NASA's Design for a New Warp Drive Monster - Star Trek Become a Reality.

I was spellbound by this piece from CNN news. I have pasted it here because there is so much info I would like to keep on the blog. This is a mega Wow!

(CNN) -- Thanks to a NASA physicist, the notion of warp speed might just travel out of sci-fi and into the real world.

NASA's Harold White has been working since 2010 to develop a warp drive that will allow spacecraft to travel at speeds faster than light -- 186,000 miles per second.

White, who heads NASA's Advanced Propulsion Team, spoke about his conceptual starship at a conference last fall. But interest in his project reached a new level this week when he unveiled images of what the craft might look like.

Created by artist Mark Rademaker, who based them on White's designs, the images show a technologically detailed spacecraft that wouldn't look out of place in a "Star Trek" movie. Rademaker says creating them took more than 1,600 hours.

For now, warp speed is only possible in TV and movies, with both "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" referencing an idea that was completely speculative at the time. White has fittingly named the concept spacecraft IXS Enterprise, for the starship famously piloted by Captain James T. Kirk in the "Star Trek" TV series and movies.

At the SpaceVision 2013 Space Conference last November in Phoenix, White talked about his design, the concepts behind it and the progress that's been made in warp-drive development over the decades. He discussed the the idea of a "space warp," a loophole in the theory of general relativity that would allow for massive distances to be travelled very quickly, reducing travel times from thousands of years to days.

In his speech, White described space warps as faraway galaxies that can bend light around them. They work on the principle of bending space both in front of and behind a spacecraft. This would essentially allow for the empty space behind the craft to expand, both pushing and pulling it forward at the same time. The concept is similar to that of an escalator or moving walkway.

"There's no speed limit on the expansion and contraction of space," White said at the conference. "You can actually find a way to get around what I like to call the 11th commandment: Thou shall not exceed the speed of light."

It's the idea of space warps that inspired physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994 to first theorizes a mathematical model of a warp drive that would be able to bend space and time. While studying Alcubierre's equations, White decided to design his own retooled version of the Alcubierre Drive. His recently unveiled design has much less empty space than the first concept model, increasing its efficiency.

The warp drive that White's team has been working on would literally transcend space, shortening the distance between two points and allowing the craft to break the speed of light. This would be a spaceship with no speed limit.

Because travel into space has been extremely limited due to existing means of propulsion, such technology could blow open the possibilities of space exploration. It could allow for the study of the farthest reaches of space, parts that scientists once considered unimaginable.

Although the technology to create the spacecraft or the warp the drive doesn't yet exist, the artistic renderings Rademaker created could potentially be a model of what's to come -- the first spacecraft to break the speed-of-light barrier and journey beyond our solar system.

In his design, White says he drew from Matthew Jeffries' 1965 sketches of the Enterprise from "Star Trek," saying parts of that the ship was mathematically correct. He worked with Rademaker and graphic designer Mike Okuda to update the math and produce what he believes to be a viable spacecraft.

According to NASA, there hasn't been any proof that a warp drive can exist, but the agency is experimenting nonetheless. Although the concept doesn't violate the laws of physics, that doesn't guarantee that it will work.

"We're starting to talk about what the next chapter for human space exploration going to be," White said at SpaceVision.

Exciting New SpaceX Ferry Vehicle.

I read this exciting new article in the Los Angeles Times. It is a new innovative space transporter for astronauts and it can take personnel to space stations. This space vehicle is called SpaceX and it can be used again and again - a low-cost ferry service from Earth to the space station. It can also land, upon return to Earth, touching down under its own rockets like a helicopter can land.

This new craft is very exciting as the U.S. looks for ways of cutting costs to send its astronauts and scientists into space. SpaceX is a Dragon Capsule with Falcon 9 rockets attached. It looks pretty basic, but then some of the expensive problems can often be eliminated with simple ideas. If it works and it works well; why not go for it. The sky is never the limit for these people who have left footprints on the moon.

We wanted to take a big step in technology," Musk said. "It really takes things to the next level."

Before a massive white curtain dropped to unveil the capsule, a fast-moving, animated video showed the white, cone-shaped spaceship blasting into orbit atop a rocket. It zoomed to the space station, docked with it, then returned to Earth, gently touching down under its own rocket power.

"That's how a 21st-century spaceship should land," Musk said to a cheering crowd, noting that it would have the landing accuracy of a helicopter.

The capsule, dubbed Dragon V2, is designed to carry seven people and, unlike the Apollo craft, will be reusable, he said. The company expects to make its first manned test flight by the end of 2016.

Having the ability to reuse the spacecraft is a big factor, Musk said, because it will cut costs.

"As long as we continue to throw away rockets and spacecraft, we will never truly have access to space," he said. "It'll always be incredibly expensive."

To emphasize the point, Musk asked the audience to imagine what would happen if a commercial jetliner were thrown away after each flight. Very few people would be able to afford the trip, he said.

Since NASA's fleet of space shuttles was retired in 2011, the space agency has had no way to get its astronauts to the space station other than paying the Russian government $71 million a seat.

The arrangement with Russia, though, is showing some strain. This month, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin suggested that his nation might halt U.S. access to its launch vehicles and may use the International Space Station without American participation.

       

From the outset three years ago, NASA wanted to turn over-shuttling operations to American industry. The agency has handed out hundreds of millions of dollars in seed money to private companies to develop launch vehicles to take astronauts into outer space by 2017.

The NASA contracts set off a private space race. SpaceX has already sent a version of its craft into orbit in outer space and had it return intact.

SpaceX builds its Dragon capsules and Falcon 9 rockets in a vast complex in Hawthorne, where fuselage sections for Boeing's 747 jumbo jets once were built. The company is expanding its complex, near Los Angeles International Airport, and has more than 3,000 employees.

At the time of the test in 2011, the Dragon capsule was empty, but it was a technological and financial feat that had been accomplished before only by government entities. The capsule has since delivered cargo to the space station three times.

SpaceX, short for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., has a $1.6-billion contract with NASA for a total of 12 deliveries.

The company won additional contracts from the space agency worth more than $500 million to develop its hardware to be astronaut-ready.

Others with contracts were Boeing Co., which has built nearly every manned spacecraft in U.S. history, and Sierra Nevada Corp. of Sparks, Nev., which is building a space plane that closely resembles a mini space shuttle.

SpaceX's Dragon V2 spacecraft looks like a sleek, modern-day version of the Apollo capsules that astronauts used in trips to the moon in the 1960s. Those capsules splashed down in the ocean and couldn't be reused.