Faster-than-Light Travel for Space Exploration: Can We Do It?

Most people by now have heard about "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" - two of the most influential sci-fi franchises of all time. Thanks to these two, the world is now familiar with the term "warp speed" and "light speed.

The premise of these traveling methods is that they allow people to travel across the vastness of space at faster-than-light speeds to reach their destination without advancing their age.

However, is it entirely possible for humanity to turn science fiction into reality, just like what we did to "Star Trek's" communicator?

Light speed - What It Is And How It Is Naturally Achieved

Before we discuss if light speed is possible, we must first discuss what it is and how it naturally occurs in space.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, light speed is how fast light travels in space to reach a certain object - a fundamental constant in nature as it serves as the single limiting velocity in the universe.

When measured, light travels through space at a speed of 186,000 miles per second or 300,000 kilometers per second.

Thanks to this, Einstein was able to use light speed to solve his General Theory of Relativity with his famous equation, E = mc^2. In this equation, the speed of light (c) serves as a constant of proportionality, linking the formerly contrasting concepts of mass (m) and energy (E).

As a result, the speed of light is constant and absolute, and objects approaching light speed will go through an increase in their inertial mass, resulting in them requiring more to accelerate further, per Universe Today.

Without all the science-y jargon, here's what that all means: the speed of light never changes, and anything that approaches the speed of light will see its mass increase to infinity, as per Einstein's Theory of Relativity. That's pretty much it.

Is Light Speed Possible?

Unfortunately, with our current understanding of science and physics, even an artificial object can't reach or exceed the speed of light.

In fact, the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, is the only artificial object that can accelerate protons as close to the speed of light as humanity will ever get using the technology available to us now.

However, that doesn't mean scientists are not trying to discover ways for us to one day travel at faster-than-light speeds like in science fiction.

Science Focus mentioned in its article that theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre used Einstein's theory to create a framework that allows for faster-than-light travel within our understanding of the laws of physics. This effort resulted in Alcubierre creating the first scientific theory of the warp drive, which is hugely inspired by Dr. Erin Macdonald's vision of the warp drive for "Star Trek."

Macdonald envisions "Star Trek's" warp drive as a bubble or "time-space deformation" generator that defies the laws of physics, allowing spacecraft to travel across space using faster-than-light speeds.

NASA scientist Harold "Sonny" White then released an internal feasibility report in May 2020 that discusses the technology that would allow humanity to utilize faster-than-light speeds based on Alcubierre's theory from the point of view of "early mission planning."

However, actually creating a warp drive based on Alcubierre's theory is harder than it sounds, as an object needs more energy than the Sun or even the entire Galaxy can produce to create the "deformation" needed to travel at such speeds. Nevertheless, a revisit to Alcubierre's equation found that some of the strict energy requirements outlined in his theory could be reconsidered, revising the calculations needed to figure out how much energy is needed to create the "deformation."

Dr. White then had the assistance of astrophysicists Richard Obousy and Aram Saharian, who co-authored the study "Casiimir energy and the possibility of higher dimensional manipulation." According to the study, a warp drive based on Alcubierre's theory could be created with the help of a negative vacuum energy roughly equal to the size of Jupiter, which, while mathematically possible, is not achievable with humanity's current technology.

Dr. White then went through the process and found that the "shell-thickness parameter" of the warp bubble could still be thickened to further reduce the energy requirement. A thicker shell-thickness parameter would allow a spacecraft to achieve speeds ten times faster than the speed of light.

Based on these findings, Dr. White mentioned in his seminal paper "Warp Field Mechanics 101" concludes that an Alcubierre Warp Drive was not just mathematically possible but plausible.

In summary, faster-than-light speed is possible, but the limits of our technology and our understanding of physics are limiting our capabilities to take us to the stars.