120
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
120 points (85.7% liked)
science
14595 readers
152 users here now
just science related topics. please contribute
note: clickbait sources/headlines aren't liked generally. I've posted crap sources and later deleted or edit to improve after complaints. whoops, sry
Rule 1) Be kind.
lemmy.world rules: https://mastodon.world/about
I don't screen everything, lrn2scroll
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Do we have any plan for how to avoid colliding with asteroids or other things while traveling so fast?
Most of space is empty, analysis of the path beforehand and a structure that can withstand the smaller objects is really all that's necessary. But those are just as theoretical as this engine.
Problem is that asteroids are very hard to see, as they are both cold and dark, meaning they don't stand out against space very much at all. And even a micrometeoroid poses a risk even when traveling at low velocities (e.g. someone orbiting earth, the meteoroid itself has a relatively high velocity). Getting hit by a 1cm meteoroid at warp 1 would be devastating.
Yes, as I said theoretically. If/by the time this heavily theoretical engine comes to fruition there will probably be ways to detect asteroids better than we have now. Also materials/structural design that are better than what we have now for sustaining the smaller hits. Maybe quantum prediction scanning, maybe a forcefield. Who knows by then.
Not an issue if you aren't actually traversing the whole space but rather bending space to get you where you want to go.
Well, I'll be long dead before we get a Farnsworth drive running off dark matter.
Simple, the galaxy is pretty much flat so go up, turn 90°, travel until you're over your destination, go down, same as an helicopter!
This sounds dumb but honestly is it really a bad plan? I say we go forth on project hyperspeed helicopter
Just a thought. If you just have a preliminary motion and your travel velocity is due to warping of space, wouldn't objects caught in your warp field just move with you till they exit?
We can't even travel that fast to even start theorizing how that would work 🤣
From previous reading on the subject, I believe the main issue with this style of transport would be slowing down so as not to cause a massive explosion of forward moving energy at the barrier of the warp bubble which would build up during travel.
Deflector dish like in Star Trek?