NASA Releases concepts of what it's interstellar ship could look like (AND IT'S AWESOME)

This is so freaking cool...

As many of you know, NASA has been researching the possibility of a real life warp drive for interstellar travel:

Not a fantasy, but real science

But Interstellar is just science fiction. Dr. White's work at the Advanced Propulsion Theme Lead for the NASA Engineering Directorate is science. And while his department only gets peanuts compared to NASA's budget (not to talk about the Pentagon's) I find his words comforting:

Perhaps a Star Trek experience within our lifetime is not such a remote possibility.
See, Dr. White and his colleagues aren't making a movie or coming up with 3D renders for the sake of it. They just don't just believe a real life warp drive is theoretically possible; they've already started the work to create one:

Working at NASA Eagleworks—a skunkworks operation deep at NASA's Johnson Space Center—Dr. White's team is trying to find proof of those loopholes. They have "initiated an interferometer test bed that will try to generate and detect a microscopic instance of a little warp bubble" using an instrument called the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer.

source

This thing just looks awesome. Obviously we are a long way away from building it, but it sure looks cool:







They even named it the enterprise!

Visit the link for the original renderings (larger res)

Is that the enterprise!!!!

Sure does look like it will be some day

Ty for sharing!

a reply to: DeadSeraph

Cool! Seeing this design is inspirational. SnF

Someone wants more funding. Someone should be doing science work rather that modeling 3D rendered Star Ships. Why go to all that trouble, there are many more out there is SciFi world.

Seriously. A bit of putting the cart before the horse.

P

NASA cant account for how its maintenance will happen over interstellar journeys hmmm a machine on earth deteriorates rather rapidly on earth over 50 years lol imagine light speed for 50 years much less 50 seconds how do they plan on maintaining that for just one year or one second???? It looks like a lot of wasted tax dollars and 5 minutes of my earth time, eff that CGI UFO

originally posted by: pheonix358
Someone wants more funding. Someone should be doing science work rather that modeling 3D rendered Star Ships. Why go to all that trouble, there are many more out there is SciFi world.

Seriously. A bit of putting the cart before the horse.

P

Even scientists need to have fun every once and awhile

I think it's cool. I doubt they spent a dumptruck full of money for the renderings or anything. And really, why shouldn't they get more funding? We can spend trillions of dollars a year globally on weapons to kill each other but not invest in space travel and exploration? I agree it's putting the cart before the horse (let's face it, putting a human on mars sort of needs to happen before we can go gallivanting around the galaxy), but at least it's on the backburner and being researched.

We'll never get there if we tell ourselves it's impossible

originally posted by: Brotherman
NASA cant account for how its maintenance will happen over interstellar journeys hmmm a machine on earth deteriorates rather rapidly on earth over 50 years lol imagine light speed for 50 years much less 50 seconds how do they plan on maintaining that for just one year or one second???? It looks like a lot of wasted tax dollars and 5 minutes of my earth time, eff that CGI UFO

man, you guys must be a riot at parties!

While I think in the current world the money that's inevitably going to be appropriated to this could go to ANYTHING more important, I want 2. I'm generally not concerned with space but more with the problems we have in this world before exploring space but that's too friggin cool for me to not want. Plus I have a somewhat unhealthy attraction to any kind of powered vehicle, I wonder what it's 1/4 mile time is?

originally posted by: pheonix358
Someone wants more funding. Someone should be doing science work rather that modeling 3D rendered Star Ships. Why go to all that trouble, there are many more out there is SciFi world.

Seriously. A bit of putting the cart before the horse.

P

Concept 3D artist Mark Rademaker told io9 that "he worked with White to create the updated model, which includes a sleek ship nestled at the center of two enormous rings, which create the warp bubble.

In order to figure out how to make a warp bubble you need an idea of how you might implement it.

Unless you expect them to slave around a computer screen with nothing but a bunch of equations, with no idea about a possible ship you would like to use to implement the idea.

This my friend is science. And it seems that this guy just might be doing a hell of a job in trying to tackle the problem.

To get funding you need more that a piece of paper filled with math equations. You need something people can see and relate to.

a reply to: DeadSeraph
A welding machine needs an oil filter and new oil every 200 hours that is basic maintenance, it isnt a riot when your welding machine stops working on earth if you are a welder. What kind of maintenance resources would be required to just service interstellar travel??? Riot at parties, sorry to piss on your parade mate.

They should quit this instant if they think they're getting anywhere of significance using propulsion and fuel.

Warp drive?!... What a joke!

a reply to: liejunkie01

this my friend is science FICTION.

a reply to: liejunkie01

"To get funding you need more that a piece of paper filled with math equations. You need something people can see and relate to."

And cool stuff that kids respond to and remember while they're studing math and science, as their inspiration to pursue those fields in their education & career-paths.

Dont you think that we probably have this already (timeline = current time -20)!
This would not be a surprise to me.
Some UFO's
Off world crews (re; Mckinnon)
etc etc

Hey man I didnt know you had a thread on the topic, but how awesome is this?

I wonder if they will start with warping space between planets to test it out or if they will make long distance interstellar jumps to avoid any accidents?

S&F

originally posted by: liejunkie01

originally posted by: pheonix358
Someone wants more funding. Someone should be doing science work rather that modeling 3D rendered Star Ships. Why go to all that trouble, there are many more out there is SciFi world.

Seriously. A bit of putting the cart before the horse.

P

Concept 3D artist Mark Rademaker told io9 that "he worked with White to create the updated model, which includes a sleek ship nestled at the center of two enormous rings, which create the warp bubble.

In order to figure out how to make a warp bubble you need an idea of how you might implement it.

Unless you expect them to slave around a computer screen with nothing but a bunch of equations, with no idea about a possible ship you would like to use to implement the idea.

This my friend is science. And it seems that this guy just might be doing a hell of a job in trying to tackle the problem.

To get funding you need more that a piece of paper filled with math equations. You need something people can see and relate to.

This is absolutely true.

My 11 year old son isn't as impressed with a wall of text or a bunch of equations on a screen. Whip out a picture or a video, and it fires up his imagination.

Everyone should stop for just a few minutes and look around at the technology they use today, some of it inspired by SciFi TV shows like Star Trek (next time anyone is holding a iPad in their hand, or any device like it, including smart phones, think about Capt. Picard reviewing something while sitting at his desk in his ready room).

Visuals can be quite powerful when communicating an idea. I was at a city council meeting 2 nights ago, where a project that originally was to simply move some power lines underground in a certain street, turned into a project to beautify and to fix other things. The project engineers used visuals to present their proposals to the city council.

Prior to that, they had been granted money to come up with this proposal (in the the tens of thousands of $$). The needed the money to pay survey crews and to pay engineering crews to come in and look at what needed to be done. The only free part was talking to the merchants on the street and asking them what problems they were having (flooding of the street, lack of lighting) and their feelings on this idea.

They gave a very comprehensive report....and a estimated cost of about $1.2 million dollars to get the project done. But without those CGI visuals, it would have been a very dry report. As it was, the city council and mayor really liked what they were seeing.

When I was a kid, I took a big interest in astronomy.....not because of a bunch of text or equations.....but because of all the pretty pictures in some books from the library.

a reply to: DeadSeraph

More like the vulcan ships from the star trek enterprise series.

Great thread.

Pretty pictures for sure. But anyone who has dealt with nasa will know that they don't believe in warp drives or anything under the sun that defies the known physics
a reply to: DeadSeraph

originally posted by: Nochzwei
Pretty pictures for sure. But anyone who has dealt with nasa will know that they don't believe in warp drives or anything under the sun that defies the known physics
a reply to: DeadSeraph

Uhm...."warp drives" do not "defy known physics"

The theory of how they would work is known.

Actually having the technology to build said warp drive on the other hand is a different matter.