How close are we to warp engines ?

[Saint Nick]

im still holding out for that fusion guy to come back and start a new thread

Lol...>"OMG COLD FUSION IS REAL"

 

[radtechtips]

50 years. Cochrane is still in preschool. Give him time.

Who else gets this?

 

[randomrogue]

Every nerd here gets it. So all of us.

 

[radtechtips]

Every nerd here gets it. So all of us.

Good point. I forget there are other nerds out there.

 

[BudAshes]

Every nerd here gets it. So all of us.

One of the dumbest things in star trek too. First contact is so retarded in every way. From the borgs logic on time travel to a dude making a warp capable space ship with scrap parts, this movie is pure stupidity.

 

[disappoint]

Oh, and we'd also need a hyper-intelligent and ultra-trustworthy computer to run the ship...

Neckbeard: I'm afraid I can't do that Dave. Oh and btw, your name is now Dave, Dave.
Markbnj: My name is not Dave, it's Mark.
Neckbeard: Dave, I see by our records you sold out the Federation to a Succubus tsk tsk tsk.
Markbnj: I'm not Dave!
Neckbeard: Well Dave, why don't you just have a seat over there?
Markbnj: I'm not Dave those aren't my records! WTF? :twisted:

 

[randomrogue]

Even a Warp 1 drive would require multi-generational spaceships for trips to the nearest stars. You would presumably accelerate to Warp 1 at 1G and then have to decelerate at 1G back to zero. Someone do the math on Alpha Centairi B and tell me how long that trip would take. It would probably take 1 year to get to the speed of light, plus roughly 4 years of travel time, plus a year to decelerate? So 6 years? Rough guess. That's a 12 year round trip. Now of course relatively would say that this is impossible but I'm ignoring that.

 

[xBiffx]

Who else gets this?

You, me, and Gene. Unfortunately only two of us are left.

 

[BudAshes]

Neckbeard: I'm afraid I can't do that Dave. Oh and btw, your name is now Dave, Dave.
Markbnj: My name is not Dave, it's Mark.
Neckbeard: Dave, I see by our records you sold out the Federation to a Succubus tsk tsk tsk.
Markbnj: I'm not Dave!
Neckbeard: Well Dave, why don't you just have a seat over there?
Markbnj: I'm not Dave those aren't my records! WTF? :twisted:

lol @ neckbeard reference. Neckbeard as your AI would be the worst thing ever. "Neckbeard please activate the engines so we can avoid that asteroid coming right at us."
"I don't get it"
"NECKBEARD THERE IS NOTHING TO GET JUST TURN ON THE ENGINES TO AVOID THAT GIANT ROCK. "
"Why do you want to avoid the giant rock?"
"NECKBEARD YOU IDIOT JUST DO WHAT I SAY"
"I hear you dave but I just don't understand why you don't want to hit that rock. It looks like a perfectly nice rock to me."
"BECAUSE WE WILL ALL DIE YOU MORON"
"oh"
KABOOM Ship explodes on said asteroid.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Who else gets this?

I do.

Or if you prefer the more recent incarnation:

 

[disappoint]

The pace of technological development is accelerating. we invented steam engine a little over 200 year ago, Integrated circuit or LSI was relatively unknown 50 years ago, We are already talking about hydrogen fuel cells and nuclear batteries.
Although to develop something like warp drive, I guess we will need to look more towards quantum physics. Some universities have started working towards those courses, I believe in 100 years or less inter planetary travel will be pretty common place.

It's extremely unlikely you'll have nuoc mam that doesn't stink in 100 years let alone FTL drive/warp drive or interplanetary travel for the common rabble.

 

[Paratus]

Here's a good article in what work NASA is doing.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-03/warp-factor

Got a friend who is doing a rotation in that group. We'll see what they come up with.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

The world is overpopulated. Think about the fact that billions of people want to become first world nations. That means all these people are going to want to use the same amount of resources we are using now. This isn't sustainable, forget food. I'm talking pollution, clean water, our oceans survival. We already have cancer epidemics our economy can barely support and it's not slowing down and we need more heavy metals, more oil and more energy every day. The oceans are filling up with plastic and waste ruining eco systems and killing keystone species. We know as the oceans go we go, and while nature can adjust most species usually die out in the process.

The world is not CLOSE to being overpopulated. Growth is sustainable and resources are not a problem. The only thing we will run out of is oil. We have unlimited sunshine, unlimited wind, unlimited ability to desalinate sea water and less than a third of all arable land is currently used for agriculture. Without converting a SINGLE acre more land into farmland it's estimated that the world could produce 5-10 times MORE food than is necessary to feed 9 billion people which is where the population is expected to plateau. And that's feed according to western standards of 2500 calories a day of actual food, not third world standards that currently apply to about half the population. Convert un-arable land to growth areas via hydroponics and the Earth could feed many more times that amount. Fish are sustainable through farming, meat is sustainable, EVERYTHING is sustainable and everything can be ramped up to double current production if necessary without straining anything. Except oil. And oil can be replaced with other energy sources. As long as the sun doesn't explode the earth is not in any danger of running out of anything unless WE SCREW UP. It's all doable with current technology and techniques.

 

[BudAshes]

The world is not CLOSE to being overpopulated. Growth is sustainable and resources are not a problem. The only thing we will run out of is oil. We have unlimited sunshine, unlimited wind, unlimited ability to desalinate sea water and less than a third of all arable land is currently used for agriculture. Without converting a SINGLE acre more land into farmland it's estimated that the world could produce 5-10 times MORE food than is necessary to feed 9 billion people which is where the population is expected to plateau. And that's feed according to western standards of 2500 calories a day of actual food, not third world standards that currently apply to about half the population. Convert un-arable land to growth areas via hydroponics and the Earth could feed many more times that amount. Fish are sustainable through farming, meat is sustainable, EVERYTHING is sustainable and everything can be ramped up to double current production if necessary without straining anything. Except oil. And oil can be replaced with other energy sources. As long as the sun doesn't explode the earth is not in any danger of running out of anything unless WE SCREW UP. It's all doable with current technology and techniques.

As I said food is the least of our worries. Toxicity and battles for resources are what matter. You could fit a trillion people on the planet and as long as they all lived in cubes and lived off drip tubes.

 

[radtechtips]

One of the dumbest things in star trek too. First contact is so retarded in every way. From the borgs logic on time travel to a dude making a warp capable space ship with scrap parts, this movie is pure stupidity.

I actually kind of liked the makeshift spaceship, built by the troubled alcoholic.

 

[disappoint]

50 years. Cochrane is still in preschool. Give him time.

Who else gets this?

Every nerd here gets it. So all of us.

Yes we all know who Cochrane is. He's the guy that got Worf's murder charges dropped with the "if it ain't on the ship you must acquit" sound bite. Or maybe he invented Worf drive, I dunno I get cornfused when I fire a laser at it. What? You don't expect me to nuke it in those ancient microwave ovens do you? AIN'T NOBODY GOTS TIME FO DAT!

 

[Markbnj]

Neckbeard: I'm afraid I can't do that Dave. Oh and btw, your name is now Dave, Dave.
Markbnj: My name is not Dave, it's Mark.
Neckbeard: Dave, I see by our records you sold out the Federation to a Succubus tsk tsk tsk.
Markbnj: I'm not Dave!
Neckbeard: Well Dave, why don't you just have a seat over there?
Markbnj: I'm not Dave those aren't my records! WTF? :twisted:

I think that computer fails the trustworthiness test.

 

[CrackRabbit]

Forget warp drive, we need to get the Impulse engines up and working first.
Interstellar travel is useless if we can't handle intra-solar system travel.

 

[Markbnj]

One of the dumbest things in star trek too. First contact is so retarded in every way. From the borgs logic on time travel to a dude making a warp capable space ship with scrap parts, this movie is pure stupidity.

Virtually every technology depicted in Star Trek was laughably stupid. Nothing could be stupider than the holodeck.

 

[irishScott]

One of the dumbest things in star trek too. First contact is so retarded in every way. From the borgs logic on time travel to a dude making a warp capable space ship with scrap parts, this movie is pure stupidity.

Someone call the whaaambulance.

In first contact, humanity has just finished WWIII, and when the Borg sphere starts orbital bombardment of the site the humans of the time mistake it for an attack from one of the ex-warring nation states; so clearly there's been significant technological developments if orbital, surface-bombardment weapons platforms were in common use.

"Scrap parts" then are not "scrap parts" now. Hell nowadays we put 4-function calculators on key-chains and give them away to people who likely throw them away. Think that would have been done 50 years ago?

 

[xBiffx]

Virtually every technology depicted in Star Trek was laughably stupid. Nothing could be stupider than the holodeck.

I think the transporter takes the cake on that one.

 

[Fritzo]

Even a Warp 1 drive would require multi-generational spaceships for trips to the nearest stars. You would presumably accelerate to Warp 1 at 1G and then have to decelerate at 1G back to zero. Someone do the math on Alpha Centairi B and tell me how long that trip would take. It would probably take 1 year to get to the speed of light, plus roughly 4 years of travel time, plus a year to decelerate? So 6 years? Rough guess. That's a 12 year round trip. Now of course relatively would say that this is impossible but I'm ignoring that.

Warp drives work by stretching space in front of you and compressing space in back of you. Your effective acceleration in this case is 0.

 

[Fritzo]

Virtually every technology depicted in Star Trek was laughably stupid. Nothing could be stupider than the holodeck.

Yeah...stupid smart phones and medical scanners and translation software and and GPS and space probes and aluminum oxynitride (transparent aluminum) and directed energy weapons...all of which had their inspiration taken from Star Trek.

 

[wirednuts]

i think we should figure out how to communicate faster then the speed of light before we try to travel it.

 

[IronWing]

I have an idea to test ftl communications. Let's try it out.

Spoiler

Taylor Swift has a bun in the oven.

Edit: It worked!!! It worked!! Check out post #3! Yes!!