http://io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will...rst-warp-drive

my response to the first video is this. the idea of a donut shaped energy field that can compress space time and then decompress it for near unlimited speeds while using an oscillation effect to maintain or increase said speed sounds simple/practical for use.

http://www.universetoday.com/93882/w...ller-downside/

2nd video throws the dark side of warp travel in our face. it essentially describes the side effect that this donut field would gather stray particles along its path where it would be released as a energy blast that would spread in ALL directions. this would basicly annihilate not only whatever is nearby but could destroy the spacecraft defeating the purpose of the trip. now a previous post gave a half answer to this problem, deflector shields would have to be used to avoid the ship destroying itself but it doesnt solve the issue of the outbound portion of the energy blast. the missing piece to the puzzle would be a modified form of bussard collector/ramscoop that would somehow gather the now energized particles to reduce the energy cost of using the "warp field" and reduce the resulting exit blast.

taking my idea into perspective this would render the enter area of star trek lore from cochranes (suicidal) phoenix flight up to the earth's first shield system as the era's next big weapon of mass destruction. the war potential of simply exiting warp speed would be the most horrifyingly efficient method for genocidal conquest of the cosmos. simply exit at the right distance from the target and the energy released would incinerate an enemy fleet/ or planetary population with minimal effort.

i would love to hear other ideas regarding this from fellow trek fans!

yeah, maybe the can collect the energy that is getting stuck while travel at warp speed and put it to use. Like in a storage or maybe recharge the power source of the spacecraft. Surely there must be a way to use that energy and let it waste away. Maybe channel the energy to outer space.

Also the article that mentions about the down side of warp drive well the was posted in February and the other article was posted in November so the information is more up to date.

Maybe send an unmaned much larger "Cleaner" infront of the spacecraft to absorb the particles, and keep it going until it's a safe distance from whatever you like NOT to blow up. Or just keep it going forever...

yeah they should start of with a probe first obviously to see if the technology works plus what is the best communications systems we have atm? is it still radio, something for very long distance and real-time communication to the probe.

Yeah, the energy output would be immense. The whole purpose of the deflector dish in Trek was to sweep particles out of the way. It's entirely possible that a similar concept can be employed. There may also be ways to shunt particles through the warp donut so that their exit velocity matches their entrance velocity as the ship moves through space. Who knows? This is all pretty esoteric theoretical physics.

As far as long-range communication is concerned, we might be able to manage something using quantum entanglement. I don't think "subspace radio" is a thing, though.

Heim had some interesting theories that, if correct, would have provided some interesting methods for FTL travel and communication, but I think those have been mostly disproved at this point.

I'm taking notes, this will be greatly beneficial to my plans for galactic domination.

well according to the physicist who claims he has come up with a formula which would bring the the energy requirements down a lot. This came out last year but then they say it will be dangerous because all the energy will build up and destroy the ship but the other post says the opposite but all the information which has come out after that has not mentioned anything else about the down side of warp travel. That post is older than the other post so should we really take that in to consideration? I'm sceptical and will remain cautiously optimistic about all of this.

Quantum Entanglement might be a method for instantaneous communication, but it sounds like it would only work with colonized planets and ships. We can't communicate with an alien species unless we give them an entangled particle. Its not like a Ham Radio where we could converse with alien species that we haven't met yet. Wouldn't be too difficult to set up an interplanetary network with it by having each colony ship carrying an entangled particle with its pair on Earth. Although, if something happens to Earth, then the entire network is shut down.

I figure, most particles in the universe have some kind of charge, either positive or negative. I wonder if it would be possible to use magnetism to keep these particles out of the way of your warp bubble.

A magnetic field will move charged particles, but, unfortunately, will also draw them towards the ship at the poles. Lasers are also a no-go as, even if the photons could somehow get through the warp bubble, your ship is moving faster than they are and they'd just collect at the edge of the bubble. The same problem applies to anything else originating from the ship, really. Unless we can figure out some sort of anti-gravity projector to push the particles out of the way ahead of the bubble, I don't think there's a viable solution.