As if humanity required more proof that Gene Roddenberry was in fact a time traveling alien sent to earth to facilitate our graduation from primate status, physicists suggest a space-time bending warp drive may be more feasible than previously thought. Furthermore, several scientists have already begun testing the concept on a small scale.
A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre; however, subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy.Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially bringing the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science.
An Alcubierre warp drive would involve a football-shape spacecraft attached to a large ring encircling it. This ring, potentially made of exotic matter, would cause space-time to warp around the starship, creating a region of contracted space in front of it and expanded space behind.
Meanwhile, the starship itself would stay inside a bubble of flat space-time that wasn’t being warped at all.