To achieve close to the speed of light, a multi-stage rocket would need to shed some of its mass as the speed increases, as the Super Haas rocket pictured here does.

Let's say you want to go on an interstellar journey and get to your destination as quickly as possible. You may not be able to make it until tomorrow, but if you had all the necessary tools and technology, and a little help from Einstein's relativity, would you be able to get there in a year? What about approaching the speed of light? That's what our reader is asking this week's question:

I was recently reading a book where the author tried to explain the twin paradox by imagining a spaceship flying at 1 g for 20 years and then returning back. Is it possible to maintain such an acceleration during such a time? If, for example, you start your journey on the first day of the new year and fly at an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second per second, then, according to the calculations, you can reach the speed of light before the end of the year. How can I accelerate further after that?

To travel to the stars, it is absolutely necessary to maintain such an acceleration.



This 1992 Columbia spacecraft launch shows that the rocket doesn't accelerate instantaneously - it takes a long time to accelerate.

The most advanced rockets and jet propulsion systems created by mankind are not powerful enough for such a task, because they achieve not so much acceleration. They are impressive because they accelerate a huge mass for quite a long time. But the acceleration of rockets such as Saturn-5, Atlas, Falcon and Soyuz does not exceed the acceleration of any sports car: from 1 to 2 g, where g is 9.8 meters per second squared. What is the difference between a rocket and a sports car? The car will reach its limit in 9 seconds, at around 320 km / h. A rocket can accelerate this way much longer - not seconds or minutes, but a quarter of an hour.

NASA was the first to launch an Apollo 4 rocket from the Cape Kennedy Space Center. Although it accelerated as fast as a sports car, its key to success was sustaining that acceleration for a long time.

This is how we can overcome the Earth's gravitational pull and go into orbit, reach other worlds in our solar system, or even escape the sun's pull. But at some point, we will reach the limit - you can accelerate for a limited time due to restrictions on the amount of fuel carried. The rocket fuel we use is, unfortunately, extremely inefficient. You saw Einstein's famous equation, E = mc 2 , which describes mass as a form of energy, and that energy can be stored as matter. Our wonderful rocket fuel is horribly inefficient.

First test run of the SpaceX Raptor engine in early 2016

Using chemical reactions, the fuel converts no more than 0.001% of its mass into energy, severely limiting the maximum speed available to the spacecraft. And that is why it takes a rocket weighing 500 tons to launch 5 tons of payload into geostationary orbit. Nuclear rockets would be more efficient, converting about 0.5% of their mass into energy, but the ideal result would be matter and antimatter fuel achieving 100% efficiency in E = mc 2 conversion. If you had a rocket of a certain mass, no matter what, and only 5% of this mass was contained in antimatter (and another 5% in disposable matter), annihilation in time could be controlled. As a result, you would get a constant and steady acceleration of 1 g over a much longer period of time than any other fuel will give you.

An artist's idea of ​​a reactive propulsion system using antimatter. Matter/antimatter annihilation produces the highest physical energy density of any known substance

If you need constant acceleration, then matter/antimatter annihilation, which is a few percent of the total mass, will allow you to accelerate at this rate for several months in a row. In this way, you can reach up to 40% of the speed of light if you spend the entire annual budget of the United States on the creation of antimatter, and you accelerate 100 kg of payload. If you need to accelerate even longer, you need to increase the amount of fuel you take with you. And the more you accelerate, the closer you get to the speed of light, the more relativistic effects you will notice.

How does your speed increase over time if you keep accelerating 1 g for several days, months, years or a decade

After ten days of flying at 1 g, you are already past Neptune, the last planet in the solar system. In a few months, you will begin to notice time slowing down and distances shrinking. In a year, you will already have reached 80% of the speed of light; in 2 years you will get close to 98% of the speed of light; After 5 years of flying with an acceleration of 1 g, you will be moving at a speed of 99.99% of the speed of light. And the longer you accelerate, the closer you get to the speed of light. But you will never reach it. Moreover, over time, it will require more and more energy.

On a logarithmic scale, you can see that the longer you accelerate, the closer you will get to the speed of light, but never reach it. Even after 10 years, you will get close to 99.9999999% of the speed of light, but you will not reach it

For the first ten minutes of acceleration, a certain amount of energy will be required, and by the end of this period you will be moving at a speed of 6 km / s. In another 10 minutes, you will double your speed to 12 km/s, but it will take three times as much energy. In another ten minutes you will be moving at a speed of 18 km/s, but it will require 5 times more energy than in the first ten minutes. This scheme will continue to work in the future. In a year, you will already be using 100,000 times more energy than at the beginning! In addition, the speed will increase less and less.

Lengths shorten and time stretches. The graph shows how a spacecraft moving with an acceleration of 1 g for a hundred years can travel to almost any point in the visible universe, and return from there, over the course of one human life. But by the time he returns, extra time will have passed on Earth.

If you want to accelerate a 100 kg ship for a year at 1 g, you need 1000 kg of matter and 1000 kg of antimatter. In a year, you will be moving at 80% of the speed of light, but you will never surpass it. Even if you had an infinite amount of energy. Constant acceleration requires a constant increase in thrust, and the faster you move, the more of your energy is wasted on relativistic effects. And until we figure out how to control the deformation of space, the speed of light will remain the ultimate limit of the universe. Everything that has mass cannot reach it, let alone surpass it. But if you start today, in a year you will be where no macroscopic object has ever gone before!

Shadows can travel faster than light, but cannot carry matter or information

Is superluminal flight possible?

Sections in this article have subheadings and you can refer to each section separately.

Simple examples of FTL travel

1. Cherenkov effect

When we talk about superluminal motion, we mean the speed of light in a vacuum. c(299 792 458 m/s). Therefore, the Cherenkov effect cannot be considered as an example of superluminal motion.

2. Third observer

If the rocket A flies away from me with speed 0.6c to the west, and the rocket B flies away from me with speed 0.6c east, then I see that the distance between A and B increases with speed 1.2c. Watching the missiles fly A and B from the outside, the third observer sees that the total removal velocity of the missiles is greater than c .

However relative speed is not equal to the sum of the speeds. rocket speed A regarding the rocket B is the rate at which the distance to the rocket increases A, which is seen by an observer flying on a rocket B. Relative velocity must be calculated using the relativistic velocity addition formula. (See How do You Add Velocities in Special Relativity?) In this example, the relative velocity is approximately 0.88c. So in this example we didn't get FTL.

3. Light and shadow

Think about how fast the shadow can move. If the lamp is close, then the shadow of your finger on the far wall moves much faster than the finger moves. When moving the finger parallel to the wall, the speed of the shadow in D/d times greater than the speed of a finger. Here d is the distance from the lamp to the finger, and D- from the lamp to the wall. The speed will be even greater if the wall is at an angle. If the wall is very far away, then the movement of the shadow will lag behind the movement of the finger, since the light takes time to reach the wall, but the speed of the shadow moving along the wall will increase even more. The speed of a shadow is not limited by the speed of light.

Another object that can travel faster than light is a spot of light from a laser aimed at the moon. The distance to the Moon is 385,000 km. You can calculate the speed of movement of the light spot on the surface of the Moon by yourself with small fluctuations of the laser pointer in your hand. You might also like the example of a wave hitting a straight line of beach at a slight angle. With what speed can the point of intersection of the wave and the shore move along the beach?

All these things can happen in nature. For example, a beam of light from a pulsar can run along a dust cloud. A powerful explosion can create spherical waves of light or radiation. When these waves intersect with a surface, circles of light appear on that surface and expand faster than light. Such a phenomenon is observed, for example, when an electromagnetic pulse from a lightning flash passes through the upper atmosphere.

4. Solid body

If you have a long, rigid rod and you hit one end of the rod, doesn't the other end immediately move? Is this not a way of superluminal transmission of information?

That would be right if there were perfectly rigid bodies. In practice, the impact is transmitted along the rod at the speed of sound, which depends on the elasticity and density of the rod material. In addition, the theory of relativity limits the possible speeds of sound in a material by the value c .

The same principle applies if you hold a string or rod vertically, release it, and it begins to fall under the influence of gravity. The top end you let go starts to fall immediately, but the bottom end will only start moving after a while, as the loss of the holding force is transmitted down the rod at the speed of sound in the material.

The formulation of the relativistic theory of elasticity is rather complicated, but the general idea can be illustrated using Newtonian mechanics. The equation of longitudinal motion of an ideally elastic body can be derived from Hooke's law. Denote the linear density of the rod ρ , Young's modulus Y. Longitudinal offset X satisfies the wave equation

ρ d 2 X/dt 2 - Y d 2 X/dx 2 = 0

Plane wave solution travels at the speed of sound s, which is determined from the formula s 2 = Y/ρ. The wave equation does not allow the perturbations of the medium to move faster than with the speed s. In addition, the theory of relativity gives a limit to the amount of elasticity: Y< ρc 2 . In practice, no known material approaches this limit. Note also that even if the speed of sound is close to c, then the matter itself does not necessarily move with relativistic speed.

Although there are no solid bodies in nature, there is motion of rigid bodies, which can be used to overcome the speed of light. This topic belongs to the already described section of shadows and light spots. (See The Superluminal Scissors, The Rigid Rotating Disk in Relativity).

5. Phase speed

wave equation
d 2 u/dt 2 - c 2 d 2 u/dx 2 + w 2 u = 0

has a solution in the form
u \u003d A cos (ax - bt), c 2 a 2 - b 2 + w 2 \u003d 0

These are sinusoidal waves propagating at a speed v
v = b/a = sqrt(c 2 + w 2 /a 2)

But it's more than c. Maybe this is the equation for tachyons? (see section below). No, this is the usual relativistic equation for a particle with mass.

To eliminate the paradox, you need to distinguish between "phase velocity" v ph , and "group velocity" v gr , and
v ph v gr = c 2

The solution in the form of a wave may have dispersion in frequency. In this case, the wave packet moves with a group velocity that is less than c. Using a wave packet, information can only be transmitted at the group velocity. Waves in a wave packet move with phase velocity. Phase velocity is another example of FTL motion that cannot be used to communicate.

6. Superluminal galaxies

7. Relativistic rocket

Let an observer on Earth see a spacecraft moving away at a speed 0.8c According to the theory of relativity, he will see that the clock on the spacecraft is running 5/3 times slower. If we divide the distance to the ship by the time of flight according to the onboard clock, we get the speed 4/3c. The observer concludes that, using his on-board clock, the pilot of the ship will also determine that he is flying at a superluminal speed. From the pilot's point of view, his clock is running normally, and interstellar space has shrunk by a factor of 5/3. Therefore, it flies the known distances between the stars faster, at a speed 4/3c .

But it's still not superluminal flight. You can't calculate speed using distance and time defined in different frames of reference.

8. Gravity speed

Some insist that the speed of gravity is much faster c or even infinite. See Does Gravity Travel at the Speed ​​of Light? and What is Gravitational Radiation? Gravitational perturbations and gravitational waves propagate at a speed c .

9. EPR paradox

10. Virtual photons

11. Quantum tunnel effect

In quantum mechanics, the tunnel effect allows a particle to overcome a barrier, even if its energy is not enough for this. It is possible to calculate the tunneling time through such a barrier. And it may turn out to be less than what is required for light to overcome the same distance at a speed c. Can it be used to send messages faster than light?

Quantum electrodynamics says "No!" Nevertheless, an experiment was carried out that demonstrated the superluminal transmission of information using the tunnel effect. Through a barrier 11.4 cm wide at a speed of 4.7 c Mozart's Fortieth Symphony was presented. The explanation for this experiment is very controversial. Most physicists believe that with the help of the tunnel effect it is impossible to transmit information faster than light. If it were possible, then why not send a signal to the past by placing the equipment in a rapidly moving frame of reference.

17. Quantum field theory

With the exception of gravity, all observed physical phenomena correspond to the "Standard Model". The Standard Model is a relativistic quantum field theory that explains the electromagnetic and nuclear forces and all known particles. In this theory, any pair of operators corresponding to physical observables separated by a spacelike interval of events "commutes" (that is, one can change the order of these operators). In principle, this implies that in the Standard Model the force cannot travel faster than light, and this can be considered the quantum field equivalent of the infinite energy argument.

However, there are no impeccably rigorous proofs in the quantum field theory of the Standard Model. No one has yet even proven that this theory is internally consistent. Most likely, it is not. In any case, there is no guarantee that there are no yet undiscovered particles or forces that do not obey the ban on superluminal movement. There is also no generalization of this theory, including gravity and general relativity. Many physicists working in the field of quantum gravity doubt that the simple concepts of causality and locality will be generalized. There is no guarantee that in a future more complete theory the speed of light will retain the meaning of the limiting speed.

18. Grandpa Paradox

In special relativity, a particle traveling faster than light in one frame of reference moves back in time in another frame of reference. FTL travel or information transmission would make it possible to travel or send a message to the past. If such time travel were possible, then you could go back in time and change the course of history by killing your grandfather.

This is a very strong argument against the possibility of FTL travel. True, there remains an almost improbable possibility that some limited superluminal travel is possible that does not allow a return to the past. Or maybe time travel is possible, but causality is violated in some consistent way. All this is very implausible, but if we are discussing FTL, it is better to be ready for new ideas.

The reverse is also true. If we could travel back in time, we could overcome the speed of light. You can go back in time, fly somewhere at low speed, and arrive there before the light sent in the usual way arrives. See Time Travel for details on this topic.

Open questions of FTL travel

In this last section, I will describe some serious ideas about possible faster-than-light travel. These topics are not often included in the FAQ, because they are more like a lot of new questions than answers. They are included here to show that serious research is being done in this direction. Only a short introduction to the topic is given. Details can be found on the Internet. As with everything on the Internet, be critical of them.

19. Tachyons

Tachyons are hypothetical particles that travel faster than light locally. To do this, they must have an imaginary mass value. In this case, the energy and momentum of the tachyon are real quantities. There is no reason to believe that superluminal particles cannot be detected. Shadows and highlights can travel faster than light and can be detected.

So far, tachyons have not been found, and physicists doubt their existence. There were claims that in experiments to measure the mass of neutrinos produced by the beta decay of tritium, neutrinos were tachyons. This is doubtful, but has not yet been definitively refuted.

There are problems in the theory of tachyons. In addition to possibly violating causality, tachyons also make the vacuum unstable. It may be possible to circumvent these difficulties, but even then we will not be able to use tachyons for superluminal transmission of messages.

Most physicists believe that the appearance of tachyons in a theory is a sign of some problems with this theory. The idea of ​​tachyons is so popular with the public simply because they are often mentioned in fantasy literature. See Tachyons.

20. Wormholes

The most famous method of global FTL travel is the use of "wormholes". A wormhole is a slit in space-time from one point in the universe to another, which allows you to get from one end of the hole to the other faster than the usual path. Wormholes are described by the general theory of relativity. To create them, you need to change the topology of space-time. Maybe this will become possible within the framework of the quantum theory of gravity.

To keep a wormhole open, you need areas of space with negative energies. C.W.Misner and K.S.Thorne proposed to use the Casimir effect on a large scale to create negative energy. Visser suggested using cosmic strings for this. These are very speculative ideas and may not be possible. Maybe the required form of exotic matter with negative energy does not exist.

The current speed record in space has been held for 46 years. When will he be beaten? We humans are obsessed with speed. So, only in the last few months it became known that students in Germany set a speed record for an electric car, and in the USA they plan to improve hypersonic aircraft in such a way that they reach speeds five times the speed of sound, i.e. over 6100 km / h. Such aircraft will not have a crew, but not because people cannot move at such a high speed. In fact, people have already moved at a speed that is several times higher than the speed of sound. However, is there a limit, having overcome which our rapidly rushing bodies will no longer be able to withstand overloads? The current speed record is equally held by three astronauts who participated in the Apollo 10 space mission ", - Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan. In 1969, when the astronauts circled the moon and returned back, the capsule in which they were, developed a speed that on Earth would be equal to 39.897 km / h. "I think that one hundred years ago, we could hardly have imagined that a person would be able to move in space at a speed of almost 40 thousand kilometers per hour, "says Jim Bray from the aerospace concern Lockheed Martin. Bray is the director of the habitable module project for the advanced Orion ), which is being developed by the US Space Agency NASA. As conceived by the developers, the Orion spacecraft is a multi-purpose and partially reusable - should bring astronauts into low Earth orbit. It may well be that with its help it will be possible to break the speed record set for a person 46 years ago. The new super-heavy rocket, which is part of the Space Launch System, should, according to the plan, make its first manned flight in 2021. This will be a flyby of an asteroid in a near-lunar orbit. Then, many-month-long expeditions to Mars should follow. Now, according to the designers, the usual maximum speed of the Orion should be approximately 32,000 km/h. However, the speed reached by Apollo 10 could be surpassed even if the basic configuration of the Orion was maintained. what we are planning now. But even the Orion will not represent the peak of human speed potential. "Basically, there is no other limit to the speed at which we can travel other than the speed of light," says Bray. The speed of light is one billion km/h. Is there any hope that we will be able to overcome the gap between 40 thousand km / h and these values? Surprisingly, speed as a vector quantity denoting the speed of movement and direction of movement is not a problem for people in the physical sense, as long as it is relatively constant and directed in one direction. side. Therefore, people - theoretically - can move in space only slightly slower than the "velocity limit of the universe", i.e. the speed of light. But even assuming that we overcome the significant technological hurdles associated with building fast spacecraft, our fragile, mostly water bodies will face new dangers associated with the effects of high speed. And so far only imaginary dangers can arise, if people can travel faster than the speed of light by exploiting loopholes in modern physics or by discoveries that break the pattern. How to withstand overloads However, if we intend to move at a speed of over 40 thousand km / h, we will have to achieve it, and then slow down, slowly and with patience. Rapid acceleration and equally rapid deceleration are fraught with mortal danger to the human body. This is evidenced by the severity of bodily injuries resulting from car accidents, in which the speed drops from several tens of kilometers per hour to zero. What is the reason for this? In that property of the Universe, which is called inertia or the ability of a physical body with mass to resist a change in its state of rest or motion in the absence or compensation of external influences. This idea is formulated in Newton's first law, which says: "Every body continues to be held in its state rest or uniform and rectilinear motion, as long as it is not forced by applied forces to change this state. "The state of rest and movement at a constant speed is normal for the human body," explains Bray. "We should rather worry about the state of a person at the moment of acceleration “About a century ago, the development of durable aircraft that could maneuver at speed led pilots to talk about strange symptoms caused by changes in speed and direction of flight. These symptoms included temporary loss of vision and a feeling of either heaviness or weightlessness. The reason is g-forces, measured in units of G, which is the ratio of linear acceleration to the acceleration due to gravity on the surface of the Earth under the influence of attraction or gravity. These units reflect the effect of free fall acceleration on the mass of, for example, the human body. An overload of 1 G is equal to the weight of a body that is in the Earth's gravity field and is attracted to the center of the planet at a speed of 9.8 m / s (at sea level). which a person experiences vertically from head to toe or vice versa are truly bad news for pilots and passengers. slowing down, blood rushes from the toes to the head, there is a feeling of oversaturation, as in a handstand. "Red veil" (the feeling that a person experiences when blood rushes to the head) occurs when the blood-swollen, translucent lower eyelids rise and they close the pupils of the eyes. And, conversely, during acceleration or positive g-forces, the blood drains from the head to the legs, the eyes and brain begin to experience a lack of oxygen, since the blood accumulates in the lower extremities. there is a loss of color vision and rolls, as they say, a "gray veil", then a complete loss of vision or a "black veil" occurs, but the person remains conscious. Excessive overloads lead to a complete loss of consciousness. This condition is called congestion-induced syncope. Many pilots have died due to the fact that a "black veil" fell over their eyes - and they crashed. The average person can endure an overload of about five Gs before losing consciousness. Pilots dressed in special anti-g suits and trained in a special way to strain and relax the muscles of the torso so that the blood does not drain from the head, are able to fly an airplane at g-forces of about nine Gs. "For short periods of time, the human body can withstand much more G-forces than nine Gs," says Jeff Sventek, executive director of the Association Aerospace Medicine, located in Alexandria, Virginia. - But very few people can withstand high G-forces for a long period of time. "We humans are able to endure huge G-forces without serious injury, though only for a few moments. put US Air Force Captain Eli Bieding Jr. on a viabase Holloman in New Mexico. In 1958, when braking on a special rocket-powered sled, after accelerating to 55 km / h in 0.1 seconds, he experienced an overload of 82.3 G. This result was recorded by an accelerometer attached to his chest. Beeding's eyes were also covered with a "black veil", but he escaped with only bruises during this outstanding demonstration of the endurance of the human body. True, after the arrival, he spent three days in the hospital. And now in spaceAstronauts, depending on the vehicle, also experienced quite high G-forces - from three to five Gs - during take-offs and when returning to the dense layers of the atmosphere, respectively. prone position in the direction of flight. Upon reaching a stable cruising speed of 26,000 km / h in orbit, astronauts experience speed no more than passengers of commercial flights. If overloads are not a problem for long expeditions on Orion spacecraft, then with small space rocks - micrometeorites - are more and more difficult. These particles the size of a grain of rice can develop impressive and at the same time destructive speeds of up to 300 thousand km / h. To ensure the integrity of the ship and the safety of its crew, the Orion is equipped with an external protective layer, the thickness of which varies from 18 to 30 cm. In addition, additional shielding shields are provided, and clever placement of equipment inside the ship is used. important for the entire spacecraft, we must accurately calculate the approach angles of micrometeorites,” says Jim Bray. Rest assured, micrometeorites are not the only obstacle to space missions, during which high human flight speeds in vacuum will play an increasingly important role. during the expedition to Mars, other practical problems will have to be solved, for example, to supply the crew with food and counteract the increased risk of cancer due to the effects of space radiation on the human body. Reducing travel time will reduce the severity of such problems, so the speed of movement will become more and more desirable oh. Next-Generation SpaceflightThis need for speed will raise new obstacles in the way of space travelers. NASA's new spacecraft that threaten to break the Apollo 10 speed record will continue to rely on time-tested rocket propulsion chemistry systems used since the first spaceflights. But these systems have severe speed limits due to the release of small amounts of energy per unit of fuel. Therefore, in order to significantly increase the speed of flight for people going to Mars and beyond, as scientists recognize, completely new approaches are needed. “The systems that we have today are quite capable of getting us there,” says Bray, “but we all would like to witness a propulsion revolution." Eric Davis, a principal research physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Austin, Texas, and a member of NASA's Breakthrough Motion Physics Program, a six-year research project that ended in 2002, identified three of the most promising means, from the point of view of traditional physics, capable of helping humanity achieve speeds reasonably sufficient for interplanetary travel. In short, we are talking about the phenomena of energy release during the splitting of matter, thermonuclear fusion and annihilation of antimatter. The first method consists in the fission of atoms and is used in commercial nuclear reactors. The second, thermonuclear fusion, is creating heavier atoms from simpler atoms—the kind of reactions that power the sun. This is a technology that fascinates, but is not given to the hands; it is "always 50 years away" - and it always will be, as the industry's old motto goes. "These are very advanced technologies," says Davis, "but they are based on traditional physics and have been firmly established since the dawn of the Atomic Age." According to optimistic estimates, propulsion systems based on the concepts of atomic fission and thermonuclear fusion, in theory, are capable of accelerating a ship to 10% of the speed of light, i.e. up to a very worthy 100 million km / h. The most preferred, albeit elusive, source of energy for a fast spacecraft is antimatter, the twin and antipode of ordinary matter. When two types of matter come into contact, they destroy each other, resulting in the release of pure energy .Technologies to produce and store - so far extremely small - quantities of antimatter already exist today. At the same time, the production of antimatter in useful quantities will require new special capacities of the next generation, and engineering will have to enter into a competitive race to create an appropriate spacecraft. But , says Davies, quite a few great ideas are already being worked out on the drawing boards. Spaceships powered by antimatter energy could accelerate for months and even years and reach greater percentages of the speed of light. At the same time, overloads on board will remain acceptable for the inhabitants of the ships. At the same time, such fantastic new speeds will also be fraught with other dangers for the human body. Energetic hailAt a speed of several hundred million kilometers per hour, any speck of dust in space, from pulverized hydrogen atoms to micrometeorites, inevitably becomes a high-energy bullet that can pierce a ship's hull."When you move at a very high speed, this means that the particles flying towards you are moving at the same speeds," says Arthur Edelstein. Together with his late father, William Edelstein, a professor of radiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, he worked on a scientific work that examined the effects of exposure to cosmic hydrogen atoms ( on people and equipment) during ultra-fast space travel in space. Although its content does not exceed one atom per cubic centimeter, hydrogen scattered in space can acquire the properties of intense radiation bombardment. Hydrogen will begin to decompose into subatomic particles that will penetrate the ship and expose radiation to both crew and equipment. At a speed equal to 95% of the speed of light, exposure to such radiation would mean almost instantaneous death. , will boil immediately. "These are all extremely unpleasant problems," remarks Edelstein with grim humor. move at a speed less than half the speed of sound. Then the people on board have a chance to survive. Mark Millis, a translational physicist and former head of NASA's Breakthrough Motion Physics Program, warns that this potential speed limit for spaceflight remains a problem for the distant future. "Based on of physical knowledge accumulated to date, it can be said that it will be extremely difficult to develop a speed of more than 10% of the speed of light, "says Millis. - We are not in danger yet. A simple analogy: why worry that we can drown, if we still did not enter the water. Faster than light? If we assume that we, so to speak, have learned to swim, can we then master the gliding through space time - if we develop this analogy further - and fly at superluminal speed? The hypothesis of an innate ability to survive in a superluminal environment, although doubtful, is not without certain glimpses of educated enlightenment in pitch darkness. One of these intriguing modes of transportation is based on technologies similar to those used in the "warp drive" or "warp drive" from the Star Trek series. The principle of operation of this propulsion system, also known as The "Alcubierre engine"* (named after the Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre) is that it allows the ship to compress the normal space-time described by Albert Einstein in front of it and expand it behind it. Essentially, the ship moves in some volume of space-time, a kind of "curvature bubble" that moves faster than the speed of light. Thus, the ship remains stationary in normal spacetime in this "bubble" without being deformed and avoiding violations of the universal speed limit of light. like a surfer rushing on a board along the crest of a wave. "There is a certain catch here. To implement this idea, an exotic form of matter with negative mass is needed to compress and expand space-time. "Physics does not contain any contraindications regarding negative mass," Davis says, "but there are no examples of it, and we have never seen it in nature. ".There is another catch. In a paper published in 2012, researchers at the University of Sydney speculated that the "warp bubble" would accumulate high-energy cosmic particles as it inevitably began to interact with the contents of the universe. Some of the particles would penetrate the bubble itself and pump the ship with radiation. Stuck at sub-light speeds? Are we really doomed to get stuck at sub-light speeds because of our delicate biology?! It's not so much about setting a new world (galactic?) speed record for humans, but about the prospect of humanity turning into an interstellar society .At half the speed of light - which is the limit that, according to Edelstein's research, our body can withstand - a round-trip trip to the nearest star will take more than 16 years. (The effects of time dilation, which would cause the crew of a starship to pass less time in their coordinate system than people left on Earth in their coordinate system would not be dramatic at half the speed of light.) Mark Millis is full of hope. Considering that humanity has developed anti-g suits and protection against micrometeorites, allowing people to safely travel in the great blue distance and the star-studded blackness of space, he is confident that we can find ways to survive, no matter how high-speed frontiers we reach in the future. "Te the very technologies that can help us achieve incredible new speeds of movement, Millis muses, will provide us with new, as yet unknown capabilities for protecting crews. And in 1995, Russian theoretical physicist Sergei Krasnikov proposed the concept of a device for space travel faster than the speed of sound. The idea was called "Krasnikov's pipes". This is an artificial curvature of space-time according to the principle of the so-called wormhole. Hypothetically, the ship will move in a straight line from the Earth to a given star through curved space-time, passing through other dimensions. According to Krasnikov's theory, the space traveler will return back at the same time that he set off.

Image copyright Thinkstock

The current speed record in space has been held for 46 years. The correspondent wondered when he would be beaten.

We humans are obsessed with speed. So, only in the last few months it became known that students in Germany set a speed record for an electric car, and the US Air Force plans to improve hypersonic aircraft in such a way that they develop speeds five times the speed of sound, i.e. over 6100 km/h.

Such planes will not have a crew, but not because people cannot move at such a high speed. In fact, people have already moved at speeds that are several times faster than the speed of sound.

However, is there a limit beyond which our rapidly rushing bodies will no longer be able to withstand overloads?

The current speed record is equally held by three astronauts who participated in the Apollo 10 space mission - Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan.

In 1969, when the astronauts flew around the moon and returned back, the capsule they were in reached a speed that on Earth would be equal to 39.897 km / h.

"I think that a hundred years ago we could hardly have imagined that a person could travel in space at a speed of almost 40 thousand kilometers per hour," says Jim Bray of the aerospace concern Lockheed Martin.

Bray is the director of the habitable module project for the promising Orion spacecraft, which is being developed by the US Space Agency NASA.

As conceived by the developers, the Orion spacecraft - multi-purpose and partially reusable - should take astronauts into low Earth orbit. It may well be that with its help it will be possible to break the speed record set for a person 46 years ago.

The new super-heavy rocket, part of the Space Launch System, is scheduled to make its first manned flight in 2021. This will be a flyby of an asteroid in lunar orbit.

The average person can handle about five G's before passing out.

Then months-long expeditions to Mars should follow. Now, according to the designers, the usual maximum speed of the Orion should be approximately 32,000 km/h. However, the speed that Apollo 10 has developed can be surpassed even if the basic configuration of the Orion spacecraft is maintained.

"The Orion is designed to fly to a variety of targets throughout its lifetime," says Bray. "It could be much faster than what we currently plan."

But even "Orion" will not represent the peak of human speed potential. "Basically, there is no other limit to the speed at which we can travel other than the speed of light," says Bray.

The speed of light is one billion km/h. Is there any hope that we will be able to bridge the gap between 40,000 km/h and these values?

Surprisingly, speed as a vector quantity indicating the speed of movement and the direction of movement is not a problem for people in the physical sense, as long as it is relatively constant and directed in one direction.

Therefore, people - theoretically - can move in space only slightly slower than the "velocity limit of the universe", i.e. the speed of light.

Image copyright NASA Image caption How will a person feel in a ship flying at near-light speed?

But even assuming we overcome the significant technological hurdles associated with building high-speed spacecraft, our fragile, mostly water bodies will face new dangers from the effects of high speed.

There could be, for now, only imaginary dangers if humans could travel faster than the speed of light through exploiting loopholes in modern physics or through discoveries that break the pattern.

How to withstand overload

However, if we intend to travel at speeds in excess of 40,000 km/h, we will have to reach it and then slow down, slowly and with patience.

Rapid acceleration and equally rapid deceleration are fraught with mortal danger to the human body. This is evidenced by the severity of bodily injuries resulting from car accidents, in which the speed drops from several tens of kilometers per hour to zero.

What is the reason for this? In that property of the Universe, which is called inertia or the ability of a physical body with mass to resist a change in its state of rest or motion in the absence or compensation of external influences.

This idea is formulated in Newton's first law, which states: "Every body continues to be held in its state of rest or uniform and rectilinear motion until and in so far as it is forced by applied forces to change this state."

We humans are able to endure huge G-forces without serious injury, however, only for a few moments.

"The state of rest and movement at a constant speed is normal for the human body, - explains Bray. - We should rather worry about the state of the person at the time of acceleration."

About a century ago, the development of durable aircraft that could maneuver at speed led pilots to report strange symptoms caused by changes in speed and direction of flight. These symptoms included temporary loss of vision and a feeling of either heaviness or weightlessness.

The reason is g-forces, measured in units of G, which are the ratio of linear acceleration to the free-fall acceleration at the Earth's surface under the influence of attraction or gravity. These units reflect the effect of free fall acceleration on the mass of, for example, the human body.

An overload of 1 G is equal to the weight of a body that is in the Earth's gravity field and is attracted to the center of the planet at a speed of 9.8 m/sec (at sea level).

G-forces that a person experiences vertically from head to toe or vice versa are truly bad news for pilots and passengers.

With negative overloads, i.e. slowing down, blood rushes from the toes to the head, there is a feeling of oversaturation, as in a handstand.

Image copyright SPL Image caption In order to understand how many Gs the astronauts can withstand, they are trained in a centrifuge.

"Red veil" (the feeling that a person experiences when blood rushes to the head) occurs when the blood-swollen, translucent lower eyelids rise and close the pupils of the eyes.

Conversely, during acceleration or positive g-forces, blood drains from the head to the legs, the eyes and brain begin to experience a lack of oxygen, as blood accumulates in the lower extremities.

At first, vision becomes cloudy, i.e. there is a loss of color vision and rolls, as they say, a "gray veil", then a complete loss of vision or a "black veil" occurs, but the person remains conscious.

Excessive overloads lead to complete loss of consciousness. This condition is called congestion-induced syncope. Many pilots died due to the fact that a "black veil" fell over their eyes - and they crashed.

The average person can handle about five G's before passing out.

Pilots, dressed in special anti-G overalls and trained in a special way to tense and relax the muscles of the torso so that the blood does not drain from the head, are able to fly the plane with overloads of about nine Gs.

Upon reaching a steady cruising speed of 26,000 km/h in orbit, astronauts experience no more speed than commercial airline passengers.

“For short periods of time, the human body can withstand much higher g-forces than nine Gs,” says Jeff Sventek, executive director of the Aerospace Medicine Association, located in Alexandria, Va. few".

We humans are able to endure enormous G-forces without serious injury, but only for a few moments.

The short-term endurance record was set by US Air Force Captain Eli Bieding Jr. at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. In 1958, when braking on a special rocket-powered sled, after accelerating to 55 km / h in 0.1 second, he experienced an overload of 82.3 G.

This result was recorded by an accelerometer attached to his chest. Beeding's eyes were also covered with a "black veil", but he escaped with only bruises during this outstanding demonstration of the endurance of the human body. True, after the arrival, he spent three days in the hospital.

And now to space

Astronauts, depending on the vehicle, also experienced fairly high g-forces - from three to five Gs - during takeoffs and during re-entry into the atmosphere, respectively.

These g-forces are relatively easy to bear, thanks to the clever idea of ​​strapping space travelers into seats in a prone position facing the direction of flight.

Once they reach a steady cruising speed of 26,000 km/h in orbit, astronauts experience no more speed than passengers on commercial flights.

If overloads will not be a problem for long-term expeditions on the Orion spacecraft, then with small space rocks - micrometeorites - everything is more difficult.

Image copyright NASA Image caption Orion will need some kind of space armor to protect against micrometeorites

These particles the size of a grain of rice can reach impressive yet destructive speeds of up to 300,000 km/h. To ensure the integrity of the ship and the safety of its crew, Orion is equipped with an external protective layer, the thickness of which varies from 18 to 30 cm.

In addition, additional shielding shields are provided, as well as ingenious placement of equipment inside the ship.

"In order not to lose the flight systems that are vital to the entire spacecraft, we must accurately calculate the angles of approach of micrometeorites," says Jim Bray.

Rest assured, micrometeorites are not the only hindrance to space missions, during which high human flight speeds in vacuum will play an increasingly important role.

During the expedition to Mars, other practical tasks will also have to be solved, for example, to supply the crew with food and counteract the increased risk of cancer due to the effects of cosmic radiation on the human body.

Reducing travel time will lessen the severity of such problems, so that speed of travel will become increasingly desirable.

Next generation spaceflight

This need for speed will put new obstacles in the way of space travelers.

The new NASA spacecraft that threaten to break the Apollo 10 speed record will continue to rely on time-tested rocket propulsion chemistry systems used since the first space flights. But these systems have severe speed limits due to the release of small amounts of energy per unit of fuel.

The most preferred, albeit elusive, source of energy for a fast spacecraft is antimatter, a twin and antipode of ordinary matter.

Therefore, in order to significantly increase the speed of flight for people going to Mars and beyond, scientists recognize that completely new approaches are needed.

"The systems that we have today are quite capable of getting us there," says Bray, "but we all would like to witness a revolution in engines."

Eric Davis, a senior research physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Austin, Texas, and a member of NASA's Breakthrough Motion Physics Program, a six-year research project that ended in 2002, identified three of the most promising tools, from a conventional physics standpoint, capable of help humanity achieve speeds reasonably sufficient for interplanetary travel.

In short, we are talking about the phenomena of energy release during the splitting of matter, thermonuclear fusion and annihilation of antimatter.

The first method is atomic fission and is used in commercial nuclear reactors.

The second, thermonuclear fusion, is the creation of heavier atoms from simpler atoms, the kind of reactions that power the sun. This is a technology that fascinates, but is not given to the hands; until it is "always 50 years away" - and always will be, as the old motto of this industry says.

"These are very advanced technologies," says Davis, "but they are based on traditional physics and have been firmly established since the dawn of the Atomic Age." According to optimistic estimates, propulsion systems based on the concepts of atomic fission and thermonuclear fusion, in theory, are capable of accelerating a ship to 10% of the speed of light, i.e. up to a very worthy 100 million km / h.

Image copyright US Air Force Image caption Flying at supersonic speeds is no longer a problem for humans. Another thing is the speed of light, or at least close to it...

The most preferred, albeit elusive, source of energy for a fast spacecraft is antimatter, the twin and antipode of ordinary matter.

When two kinds of matter come into contact, they annihilate each other, resulting in the release of pure energy.

The technologies to produce and store - so far extremely small - amounts of antimatter already exist today.

At the same time, the production of antimatter in useful quantities will require new next-generation special capacities, and engineering will have to enter into a competitive race to create an appropriate spacecraft.

But, Davies says, a lot of great ideas are already on the drawing boards.

Spaceships propelled by antimatter energy will be able to accelerate for months and even years and reach greater percentages of the speed of light.

At the same time, overloads on board will remain acceptable for the inhabitants of the ships.

At the same time, such fantastic new speeds will be fraught with other dangers for the human body.

energy hail

At speeds of several hundred million kilometers per hour, any speck of dust in space, from dispersed hydrogen atoms to micrometeorites, inevitably becomes a high-energy bullet capable of piercing a ship's hull through and through.

"When you are moving at a very high speed, it means that the particles flying towards you are moving at the same speeds," says Arthur Edelstein.

Together with his late father, William Edelstein, professor of radiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, he worked on a scientific paper that examined the effects of cosmic hydrogen atoms (on people and equipment) during ultrafast space travel in space.

The hydrogen will begin to decompose into subatomic particles, which will penetrate the interior of the ship and expose both crew and equipment to radiation.

The Alcubierre engine will carry you like a surfer on a wave crest Eric Davies, research physicist

At 95% the speed of light, exposure to such radiation would mean almost instantaneous death.

The starship will be heated to melting temperatures that no conceivable material can withstand, and the water contained in the bodies of the crew members will immediately boil.

"These are all extremely nasty problems," remarks Edelstein with grim humor.

He and his father roughly calculated that in order to create some hypothetical magnetic shielding system capable of shielding the ship and its people from a deadly hydrogen rain, a starship could travel at no more than half the speed of light. Then the people on board have a chance to survive.

Mark Millis, a translational physicist and former head of NASA's Breakthrough Motion Physics Program, warns that this potential speed limit for spaceflight remains a problem for the distant future.

“Based on the physical knowledge accumulated to date, we can say that it will be extremely difficult to develop a speed above 10% of the speed of light,” says Millis. “We are not in danger yet. A simple analogy: why worry that we can drown if We haven't even entered the water yet."

Faster than light?

If we assume that we, so to speak, have learned to swim, will we then be able to master gliding through space time - if we develop this analogy further - and fly at superluminal speed?

The hypothesis of an innate ability to survive in a superluminal environment, although doubtful, is not without certain glimpses of educated enlightenment in pitch darkness.

One of these intriguing modes of travel is based on technologies similar to those used in the "warp drive" or "warp drive" from Star Trek.

Known as the "Alcubierre Engine"* (named after the Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre), this propulsion system works by allowing the ship to compress normal space-time described by Albert Einstein in front of it and expand it behind myself.

Image copyright NASA Image caption The current speed record is held by three Apollo 10 astronauts - Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan.

In essence, the ship moves in a certain volume of space-time, a kind of "curvature bubble", which moves faster than the speed of light.

Thus, the ship remains stationary in normal space-time in this "bubble" without being deformed and avoiding violations of the universal speed limit of light.

"Instead of floating in the water column of normal space-time," says Davis, "the Alcubierre engine will carry you like a surfer on a board on the crest of a wave."

There is also a certain trick here. To implement this idea, an exotic form of matter is needed, which has a negative mass in order to compress and expand space-time.

"Physics does not contain any contraindications regarding negative mass," says Davis, "but there are no examples of it, and we have never seen it in nature."

There is another trick. In a paper published in 2012, researchers at the University of Sydney speculated that the "warp bubble" would accumulate high-energy cosmic particles as it inevitably began to interact with the contents of the universe.

Some of the particles will get inside the bubble itself and pump the ship with radiation.

Stuck at sub-light speeds?

Are we really doomed to get stuck at the stage of sub-light speeds because of our delicate biology?!

It's not so much about setting a new world (galactic?) speed record for a person, but about the prospect of turning humanity into an interstellar society.

At half the speed of light - which is the limit that Edelstein's research suggests our bodies can withstand - a round-trip journey to the nearest star would take more than 16 years.

(The effects of time dilation, which would cause the crew of a starship to pass less time in its frame of reference than to humans remaining on Earth in their frame of reference, would not have dramatic consequences at half the speed of light.)

Mark Millis is full of hope. Considering that humanity has developed anti-g suits and protection against micrometeorites, allowing people to safely travel in the great blue distance and the star-studded blackness of space, he is confident that we can find ways to survive, no matter how fast we reach in the future.

"The same technologies that can help us achieve incredible new travel speeds," Millis muses, "will provide us with new, as yet unknown, capabilities to protect crews."

Translator's notes:

*Miguel Alcubierre came up with the idea of ​​his "bubble" in 1994. And in 1995, Russian theoretical physicist Sergei Krasnikov proposed the concept of a device for space travel faster than the speed of light. The idea was called "Krasnikov's pipes".

This is an artificial curvature of space-time according to the principle of the so-called wormhole. Hypothetically, the ship will move in a straight line from the Earth to a given star through curved space-time, passing through other dimensions.

According to Krasnikov's theory, the space traveler will return back at the same time that he set off.

We were taught from school that it is impossible to exceed the speed of light, and therefore the movement of a person in outer space is a big insoluble problem (how to fly to the nearest solar system if light can overcome this distance in only a few thousand years?). Perhaps American scientists have found a way to fly at superspeeds, not only without cheating, but also following the fundamental laws of Albert Einstein. In any case, Harold White, the author of the project of the space deformation engine, says so.

We in the editorial office considered the news absolutely fantastic, so today, on the eve of Cosmonautics Day, we are publishing a report by Konstantin Kakaes for Popular Science magazine about a phenomenal NASA project, if successful, a person will be able to go beyond the solar system.

In September 2012, several hundred scientists, engineers and space enthusiasts came together for the group's second public meeting called 100 Year Starship. The group is led by former astronaut May Jemison and founded by DARPA. The goal of the conference is "to make possible human travel beyond the solar system to other stars within the next hundred years." Most of the conference participants admit that progress in manned space exploration is too small. Despite the billions of dollars spent in the last few quarters, the space agencies can do almost as much as they could in the 1960s. Actually, 100 Year Starship is convened to fix all this.

But more to the point. After a few days of the conference, its participants reached the most fantastic topics: organ regeneration, the problem of organized religion on board the ship, and so on. One of the more intriguing presentations at the 100 Year Starship meeting was called Warp Field Mechanics 102, and was delivered by NASA's Harold "Sonny" White. An agency veteran, White runs the Advanced Pulse Program at the Johnson Space Center (JSC). Together with five colleagues, he created the "Space Propulsion Systems Roadmap," which outlines NASA's goals for future space travel. The plan lists all kinds of propulsion projects, from advanced chemical rockets to far-reaching developments like antimatter or nuclear machines. But White's area of ​​research is the most futuristic of all: it concerns the space warp engine.

this is how Alcubierre's bubble is usually depicted

According to the plan, such an engine will provide movement in space at a speed exceeding the speed of light. It is generally accepted that this is impossible, since it is a clear violation of Einstein's theory of relativity. But White argues otherwise. As confirmation of his words, he appeals to the so-called Alcubierre bubbles (equations derived from Einstein's theory, according to which a body in outer space is capable of reaching superluminal speeds, unlike a body under normal conditions). In the presentation, he told how he recently managed to achieve theoretical results that directly lead to the creation of a real space warp engine.

It is clear that this all sounds absolutely fantastic: such developments are a real revolution that will untie the hands of all astrophysicists in the world. Instead of spending 75,000 years traveling to Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to our own, astronauts on a ship with such an engine could complete the journey in a couple of weeks.

In light of the shutdown of the shuttle program and the growing role of private flights to low Earth orbit, NASA says it is refocusing on far-reaching, much bolder plans that go far beyond traveling to the moon. These goals can only be achieved through the development of new propulsion systems - the sooner the better. A few days after the conference, NASA chief Charles Bolden echoed White's words: "We want to travel faster than the speed of light and non-stop on Mars."

HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT THIS ENGINE

The first popular use of the term "space warp drive" dates back to 1966, when Star Trek was released by Jen Roddenberry. For the next 30 years, this engine existed only as part of this fantasy series. A physicist named Miguel Alcubierre watched an episode of the series just as he was working on his doctorate in general relativity and was wondering if it was possible to create a space warp drive in reality. In 1994, he published a paper setting out this position.

Alcubierre imagined a bubble in space. In the front of the bubble, time-space is shrinking, and in the back it is expanding (as it was with the Big Bang, according to physicists). The deformation will cause the ship to glide smoothly through outer space, as if it were surfing a wave, despite the surrounding noise. In principle, a deformed bubble can move arbitrarily fast; the limitations in the speed of light, according to Einstein's theory, apply only in the context of space-time, but not in such distortions of space-time. Inside the bubble, Alcubierre predicted, space-time would not change and space travelers would not be harmed.

Einstein's equations in general relativity are tricky to solve in one direction, figuring out how matter curves space, but it's doable. Using them, Alcubierre determined that the distribution of matter is a necessary condition for the creation of a deformed bubble. The only problem is that the solutions led to an indefinite form of matter called negative energy.

In simple terms, gravity is the force of attraction between two objects. Each object, regardless of its size, exerts some force of attraction on the surrounding matter. According to Einstein, this force is a curvature of space-time. Negative energy, however, is gravitationally negative, that is, repulsive. Instead of connecting time and space, negative energy repels and separates them. Roughly speaking, for this model to work, Alcubierra needs negative energy to expand the space-time behind the ship.

Despite the fact that no one has ever specifically measured negative energy, according to quantum mechanics, it exists, and scientists have learned how to create it in the laboratory. One way to recreate it is through the Kazimirov effect: two parallel conductive plates placed close to each other create some amount of negative energy. The weak point of the Alcubierre model is that its implementation requires a huge amount of negative energy, several orders of magnitude higher than, according to scientists, it can be produced.

White says he has found a way around this limitation. In a computer simulation, White altered the geometry of the warp field so that, in theory, it could produce a deformed bubble using millions of times less negative energy than Alcubierra estimated required, and perhaps little enough for a spacecraft to carry its means of production. "The discoveries," says White, "change Alcubierre's method from impractical to quite plausible."

REPORT FROM WHITE'S LAB

The Johnson Space Center is located next to the Houston lagoons, from where the path to Galveston Bay opens. The center is a bit like a suburban college campus, only aimed at training astronauts. On the day of my visit, White meets me at Building 15, a multi-story maze of corridors, offices, and engine testing labs. White is wearing an Eagleworks polo shirt, as he calls his engine experiments, embroidered with an eagle soaring over a futuristic spaceship.

White began his career as an engineer doing research as part of a robotic group. Over time, he took command of the entire ISS robotic wing while completing his PhD in plasma physics. It wasn't until 2009 that he shifted his focus to the study of motion, and this topic captured him enough to become the main reason he went to work for NASA.

"He's quite an unusual person," says his boss, John Applewhite, who heads the propulsion systems division. - He is definitely a big dreamer, but at the same time a talented engineer. He knows how to turn his fantasies into a real engineering product.” Around the same time he joined NASA, White asked permission to open his own laboratory dedicated to advanced propulsion systems. He himself came up with the name Eagleworks and even asked NASA to create a logo for his specialization. Then this work began.

White leads me to his office, which he shares with a colleague who searches for water on the Moon, and then leads me down to Eagleworks. On the way, he tells me about his request to open a laboratory and calls it "a long and difficult process of finding an advanced movement to help man explore space."

White shows me the object and shows me its central function, something he calls a "Quantum Vacuum Plasma Thruster" (QVPT). This device looks like a huge red velvet donut with wires tightly braided around the core. This is one of two Eagleworks initiatives (the other is the warp engine). It's also a secret development. When I ask what it is, White replies that he can only say that this technology is even cooler than the warp engine). According to a 2011 NASA report written by White, the craft uses quantum fluctuations in empty space as its fuel source, meaning that a QVPT-powered spacecraft does not require fuel.

The engine uses quantum fluctuations in empty space as a fuel source,
which means spaceship
powered by QVPT, does not require fuel.

When the device works, White's system looks cinematically perfect: the color of the laser is red, and the two beams are crossed like sabers. Inside the ring are four ceramic capacitors made of barium titanate, which White charges up to 23,000 volts. White has spent the last two and a half years developing the experiment, and he says that capacitors show tremendous potential energy. However, when I ask how to create the negative energy needed for warped space-time, he evades the answer. He explains that he signed a non-disclosure agreement, and therefore cannot reveal details. I ask with whom he made these agreements. He says: “With people. They come and want to talk. I can't give you more details."

OPPOSITORS OF THE ENGINE IDEA

So far, the warped travel theory is pretty intuitive - warping time and space to create a moving bubble - and it has a few significant flaws. Even if White significantly reduces the amount of negative energy Alcubierra asks for, it will still require more than scientists can produce, says Lawrence Ford, a theoretical physicist at Tufts University who has written numerous papers on the subject of negative energy over the past 30 years. Ford and other physicists claim that there are fundamental physical limitations, and it's not so much engineering imperfections, but that such an amount of negative energy cannot exist in one place. long time.

Another complication: to create a deformation ball that moves faster than light, scientists will need to generate negative energy around the spacecraft, including above it. White doesn't think this is a problem; he replies rather vaguely that the engine will most likely work due to some existing "apparatus that creates the necessary conditions." However, creating these conditions in front of the ship would mean providing a constant supply of negative energy traveling faster than the speed of light, again contradicting general relativity.

Finally, the space warp engine raises a conceptual question. In general relativity, FTL travel is equivalent to time travel. If such an engine is real, White creates a time machine.

These obstacles give rise to some serious doubts. “I don’t think the physics we know and its laws allow us to assume that he will achieve anything with his experiments,” says Ken Olum, a physicist at Tufts University, who also participated in the debate about exotic movement at the Starship 100th Anniversary meeting. ". Noah Graham, a physicist at Middlebury College who read two of White's papers at my request, emailed me: "I see no valuable scientific evidence other than references to his previous work."

Alcubierre, now a physicist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, has his own doubts. “Even if I'm standing on a spaceship and I have negative energy available, there's no way I can put it where it's needed,” he tells me over the phone from his home in Mexico City. - No, the idea is magical, I like it, I wrote it myself. But it has a couple of serious flaws that I already see over the years, and I don’t know a single way to fix them. ”

THE FUTURE OF SUPERSPEEDS

To the left of the Johnson Science Center's main gate, a Saturn-B rocket lies on its side, its stages disengaged to reveal its contents. It's gigantic - the size of one of the many engines is the size of a small car, and the rocket itself is a couple of feet longer than a football field. This, of course, is quite eloquent evidence of the peculiarities of space navigation. Besides, she's 40 years old and the time she represents - when NASA was part of a huge national plan to send a man to the moon - is long gone. JSC today is just a place that was once great but has since left the space avant-garde.

A breakthrough in traffic could mean a new era for JSC and NASA, and to some extent part of that era is already beginning. The Dawn probe, launched in 2007, studies the ring of asteroids using ion thrusters. In 2010, the Japanese commissioned the Icarus, the first interplanetary starship powered by a solar sail, another kind of experimental propulsion. And in 2016, the scientists plan to test VASMIR, a plasma-powered system made specifically for high propulsion at the ISS. But when these systems possibly get astronauts to Mars, they still won't be able to take them outside the solar system. To achieve this, White said, NASA will need to take on more risky projects.

The Warp Drive is perhaps the most far-fetched of NASA's motion design efforts. The scientific community says that White cannot create it. Experts say it works against the laws of nature and physics. Despite this, NASA is behind the project. “It's not being subsidized at the high government level it should be,” says Applewhite. - I think that the management has some special interest in him continuing his work; it's one of those theoretical concepts that, if successful, completely changes the game."

In January, White assembled his warp interferometer and moved on to his next target. Eagleworks has outgrown its own home. The new lab is larger and, as he enthusiastically states, "seismically isolated," meaning that it is protected from vibrations. But perhaps the best thing about the new lab (and most impressive) is that NASA gave White the same conditions that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had on the Moon. Well, let's see.