Toward an FTL propulsion system

Here is one of NASA's technical papers supporting the recent announcement by Harold ("Sonny") White from NASA's Johnson Space Center Propulsion Laboratory that he is developing an Faster-Than-Light (FTL) space propulsion system. Below that are further details from technology bloggers and the UK Daily Mail newspaper. A special article in Popular Science magazine on this topic just arrived in our subscription copy today (April 2013 issue).

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015936_2011016932.pdf

http://www.tgdaily.com/space-features/66234-ftl-drive-is-feasible-says-nasa-scie...

http://io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-build-its-very-first-warp-drive

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2204913/Nasa-breakthrough-suggest...

Wow. This could (possibly) herald a very different future!

Great post Indybooks! I hope someone interviews Kaku about it so we get another perspective. I remember in one of his videos where he is interviewed about science fiction he mentions the above but at that time everyone was still hung up on amount of energy it would take {converting all of Jupiter's mass into energy as stated in one of the links}

Dug and everyone, it will apparently take some time to figure out and then test out this theorized FTL drive. Some technology bloggers have already started to wonder if it's some kind of doomsday machine (see i09 above) ... well, it's early days yet. Even if it eventually proves to have drawbacks, the theory itself may drive the development on further FTL theories.

The visitor that Whitley Strieber interviewed in the Penguin Books edition of "The Key," for example, said that the secret of FTL drive lies within the nature of gravity. That's fun to think about!

Here is the Popular Science magazine April 2013 update on these science theories:

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

According to Whitley Strieber on the Unknown Country website, this YouTube video shows that superconductors can be made to levitate in a magnetic field. Thus in the coldness of outer space, a spacecraft using this method could experience propulsion without energy use. One of the people on Unknown Country who viewed this video says that the method shown in this video is NOT magnetic levitation, which could be done in a schoolroom ... it is a completely different phenomenon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HHJv8lPERQ&feature=player_embedded

#6 Yep, they need to combine that with rail gun technology to make a cheap repeatable launch system for cargo to space - eliminate the first stage or more of contemporary rockets.

Here is an article about a Star Trek like radiation shield idea being developed by some scientists.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/159971-scientists-produce-star-trek-like-defl...

Um @Indybooks, Is this the same Whitley Strieber who was abducted by aliens?

On your #6

"...One of the people on Unknown Country who viewed this video says that the method shown in this video is NOT magnetic levitation, which could be done in a schoolroom ... it is a completely different phenomenon.". Huh?

One of the people I once met on a Bus said "he had discovered perpetual motion, but the PTB surpressed it and sent him to a Mental Hospital..."

I thought this was a science group.

I am sure that LT has many 'crackpot' groups. Why pollute us?

Guido.

ETA. I do rather like 'scientification' discussions on FTL, but when people like Strieber are used as 'references' I get mad. Sorry if I was a bit sharp.
Just rewatched #6's video. Quantum levitation. Interesting. I wonder how the energy budget works.
Not sure how it related to FTL.

Has anyone read the July 2014 book Imagine if Einstein was wrong? It presents a mathematical proposal for alternatives to Einstein's relativity theory. ISBN is 978-1-4969-2403-2. Here's the Barnes and Noble link: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/imagine-if-einstein-was-wrong-phil-bouchard/1119...