Why The Enterprise Warp Speed Might Be Possible — A New Era Of Space Travel
When I first watched a Star Wars movie, I was in awe of the light speed montage. You’ve probably seen it before: the small, rusty Millenium Falcon cockpit, the stars blurring past as the ship shoots through the cosmos. Later, I saw Star Trek, in which a different-but-similar concept of “warp factor” is introduced. That’s when I became curious: could ships actually travel at these insane speeds?
So it turns out, before you start launching ships at light speed, there are a couple questions you have to address, to understand if it’s actually possible for the Millenium Falcon and the Enterprise to reach their top speeds respectively.
- How fast exactly is the ship moving? Before you can determine if the speed of the ship is actually possible, you have to take a look at how fast it’s presumably moving. Although this number may vary for each ship, there are more factors we’re going to have to look at. Still, speed is very important, since the actual speed the universe can take may not be light speed.
- What’s the size of the ship? With limited knowledge about the ship itself and it’s integrity for moving at great speeds, how big is the ship itself? The ship size will also affect how much fuel and power is necessary to propel the ship at the speed. It can also affect which physics theories are able to work with the ship.
- What physics theories can support certain space travel speeds? Because we’ve never actually been able to send something anywhere near to lightspeed (the thing that got closest was the Helios Satellites, which clocked in around 157,078 mph — a mere fraction of the speed of light), we’re going to need to take a look at physics theories and see what we’re likely able to do in the reach of our universe.
Those are three of the biggest questions to keep in mind when looking through each ship and determining what would be required to create light-speed travel. Let’s start by taking a look at the Enterprise, the space-faring science vessel.
So How Fast Is Warp Speed?
That’s the first question, and likely one of the more easily answerable — if we’re looking at The Next Generation. This is because in the Original Series, warp was treated only as a way to get from one place to the next efficiently. Travel times varied greatly, which is why the idea of warp was rearranged for the next Star Trek series.
So if we’re looking at the fastest possible speed for warp (and we’ll decrease from there, if necessary), it’s warp 9.9 — the fastest “safe” speed. This clocks in at 7912 times light speed. For reference, “warp one”, or the slowest warp speed, is defined as the speed of light.
If you’re interested on how this would play out in the solar system, take a look at the video below. It’s a simulation created by NASA physicist James O’Donoghue, who wanted to determine what the actual real-time speed would look like in our solar system.
Although that can seem pretty slow, especially in the animation, it’s relatively quick given the distance of the planets between each other. However, we still haven’t answered the initial question, if we can actually use the Enterprise’s warp speed and move successfully in the universe.
But Is Warp Drive Possible?
The biggest question to ask is if it’s possible. So what’s the general acceptable speed of the universe? Well, 100 years ago, Einstein determined that the “speed limit” of the universe was the speed of light — or 299,792 kilometers per second. It does make sense: if you break the speed limit, you work your way into cosmological paradoxes like going back in time or marrying your great uncle.
Because we have this rule set up, it seems strange to even consider breaking it. This would suggest that warp drive can’t exist if it can’t pass a certain speed, meaning it’s off the table. Maybe not yet, though.
In modern science, matter referred to as “blazing speed” moves 99.9% the speed of light, which is cutting it incredibly close. Marginally faster are cosmic rays, clocking in around 99.99999 (and a few more 9s)%. So that’s still not breaking (nor at breaking) the speed of light — but it’s pretty close!
However, our current knowledge doesn’t necessarily define if something could exist; now it’s time to ask what would have to occur to allow warp drive to be present in the universe. So let’s take a closer look at some theories that could allow warp drive to exist.
Understanding The Idea Of The Alcubierre Drive
This is a speculative theory based around Einstein’s field equations and theory for general relativity. It was invented by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, and works if a spacecraft can become enveloped in an energy-density field lower than that of a vacuum — or in other words, negative mass.
The main idea here is that the drive would contract the space in front of it and expand the space behind it, thus modulating the area it had to traverse rather than the craft itself. With the assumption that the speed of light can’t be broken, the Alcubierre drive allows space to be moved around the spacecraft so that it could travel at a faster than light speed without actually breaking any laws of physics.
To make the Alcubierre drive, however, you have to be able to create negative mass. That can’t be done with science’s current knowledge, and would require some form of exotic matter — which we don’t exactly have lying around at the moment. However, Alcubierre argued that the Casimir vacuum affect could provide significant negative-energy to satisfy the Alcubierre drive, although it’s still very much a question.
In another scenario with conformal gravity — a type of gravity which merges with quantum physics — the Alcubierre drive does not violate the same physics and need for the weak energy decreases. When looked at from this perspective, the Alcubierre drive doesn’t need any exotic matter.
Rather than a drive, the Alcubierre can also be interpreted as a bubble. In this way, a person could simply “hop” the bubble and take a ride. There are still questions on how it would work, especially when considering what the time dilation would be. The Alcubierre drive is the closest thing we’d have to getting a warp drive.
So how about the Millenium Falcon? How would that — and light speed — work?
Light Speed Travel On The Falcon—Does Our Physics Allow It?
So let’s begin with light speed. Our first question would be how quickly the Millenium Falcon supposedly moves. As it turns out, this is much faster than the Enterprise moves, clocking in around 25,000 light years per day as it’s top speed. Meanwhile, the Enterprise is much slower, only taking around 10 light years per day.
So that means that there’s a whole new question here, especially given that light speed is only prompting the transition into hyperspace, an alternate dimension through which ships can move and travel much faster. In short, hyperspace is an extra set of dimensions which allow travel from point A to point B is much faster than in regular space.
One way to look at this is to think about launching a rocket into the air. On either side, you decide to shoot smaller missiles, which are brightly colored. If you stand, observing both of the missiles, they’ll look like they move the same speed. However, if your brother, who is aboard the rocket, is moving the speed of light, it will appear to him that the missiles launched at different times. You could, even, launch the missiles at different times in order to have them land at the same time for your brother.
This is because the frames of reference are different, meaning that when events happen, they occur at two different points which can be observed differently depending on your position in the spacetime continuum. This means that through hyperspace, one could travel back in time and stop an event from occuring, or possibly travel into the future and experience something earlier.
These dimensions in hyperspace would likely be connected by some variety of string theory — for example, bosonic string theory suggests 26 dimensions. Despite this, the universe is usually considered with M-Theory in mind — the idea that the universe has eleven dimensions: 10 spatial, and one of time. If we suppose that these dimensions are, indeed, and option for the Falcon, then how do you enter them?
Getting Into Hyperspace: What It Would Take
So we’ve established that the speed is not only much faster, but it’s also taking a more unconventional route: through the extra dimensions of hyperspace. The question now is about the stability of the Falcon, and if it would be able to handle hyperspace. Not only that, but what exactly it’s going to take to enter these extra dimensions.
The biggest question would be the necessary speed to enter hyperspace, and what this would require. It’s obvious that there’s an acceleration into light speed: it isn’t called “the jump to hyperspace” for nothing! However, the actual speed that this would take is either enough to enter through some kind of wormhole — which hyperspace itself technically is.
Getting a wormhole can take one of two routes: but most of them involving getting a black hole and using it (along with another black hole — you connect them on either side) as an entrance/exit. This isn’t an option on the Falcon, so the next best alternative is likely an increased acceleration using exotic matter (like tachyons) which are able to help the ship enter the extra dimensions.
Even in Star Wars, Han Solo says it isn’t easy to make the jump, requiring lots of hyperdrive computers in order to make sure they don’t end up inside a star. However, hyperdrive is likely a lot like a wormhole to anywhere in the galaxy — they just need to be able to solve the calculations and make sure they land in the right place. Regardless, the best assumption with the knowledge is that indeed, there is a way to enter hyperspace — although with our current science knowledge right now, it isn’t happening anytime soon.
So What’s The Verdict? Can We Enter Hyperspace And Light Speed?
It’s pretty much impossible, for both.
- For the Enterprise: if the exotic matter turns up, then a form of the Alcubierre drive could be used to create a “warp drive”. For right now, it’s not happening.
- For the Falcon: if we find hyperspace to exist, and we find a way to safely enter it, then it could exist. Right now, our best bet is to look at a string theory which could suggest if we could enter hyperspace.
So for right now, we can’t really do it. But that’s the great thing about science fiction — it gives us a look into potential futures, or potential developments of technology that we haven’t yet begun to fathom. Most importantly, it allows us to question exactly what science says, and understand the universe better through this questioning. Without science fiction, we’re waiting, but with it? It’s all up to imagination.
Thank you for reading this article! I hope you learned something, maybe have a little more to think about now! I’d love to hear what you think — comments, questions, criticism — you can reply to this article, find me at amesett@gmail.com, or under Amelia Settembre on LinkedIn!
