Dark Energy and Surfing Spacetime

The scoop: Warp drive propulsion may be a sci-fi favorite for the USS Enterprise to speed around the cosmos, but can the technology ever become a reality? According to Dr. Richard Obousy, the answer is 'yes' -- assuming mankind finds a way to harness 'dark energy,' helping our futuristic interstellar spacecraft surf a spacetime wave faster than the speed of light.

ioneill80: Hi Richard! I now have a cup of tea :)

robousy: Great!

ioneill80: Right, I suppose my first question would be: what inspired you to study warp drives?

robousy: Good question. I am a huge sci-fi fan and I've always been fascinated by space exploration. My first degree was physics with space technology and I became profoundly aware of the limitations of rocket technology when it comes to space exploration.

I think that my intellectual interests really began to focus on theoretical and particle physics and by the end of my PhD research -- I began to see some tantalizing areas to merge my interest of space exploration and theoretical physics.

ioneill80: Sounds like my experience -- sci-fi inspired me to delve into the physics too.

Was your PhD actually focused on warp drive propulsion?

robousy: I was studying something different, but I saw possible extensions of the research into exotic propulsion.

ioneill80: What extensions were they?

robousy: Well, my research was focused on understanding an exotic form of energy called 'dark energy'. This energy is manifestly related to the accelerated expansion of spacetime. To me there were immediate links to exotic propulsion and I believe that the first steps to controlling a mechanism are to understand that mechanism.

ioneill80: How can spacetime expansion help us get around space? Space is big, is this form of space travel restricted by the speed of light?

robousy: Well that's the exciting thing. Objects moving through space are restricted by the speed of light. That's well understood.

However, there are two 'loopholes' to Einstein's famous speed limit. One was proposed by Einstein himself! It's called the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, or more popularly a 'wormhole.'

And the other is the 'warp drive.'

ioneill80: Now we're talking! Exactly what I wanted to get onto next. How does that work?

robousy: The idea is as follows:

One essentially contracts space itself in front of a spacecraft, and expands space behind.

Because spacetime is not limited by the speed of light restriction, this provides a tantalizing mechanism to zip through space at faster than light speeds!

ioneill80: Wow! So it's a "simple" matter of manipulating space-time... that's where the dark energy helps, right?

robousy: Yes exactly. Dark energy reacts with spacetime in a way that causes it to expand. So, theoretically, if one could harness dark energy then one would be one step closer to a 'warp drive' technology.

ioneill80: You're kinda trapping a volume of "normal" space around a hypothetical spaceship, is that right? Squeezed space at the front, stretched space out the back?

robousy: You can apply the analogy of a surfer riding a wave of spacetime. That's a popular analogy.

ioneill80: I like that idea, "space-time surfing" -- sounds like a potential futuristic sport!

robousy: Haha. That would make for an interesting galactic Olympic games.

ioneill80: Okay, so if you did have a spaceship capable of surfing on space-time, do you have any idea what kind of energy would be needed? How could all this warping be generated?

robousy: Well, some back of the envelope calculations I performed last year indicated approximately the mass energy contained within the planet Jupiter!

ioneill80: Yowch! Do you think a futuristic human race could do that? And would we actually need to vaporize Jupiter? I quite like that idea...

robousy: Well, hopefully not. I know we got rid of Pluto recently, but I'm quite attached to Jupiter. But seriously, it's a phenomenal amount of energy... yes.

But...

The very early warp drive calculations indicated that one would need more mass energy than was available within the entire universe...that's TRILLIONS of Jupiters!

ioneill80: Suddenly the rest-mass energy of Jupiter seems like a good trade off!

robousy: Well yes, it's a trend. Later calculations indicated one would need about the mass energy contained within a typical galaxy. (About a trillion Jupiters.)

The problem has been downgraded from being down-right impossible, to just very, very, very difficult.

But I don't think anyone is talking seriously about dismantling Jupiter... it's just an analogy to give us some idea of the immensity of the problem.