Delta4Embassy
Gold Member
Uh-oh, warp drive might be impractical. When you finally stop, energetic pareticles swept up might radiate ahead of you, or in all directions with devastating effect.
The downside of warp drives Annihilating whole star systems when you arrive ExtremeTech
"Because of a funny little quirk of relativity, there is no upper limit to the amount of energy a Alcubierre drive could pick up. A long trip could vaporize entire planets upon your arrival. The researchers are beginning a new round of number crunching to see how bad the problem is. It’s possible the deadly particle beam could be projected in all directions, making Alcubierre drives unworkable. That spiffy warp ship might make a better weapon than method of transportation."
More at link.
Another problem that comes to mind now is most of the warp drives being considered are travelling at 10x light-speed. But if you're inside a warp bubble and not actually going that fast so much as travelling at an effective or equivilent speed, you wouldn't be benefitting from time dilation would you? So a long space trip would still be a long space trip.
The downside of warp drives Annihilating whole star systems when you arrive ExtremeTech
"Because of a funny little quirk of relativity, there is no upper limit to the amount of energy a Alcubierre drive could pick up. A long trip could vaporize entire planets upon your arrival. The researchers are beginning a new round of number crunching to see how bad the problem is. It’s possible the deadly particle beam could be projected in all directions, making Alcubierre drives unworkable. That spiffy warp ship might make a better weapon than method of transportation."
More at link.
Another problem that comes to mind now is most of the warp drives being considered are travelling at 10x light-speed. But if you're inside a warp bubble and not actually going that fast so much as travelling at an effective or equivilent speed, you wouldn't be benefitting from time dilation would you? So a long space trip would still be a long space trip.
