Starships, Dreams, Myths, and Possibilities

Starships, Dreams, Myths, and Possibilities
                                       Edward Halerewicz, Jr.1

                                          October 11, 2013

                                             Summary

Methods of Faster Than Light travel are outlined in plain language from science fiction to fact. While
there are numerous conceivable methods of circumventing the speed of light implementations of such
methods are doubtful within the realm of terrestrial science.

        Destination that away in a galaxy far away has been a staple of science fiction for several
decades acting as proving grounds for exotic stories in strange new worlds. Is there something to
the collective consciousness regarding the idea of the starship might they be possible or are they
figments of overactive imaginations? Given the lack of any starships on display at the Air and
Space Museum aside from a studio model of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the gift shop, the latter
appears to be the answer. Probably the two most popular intellectual properties dealing with
apparent Faster Than Light (FTL) travel are the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises yet in terms
of conventional science whenever such travel is alluded to it is quickly determined to be
unfounded possibility, most of the time. As best it is known prior to the Big Bang the universe
underwent a period of rapid acceleration typically described as the inflationary era of cosmology
where FTL expansion provides an explanation for the present volume of the observable universe.
All of these concepts are briefly discussed throughout this essay outlining what is and what is not
possible for potential starship designs.

Starships, What If?
        What intrigues me more than the “what-ifs” of science fiction is that both Star Wars and
Star Trek offer technical manuals on the magic of their FTL intellectual property. One of the
Star Trek technical manuals explains FTL travel by means of a “warp field” that is similar to a
magnetic field powered by high energy plasma produced by off-center coils which induces a
higher density warp field towards the rear of the starship. The imbalance of the warp fields then
pushes the starship forward. For the Star Wars manuals the FTL technological field is a little
vague beyond its sophisticated sounding name of hyperspace on the other hand the technical
manuals go into detail regarding the mechanics of the engines. The Millennium Falcon engines
are described by collecting gamma rays then altering them in a fusion reactor, which then runs
the particles through several kilometers of superconducting wires ending in an ionizing chamber.
An unknown reaction occurs in the ionization chamber which initiates the release of “Cronau”

1
    Email:halgravity@yahoo.com

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radiation in the “matrix of spacetime” acting as source of energy for the Millennium Falcon’s
engines to propel against.

        So could we combine these two science fiction ideas so that they are self explanatory and
hop on s starship and journey to a galaxy far far away? Not exactly, but not necessarily wrong if
the explanations were self consistent and also followed the natural laws of nature then we would
be onto to something! Personally I like to think of the starships from science fiction analogous
to comparing the space canon of Jules Verne’s novel From the Earth to the Moon to the Saturn V
rockets which made it to the moon in reality. While Verne’s picture was ultimately wrong it did
make use of reactionary system physics which the Saturn V rockets were based, given that might
not space warps or hyperspace useful concepts for functional starships? Perhaps, mathematically
space warps would allow for such possibilities but current science more or less suggests this
would be no more practical than being able to create and destroy entire worlds out of thin air. For
this very reason the few scientists who explore such possibilities due so in their free time as there
is no funding for seemingly magical speculations.

        The idea of a starship still might not be a bad one although all known starships at the
present are purely fictional. The reason being is that if you explore their mechanisms in any
detail you will find them to be incompatible with known physics. The one fact that we take for
granted on the Earth’s surface is gravitational acceleration and because of this essentially all
onscreen starships seem to be able to generate a one-gee gravitational field with little effort or
energy. Yet for the Earth generating a one-gee acceleration field requires a lot of effort it takes
all the mass of our planet to do so, in contrast to science fiction this is very energy intensive
process!

What If Problems
         I will start off discussing the problem with fictional starships beginning with the warp
drive of Star Trek. The fictional warp drive is powered by matter anti-matter reactions
specifically deuterium supposedly to explain away the vast amount of energy needed to warp
spacetime by any appreciable amount. The first problem is that antimatter is not a magic supply
of energy where you can get more out than you put in, anti-deuterium would not increase the
mass of a starship any more than regular deuterium fuel so the vast energy required to warp
spacetime must come from elsewhere. There is nothing theoretically wrong using antimatter as
an energy source and it could undoubtedly create high energy plasma but then again so could a
diesel engine on a seagoing ship. The problem really stems from the so called warp coils a little
bit of input of plasma causes them to go from conventional mass to something likely the mass of
black hole this stuff would be so magical we might as well call it “unobtanium”.

       The antimatter plasma is described as interacting with the material in which the warp core
is made up and produces a “subspace field”, when the field reaches a certain density it is called

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warp factor one all the way up to warp factor 10 depending on the plot of the story the greater the
warp factor the greater the FTL speed. Essentially the warp core acts as magic because the
material science is unknown/unnatural as is the subspace field something which interacts with
real space and in a largely hidden sector of normal space reminiscent of some large extra spatial
dimensions known to post modern physics. Furthermore the way the engines are described to
operate the subspace layers pile on one another through linear connected segmented coils to
create a snow pile effect so the rear of the starship has a higher density in the rear than front this
causes the ship to effectively fall down hill propelling it forward. The layering of space or
subspace is another problem as well as space is not really known for having density layers this
would be more akin to an increase in pressure of a gas by means of a moving piston. The key
problems with the warp drive of the Enterprise are the magic material science of the warp coils
and the magical science behind the so called subspace fields for which there is no evidence.

         Onto Star Wars the hyperspace of the propulsion systems is just as questionable as the
subspace fields of Star Trek in its physical merit. Little is said about the hyperspace in this
franchise other than to travel FTL you need to jump into it and jump out of it to make interstellar
space travel possible. The off-screen technical manuals seem to imply that gamma ray collection
is a key component of hyperdrive engines; this is rather unlikely as gamma rays are essentially
the same form of energy as x-rays only much more energetic so running them through
superconducting wiring is not going to affect their behavior. As an example x-ray telescopes are
large bulky devices due to the difficulty of focusing x-ray beams because of their highly
penetrating nature. Although it might be possible to generate a few gamma rays with the use of a
fusion reactor so some portion of the engine is unnecessary according to conventional physics.
Somehow this energy then interacts with an unknown alloy in an ionization chamber this then
causes a disruption in the “spacetime matrix” by means of a magical unknown radiation source.
It is likely that spacetime matrix is trying to infer spacetime is made of a material like a crystal
which is malleable in a way liking in it to the subspace field of Star Trek. While there are some
models of spacetime suitable for what is called vacuum engineering made popular by Hal
Puthoff these often involve electromagnetic interpretations of spacetime whose purpose is to
simplify the equations of General Relativity for conceptual purposes only.

        Although along the lines of vacuum engineering a wiki entry of the history of Star Wars
technology might prove somewhat more insightful. The fictional history makes reference to a
hyperspace tractor beam technology which evolved into a “hypergate” eventually leading the
way towards hyperspace technologies. In some sense the fictional history of the propulsion
system has parallels with known concept for example it has been demonstrated that proper types
of laser can induce negative energy state and secondly a “hypergate” in its basic description
resemble that of a wormhole associated with General Relativity which are believed to held open
through negative energy states. Since the two science fiction franchises discussed seem to

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require and exotic material to interact with spacetime or subspace to enter hyperspace or to
hyperspace might they be useful in designing realistic starships?

Can Not Change the Laws
        The common theme from fiction so far appears to be a material science problem, i.e.
generating exotic energy from exotic materials to engineer space and time for propulsion. The
wormhole is a byproduct of General Relativity and the study of black holes, the wormhole has
gone in and out of fashion over the years for a number of reasons I won’t be going into. The
short of the wormhole is that it came into high fashion after noted astronomer Carl Sagan was
looking for scientific explanation for FTL travel in his novel Contact and sought help from
physicist Kip Thorne this type of wormhole is known as Morris-Thorne wormhole or simply a
transversable wormhole. A simple analogy for a transversable wormhole is that two distant
points of paper can be brought together arbitrary close by simply folding the paper. The fictional
stargates/wormholes/hypergates also have other glaring issues with the known natural laws, the
prime being that a wormhole entrance as large as the Earth would have such strong gravitational
tidal force that only fist sized objects could pass through intact ouch! The primary problem with
transversable wormholes is that they require an exotic energy form to hold them open and while
in theory exotic energy is plausible any attempt to cross the bridge with macroscopic objects
collapses it thus killing the transversable wormhole.

        Now we have a theme going space time manipulation may be possible in theory err umm
mathematically but physically it would require exotic energy. Exotic energy for all intents and
purposes might as well be called magic for its properties are unknown and if we force its
mathematical existence into equations physical process seem to counter act them, in classical
physics such thinking is known by another name,
the much fabled and completely nonexistent
perpetual energy machine! Which makes a lot a
since if you stop to think about it all of the fictional
starships easily generate a one-gee gravitational
field, with that kind of technology we could place
water turbines anywhere on the globe and generate
all the world’s electrical energy needs with
relatively little energy. The most basic concept of a
starship, perhaps due to limited imaginations and
budgets is that they must be perpetual energy
                                                         Figure 1: Warp Drive spacetime. Source:
machines which defy the first law of
                                                         Author.
thermodynamics. This realization goes a long way
to explain why professional scientists only seem to approach such topics in their free time as on
face value they seem to defy the most fundamental laws of nature.

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None the less there have been some serious attempts to at least study the feasibility of the
propulsion mechanisms of the U.S.S. Enterprise beginning with a paper with a work of Miguel
Alcubierre in 1994 (See Figure 1). What is known now from scientific explorations is that it is
possible to induce propulsion by manipulating space and time by means a contraction of
spacetime in front of a starship and expansion of it behind the ship. The main drawback being
that such a mechanism requires enormous amounts of exotic energy from several Jupiter masses
up to 100 times the mass of the universe depending on your citation for only a 100 meter radius.
While a downer for fans of science fiction these findings make a lot of sense given that the
fictional starships would essentially be free energy devices and there is no free lunch in the
natural sciences. Given these realties the only factual part of the onscreen depictions of the warp
drive are very brief glimpses from the 2009 and 2013 productions of Star Trek. On the bridge
just before the starship “goes to warp” you see that space appears to shrink briefly in front of the
ship. This is the kind of optical distortion a real warp drive would produce in theory and would
even move some star light right out of the visible spectrum. So what might a starship look like if
one could be engineered using the known natural laws?

Starship Design 101
          There are two known scientific FTL starship designs one put forth by Richard Obsouy
and the other by Sonny White. The Obsouy design is typical of a Gemini era capsule placed in
the center of an off-center double ring whose purpose is to contract exotic energy in front of a
spacecraft and to expand it behind it. It the guise of our prior discussions of fictional craft the
                                             rings may be said to be composed of a magic alloy
                                             unobtanium but these alloys would have to conform
                                             to rules of General Relativity and Quantum
                                             Mechanics. The Obsouy design does so by means of
                                              string theory where spacetime has hidden properties
 Figure 2: Spacetime warp with two            in extra-dimensional bulk space which manifest itself
                                              as a variation
 exotic energy rings. Source: Author.
                                              of the Casimir
force having pressures differing from ordinary quantum
conditions. If such a force could be proven spacetime may
be contracted or expanded by manipulating radii of extra-
dimensional space. White’s design works off a similar
principle but its design is much simpler; here a warp drive
would work by boosting or accelerating normal inertial
velocities by means of a ring of capacitors. In the White
model capacitors are used to create a gradient field which
differs from pressures associated with flat spacetime. The Figure 3: Induction ring. Source:
theory here is that exotic energy appears to be generated as Popular Mechanics.

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a starship begins to gradually leave the confines of normal spacetime and move into the domain
of bulk extra dimensions by means of a properly chosen gradient. Here the design for a starship
looks something like elongate oval surrounded by a ring perpendicular to its surface (see Figure
3).

        So are there any commonalities behind the fictional starships and the more natural
science based ones? Well there are about two the first beings the manipulation of spacetime and
the second being the need for exotic material science of unobtanium to allow the magic to
happen. On the factual end what we know about spacetime has actually been measured to high
precision and extra-dimensional extensions thereof are at least mathematically consistent.
According to standard physical theories exotic energy was likely present at the beginning of the
universe and to some degree may exist in the heart of black holes as dead stars collapse towards
spacetime singularity undoubtedly requiring new forms of particle interaction. Of the natural
models the White design has the most problems because any old change in pressure in a
capacitor won’t do the trick or else we would see warp drives everywhere. The Obsouy model is
a bit more practical in theory but it would require extra-dimensional beings to be the engineers of
such starships.

Negative Exotics, What We Know
        The possible existence of exotic matter today is considered largely in terms of “quantum
hype”. The most famous example being the not so mysterious Casimir energy while its existence
is somewhat surprising there is very good analogy for it in the classical world. If one increases
heat in a thin can it will decrease atmospheric pressure within the can and using sea level
atmospheric pressure as a base pressure means that any lower pressure would be viewed as
negative pressure. The result for the heated can being the greater outside pressure is made to do
work against the smaller pressure in the can causing it to collapse, the Casimir effect is
essentially the same idea but with electromagnetic energy on the microscopic scale.

        Now on the larger scale of the universe it has recently been inferred that a great
proportion of energy in the universe is in fact negative energy and cosmologists usually just call
it Lambda or sometimes dark energy. Lambda is an artificial construct Einstein added to his
equations of gravity to mold the universe more to his liking and has units of area as General
Relativity can be thought up as geometrical theory of gravity. Lambda just as a can crushed by
atmospheric pressure can also be thought of as negative pressure in an expanding universe, what
the ultimate cause of this expansion though is not presently known. So there is good reason to
believe exotic energy exists but why it is seemingly unobserved in the everyday world is still a
mystery in search of an answer. Though it is largely believed that Lambda was very high in the
early universe acting as a source for the FTL expansion associated with cosmic inflation.

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Prior to the discovery of Lambda negative energy was a bizarre but quite real artifact of
Quantum Field Theory. In very brief approximation the classical fields of physics are products
of complex wave functions which give a certain probability of when and where a particle might
be found in a given region. Depending on the field we can expect a given amount of energy in
that field. If we then are more careful about confining or measuring certain qualities others
become less precise through the uncertainty principle, the energy then becomes less than the
expected value creating a region of negative energy. In the classical world the negative energy
disappears because across large regions the energy averages out to be positive. A simple method
to induce negative energy states would be through squeezed laser pulses the negative energy
state being induced by the in between states. Generation of large amounts of negative energy is
however a bit of problem somewhat analogous to the production of large amounts of antimatter it
is countered by large amounts of positive matter which makes the production of such things in
practice difficult at best not to mention costly.

         Given the back story on magic exotic energy might it be possible to induce such energy
properties using known materials? Possibly but if you know the way to do it you will be a shoe
in for a Nobel prize which is a nice way of saying the odds are against you. The most forward
looking possibility is one solution to the hierarchy problem of string theory by an extension
involving two-dimensional objects called branes, short for membranes. The hierarchy problem is
what comes up with simple string calculations suggesting the fundamental interaction length
scale is the Planck length some 20 orders of magnitude smaller than the nucleus of atom and
hence far removed from everyday physics. One possible solution to the problem is that the
universe is essentially made of two separate but interacting branes whose energy almost nearly
cancels out leaving a modest amount of energy behind producing the universe that we see around
us. If it could be proved that a parallel brane world exists then one may imagine it possible to
induce large amounts of exotic energy by altering the balance of the energy interactions between
these branes.

Many Models but No Clear Solutions
        There is a lot of room for speculation for methods of FTL travel given that there are now
believed to be something like 10 to 500 power solutions to string theory and in contrast
something like 10 to 82 power atoms estimated to be in the observable universe. The probability
of coming across a working solution that describes both our universe and a functional propulsion
system though is likely to be prohibitively small. Wormhole solutions are quite well known
though their naturalness is uncertain which contrast against warp drive solutions which are
doable mathematically but require more unnaturalness to conceive. Lastly there are the string
theory variants which are somewhat shaky on both mathematical and natural fronts making it
difficult to conceptualize the details for the simplest possible fictional starship.

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In some sense if we make a comparison to cars to concept of the wheel is well understand
but a working engine has yet to be developed. The best bet today for starship unobtainum would
be supersymmetric matter having high energy in-bulk dimensions and low energy on-brane
which coul be manipulated through ordinary on-brane physics. This form of unobtanium would
then obey known laws of physics including thermodynamics but given that no such material has
been found to date despite high interest from string theorists suggests that the existence of such
material is doubtful though not impossible.

Suggested Further Reading

Ford, Kenneth and Goldstein, Diane. The Quantum World: Quantum Physics for Everyone. Harvard
University Press, 2005.

Krauss, Lawrence. The Physics of Star Trek. Basic Books, 2007.

Thorne, Kip. Black Holes & Time Warps. W. W. Norton & Company, 1995.

Woodward, James. Making Starships and Stargates: The Science of Interstellar Transport and Absurdly
Benign Wormholes. Springer Praxis Books, 2012.

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