Timeline for What realistic way could limit an FTL drive to only travelling between stars?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 7, 2017 at 11:28 | comment | added | BЈовић | "Limit through accuracy" - is only good from that list | |
| Jun 7, 2017 at 8:48 | comment | added | Miguel Bartelsman | Yeah, the Alcubierre drive. I guess it would fall in the category of warpdrive as it bends space to "move". The way I see it it's not an FTL drive either because as you point out, you don't actually move and thus don't violate relativity. | |
| Jun 5, 2017 at 16:58 | comment | added | EvSunWoodard | Actually, there is such a thing as realistic FTL travel, which we know of. The problem is we can't power it. Basically you don't travel at all. You just make the space in front of you less dense and the space behind you more dense (super simplified, obviously), and you just move. Basically, you wrinkle, constantly. That way you are not moving. You are just moving space out of your way. Unfortunately, the power consumption to do this is estimated at higher than the total estimated energy in the universe. So now it is a question of lowering power consumption per wrinkle. | |
| Jun 5, 2017 at 14:45 | comment | added | Draco18s no longer trusts SE | Note: you actually want "precision" here not "accuracy." Accuracy is whether your aim was off (hitting the apple vs. too low). Precision is whether each shot with the same aim lands in the same spot (shots cluster around the apple, but don't always hit). | |
| Jun 4, 2017 at 23:42 | comment | added | Thorn Brier | Babylon 5 had an interesting mixture of these elements. While Hyperspace was everywhere (but amplified the gravity well effect near a star or planet to the status of a miniature black hole) you had to have a very expensive and large drive to get in and out. The most economical method for most of the space-faring people was to use Gateways that were fairly well defended. Only the largest of military ships would carry their own drive, and this would be used to ferry whole fleets through hyperspace. Whitestar craft were revolutionary because they were small but somehow had a drive of their own. | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 22:55 | comment | added | WGroleau | This assumes that relativity is reality rather than a model to explain reality. The fact that we haven't found sufficient reason to doubt it doesn't guarantee we won't. A hundred years ago, someone could have said the same thing about the Newtonian model. | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 13:32 | comment | added | Kyle A | I like the idea of an exotic energy that only exists far from gravity wells. The inhibitor idea is cool too. If you throw in a fictional gravity field generator (like most sci-fi), and say the exotic energy is repelled or consumed by gravity fields, then you just created an inhibitor for every ship with artificial gravity, which would help prevent collisions at FTL speeds. Of course, the downside is that you wouldn't be able to use your artificial gravity while travelling FTL, so maybe collisions would still be possible (but unlikely, because space is HUGE). | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 13:22 | comment | added | a4android | Karl Schroder's Permanence has an FTL drive that requires ships to get very close to sufficiently massive stars before going superluminal or breaking out of it. Of course, you can only travel from one star to another. Any interplanetary FTL travel was impossible. | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 13:18 | comment | added | a4android | Good to see someone point out the barriers special relativity puts up in attempting to cross the lightspeed barrier. Conceptually to achieve FTL some way would need to be found to go around c. Your answer mentions some of the common ploys used in science-fiction. | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 13:13 | comment | added | a4android | FTL drives that only worked near stars or in planetary systems would be an interesting novelty. A nice idea. I'm sure a cunning writer could have fun that. :) | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 10:53 | comment | added | Miguel Bartelsman | I also misread the question and thought OP was asking for drives only near stars :P -- edited to fix | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 10:52 | history | edited | Miguel Bartelsman | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
misread question, adjusted to match
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| Jun 3, 2017 at 10:50 | comment | added | Raditz_35 | I guess so. This is a well established sci-fi method and not bad by any standard. Just wondering if it would fit here | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 10:49 | comment | added | Miguel Bartelsman | Yeah, but stars are "far" from planets in terms of the energy needed to change orbits. You could also set them up far from stars, you just need to come up with a reason. | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 10:42 | comment | added | Raditz_35 | So close them with an iris. Star Gate! Also the stars are mostly inside the solar system | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 10:42 | comment | added | Miguel Bartelsman | Fear of surprise attacks? maybe they are big, expensive and dangerous, so you only set up one per system, so the most central location would be near the star. Maybe the power requirements are so big that you need to be really close to the star to get enough sunlight for those solar panels. | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 10:40 | history | edited | Miguel Bartelsman | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 143 characters in body
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| Jun 3, 2017 at 10:39 | comment | added | Raditz_35 | Why would anyone put a portal so far from the destination? | |
| Jun 3, 2017 at 10:37 | history | answered | Miguel Bartelsman | CC BY-SA 3.0 |