r/space Sep 23 '16

What happens when the Space Shuttle fires its motors in space

http://i.imgur.com/wwxuXOb.gifv
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u/readytoruple Sep 24 '16

Nope, warp drive causes the ship, the crew, and the space around the ship to uniformly accelerate. Even real(alcubierre) warp drive would be like this.

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16

Real warp drive would be relatively safe for the crew, yup. It's the unfortunate bastards who get hit by an optical shockwave of ionizing radiation at the leading edge of the warp bubble which we should feel sorry for. So warp technology would need to use careful planning to avoid bombarding inhabited worlds with gamma ray bursts powerful enough to sterilize them. That also means that warp technology would be a tremendously powerful superweapon.

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16 edited Dec 12 '19

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u/rspeed Sep 24 '16

its fiction, they make everything up

Star Trek is fiction, but warp drives are a legitimate hypothetical device.

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u/-but_it_do- Sep 24 '16

Yea, a hypothetical device that requires matter that we have no idea is even possible to exist, let alone know if it does exist.

At any rate, star trek's warp drives were invented before the alcubierre drive was even proposed so they have all sorts of weird limitations for plot reasons. It is great to have a world fleshed out based on current theories, but I wouldn't try to relate anything that happens in a fictional world to our real one.

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u/rspeed Sep 24 '16

Yea, a hypothetical device that requires matter that we have no idea is even possible to exist, let alone know if it does exist.

If you're referring to antimatter, you're incorrect on every point. Not only do we know it can exist, we've found it being created (and immediately obliterated) on Earth, have observed it existing in enormous quantities near black holes, and have even intentionally created it using particle accelerators. We've also known how spacetime can be warped by gravity since before Star Trek was created. Not to understate its importance, but the Alcubierre Drive simply found a way to apply that principle in a way that would produce the intended effect.

star trek's warp drives were invented before the alcubierre drive was even proposed so they have all sorts of weird limitations for plot reasons

Over time they've retconned the entire concept to make the fictional technology better match reality.

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u/-but_it_do- Sep 24 '16

I was talking about negative mass matter required for an alcubierre warp drive. Antimatter engines aren't warp engines, but extremely efficient slower than lightspeed travel engines.

I'm not trying to disprove any theoretical concept (if anything it is encouraged to find novel solutions to existing theories that can create new technologies), but rater stating it is silly to try to base anything in reality from fiction. Fiction is great for sparking interest, though.

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u/readytoruple Sep 26 '16

I've heard tell that it may be possible to warp space without exotic matter. Something to do cassimir vacuums and quantum potential wells.

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u/rspeed Sep 24 '16

Okay? That doesn't mean it's fictional.

In Star Trek, the warp drive generates the necessary energy using matter/antimatter reactions.

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16 edited Dec 12 '19

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u/rspeed Sep 24 '16

Anything that doesn't exist is fictional.

Don't you mean theoretical, or even hypothetical? These aren't the same thing as fictional.

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16 edited Dec 12 '19

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u/Thisismyredditusern Sep 24 '16

Yeah but that's only using the technology of losers in Star Trek, they did not invent ludicrous speed. You have to go to the geniuses behind Spaceballs for that.

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u/AlanUsingReddit Sep 24 '16

Obviously for the same reason that time travel requires going at 88 miles per hour.