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Old 11th March 2006 | 01:07
  #24 (permalink)  
Slasher
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Joined: Feb 1998
: ATPL
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From: Formerly of Nam
"I canna change the laws of physics captain!" - Scottie

PhilM your refering to a hyperspace 'wormhole', an offshoot theory from Black Hole studies. Warp theory is the compression of space ahead of the spacecraft and expansion of space behind it, maintaining a speed less than C relative to the local space in which the craft is moving, but measured greater than C by an observer outside it. Both Wormhole and Warp math is there and both workable but we are trapped engineeringly in the 21st century just as Galileo was trapped in the 15th with his aviation designs and didnt have a Lycoming.

Even if Warp Speed in real time could be achieved the next major engineering difficulty would be old man Newton's Law of Inertia - accelerating to 1/2C (relative to local space) in seconds would crush the occupants to a pulp as well as the craft structure. I think the Star Trek writers dreamed up on-board "inertial dampers" to conveniantly exclude Newt and his annoying physics.

As for Mars in 3 hours Id have to see the numbers first.

Last edited by Slasher; 12th March 2006 at 09:42.
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