particles which would destroy everything at the destination in front of the ship when it slowed down and stopped.

A few years ago NASA tested a warp field from an early Alcubierre drive. The test went on for almost 20 seconds. It was said to have been done in a vacuum and results which were reported were said to be inconclusive. What I get out of this is the fact I am surprised to hear such an engine was built. I am also surprised to hear the results from the test didn’t rule it out. What does all this mean? First of all if this idea was so far out there why did NASA bother to even conduct a test like this? Could it be they felt there was a chance the engine might actually work? It seems to me the answer has to be yes or they wouldn’t have bothered. Another thing I have to wonder about is if the test could have been conducted because NASA knew there was a secret space program even though they were not part of it and therefore wanted to develop a powerful warp engine of their own. If this was the case might they have been blocked from telling us the true test results? I think the most important aspect would have to be to move the ship and not everything around. Unfortunately this would eliminate a warp engine and force us to try and develop engines which would allow our theoretical ship to travel not only faster than light, but a great deal faster than light. The only way we could do this is if Einstein was completely wrong.

There has been some talk about another method called hyperdrive. This would send our spaceship into hyperspace which essentially is a shortcut between two places. Hyperspace is actually another dimension. When we talk about wormholes they are also shortcuts, but are connections between two places in our own dimension. Some scientists believe they are created naturally, but in the future we may learn how to create them which would then allow us access to almost anywhere in the galaxy and perhaps even to other galaxies. So far we haven’t observed any wormholes and we base our belief on their existence on the calculations of Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen who claimed in 1935 they proved wormholes exist.

Another possibility for incredibly fast travel time is a jump drive. A jump drive employs an engine which allows the ship to teleport itself to another location. Some say one would have to be very careful and have perfect calculations of where the ship should go so as not to land up hitting an object or materializing in one. There may be hidden currents in space, but the question is do any of them travel faster than light? We don’t think so, but what do we really know about the intricacies of space? I’m sure of one thing once we get out there in a meaningful way, we are going to discover things which will blow our mind. We might just discover there are many things which travel faster than light which we were not aware of while we were sitting on our little blue planet.