Science Fiction to Science Reality? Let’s Nerd Out On Intergalactic Travel Via Warp Drive

 

I get it; not everyone is into Sci-Fi, and not everyone cares to think about intergalactic travel. Let’s pretend, however, that you, dear reader, are into it as we delve into one of many real-world theories on how it may be possible, according to Miguel Alcubierre as presented by M.Fil'chenkov and Yu.Laptev’s article in Acta Astronautica Volume 139, October 2017, Pages 254-257 entitled Galaxy travel via Alcubierre's warp drive. 

Let’s start from the top; intergalactic travel has been mused upon by humans for centuries. This hasn’t always been well received by society, as Giordano Bruno found out the hard way in 1600 when he was burnt at the stake in Rome's Campo de’ Fiori for proposing it’s likely that life-supporting planets exist in other solar systems which could have intelligent life that we should explore. This shifted over time, and by the 1950’s, society was so accepting of the thought of life on other planets that there were programs in many countries dedicated to seeking intelligent life outside of Earth and communicating with them. The more people acknowledged that Earthlings may not be unique, the more society fantasized about intergalactic exploration.

The biggest obstacle with doing so is the length of time it would take to get to another galaxy. Traveling within our own solar system takes long enough. For example, the fastest spacecraft we’ve launched, NASA's New Horizons, traveled at 36,000 mph, and still took 39 days to fly by Mars on it’s way to Pluto, which took 9.5 years to reach. The closest star to our own is Proxima Centauri, which is still 4.246 light years away. Even traveling at 36k mph, it would take multiple generations of humans in order to reach this solar system. This is where the warp drive comes in.

In 1994, Alcubierre mathematically realized the possibility of superluminal (beyond lightspeed) travel. He was not the first to theorize about intergalactic travel, but has presented the mathematics that have become the modern basis for which many have used in expanding analytical theories of warp travel. Fil'chenkov & Laptev go into great detail about this, citing Alcubierre’s math on geodesics, velocity, drive power, radiation, and space-time deformation rate, the latter of which could be the most important component of superluminal travel. 

So what does spacetime deformation have to do with intergalactic travel? Well, think about it; what is a warp? It’s a deformation. Using this deformation to a traveler’s advantage is exactly how warp travel works; rather than focusing on increasing velocity of travel, which could potentially destroy the spacecraft and everyone on board, the idea is more along the lines of creating a shortcut by folding spacetime, bringing the destination closer to the start point.  Think of it like this- if you drip a bead of oil onto a string, it will reach the end faster if you fold the end up toward the location of the oil droplet, which can now skip the string between the folds and jump right to the end of the string. So the spacecraft doesn’t have to travel 4.246 lightyears in order to reach Proxima Centauri, it simply has to fold spacetime in order to bring Proxima Centauri closer to itself.  Easy peasy, right?  Maybe not, but perhaps Hal Solo making the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs makes more sense with this logic applied.

We may not be on the verge of engineering space vessels capable of hyper-travel, but I think it is super cool that there are people taking the matter seriously enough that it could be possible, even if not in our lifetimes. That is, if humanity doesn’t destroy itself before then.

Works Cited 

Fil'chenkov, M., & Laptev, Y. (2017). Galaxy travel via Alcubierre's Warp Drive. Acta Astronautica, 139, 254–257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2017.07.011