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[Flying Dice]

Screw that, I want a two-way ticket to Alpha Centauri.

Thanks, but I think I'll be staying away from the system with the dormant sentient planet. 

[Vorthon]

It's either that, or being crammed in a ship for over a month to get to Tau Ceti.

[Helgoland]

Screw that, I want a two-way ticket to Alpha Centauri.

I think a threeway on Alpha Centauri might be nice as well.

[10ebbor10]

Wouldn't work. It would destroy itself rapidly if activated in atmosphere.

Yeah, the idea of using a warp drive as weapon has several flaws.

First of all, the negative energy matter field creating the warp would fall apart due to interaction with anything substantial. So anything more than a few atoms.

Secondly, destroying something with a warp field relies on heating them up rapidly and spewing it back out in a broken state. What appears to be ignored is that the storm of hot plasma is going to travel through the bubble. (Ie, onto the ship).

THird, the warp drives use the mass energy equivalent of a small sattelite. You can blow up a lot of things with that amount of energy.

[RedKing]

Wouldn't work. It would destroy itself rapidly if activated in atmosphere.

Yeah, the idea of using a warp drive as weapon has several flaws.

First of all, the negative energy matter field creating the warp would fall apart due to interaction with anything substantial. So anything more than a few atoms.

Secondly, destroying something with a warp field relies on heating them up rapidly and spewing it back out in a broken state. What appears to be ignored is that the storm of hot plasma is going to travel through the bubble. (Ie, onto the ship).

THird, the warp drives use the mass energy equivalent of a small sattelite. You can blow up a lot of things with that amount of energy.

#1 might be a problem.
#2 not so much a problem if the drive is fitted on a drone or missile.
#3 may be irrelevant depending on the situation. For the energy expended to get a convention cruise missile on target, you could do considerably more damage by just using that same energy to make dynamite. What you're "paying" for is the ability to get that payload on target from hundreds of miles away with little warning, as opposed to driving truckloads of dynamite.

Relativistic kamikaze warp drones might be a more battlefield-effective use of that energy than building a super beam gun or mass driver.

[PTTG??]

So.

When's this experiment they're doing gonna be finished?

THIS ISN'T REAL.

THIS IS A HYPOTHESIS
THIS IS A WORTHLESS TRASH FLUFF ARTICLE THAT'S BEEN CIRCULATED FOR MONTHS NOW
NASA DOES NOT HAVE A WARP DRIVE
THEY WROTE AN ARTICLE SAYING IT WOULD TAKE MORE ENERGY THAN HUMANKIND HAS EVER PRODUCED
AND THAT IT WOULD NEED NOTHING MORE OR LESS THAN BLACK MAGIC, IN THE FORM OF "EXOTIC MATTER", WHICH IS EITHER NON-EXISTENT OR MORE DIFFICULT TO MAKE THAN ANTIMATTER, TO PRODUCE THE WARP FIELD

AAAAARGAGAHAHAGARHHHAAAA!

THIS IS NOT REAL SCIENCE
IT IS NOT AN EXPERIMENT
IT IS ONE STUPID SCIENTIST WRITING AN OVER-OPTIMISTIC PAPER AND A PUBLICITY AGENT OPENING FLOODGATES OF BILE OVER THE REAL SCIENTIFIC WORK OF NASA

SO STOP FANTASIZING ABOUT RAPING YOUR WAY ACROSS THE STARS IN YOUR FANCY YELLOW PAJAMAS

AND START CARING ABOUT THE NUCLEAR-POWERED ROBOTIC SUV WE ACTUALLY PUT ON AN ACTUAL PLANET AND ARE ACTUALLY DOING ACTUAL SCIENCE ABOUT.


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

[RedKing]

Somebody obviously woke up on the wrong side of the warp bubble this morning. 

[PTTG??]

Yeah, the forward edge.

[RedKing]

So you're now supercooled?

How's that feel?

No, no, no...the trailing edge is supercooled. He's compressed, and thus a little exothermic under the collar. Especially now that his collar is shrunk to roughly Planck length.

[Helgoland]

Shouldn't he have been fried by the radiation that is produced? I read that would be a real problem for the area you'd be travelling to.

[RedKing]

Shouldn't he have been fried by the radiation that is produced? I read that would be a real problem for the area you'd be travelling to.

Depends on the coefficient of speed. A relatively minor "tilt" would just generate some heat. Very high speed tilts would theoretically turn just about everything into gamma rays. So maybe he'd have superpowers.

[inteuniso]

So.

When's this experiment they're doing gonna be finished?

Random yelling

They're doing an experiment, and the initial data after him doing analysis is pointing at the mass-energy requirement being somewhat smaller than the Voyager 1 spacecraft.

You're right, it's not real yet. But the fact that they're beginning on testing means it's possible.

[Descan]

Mass-energy requirment meaning they need the equivalent amount of energy as is in the mass of Voyager 1.

Not that they can use the same amount of power as that what powered V'ger.

Because that would be silly...

... 

* Descan crosses fingers.

[RedKing]

Pretty sure that's right, because at launch, V'Ger ran on about 470 watts. There are plenty of PCs out there that run on more than that.

That's still kind of daunting, because the mass of Voyager 1, if completely converted to energy at 100% efficiency, would be equal to 6.49*10¹⁹ joules (65 exajoules).

For comparison, the United States uses about 94 exajoules of energy per year. 

[MetalSlimeHunt]

At least it's possible, though. Just not with what we have. Now, with antimatter-matter reactors...