“Fortunately, several energy-saving mechanisms have been proposed in earlier research that can potentially lower the energy required by nearly 60 orders of magnitude.”
Warp-speed Ahead
It’s possible that decades ago TV and movies like Star Trek were truly visionary. And when Captain Kirk stood on the deck of the Starship Enterprise and took the ship to warp speed it was just the beginning.
“This work has moved the problem of faster-than-light travel one step away from theoretical research in fundamental physics and closer to engineering,” says Lentz.
“The next step is to figure out how to bring down the astronomical amount of energy needed to within the range of today’s technologies, such as a large modern nuclear fission power plant. Then we can talk about building the first prototypes,” he adds.
We are still in the theory stage. And while there is hope for future development, we aren’t there yet!
