Warp Drives May Come With a Killer Downside

An anonymous reader writes "Alcubierre warp-drives (theoretically) allow rocket ships to travel faster than the speed of light, while staying within the rules of Einstein's general theory of relativity. New research (PDF) has shown that as such warp-drives zip through the universe, they gather up particles and radiation, releasing them in a burst as the warp-drive slows down. This is bad news for family and friends waiting for the ship to arrive, as this intense burst will fry them."

Comments

Re:This is why you drop to impulse in a solar syst

[mcgrew]

If this is our biggest barrier to developing one tomorrow, then why don't we have these already?

Because nobody has figured out exactly how one would warp space, only that it's theoretically possible.

Re:Fermi Paradox

[quacking duck]

After reading the "bad news" I immediately thought of how even Star Trek had already addressed this: the Bussard collectors at the front of all warp drives are designed to scoop up interstellar particles and radiation for fuel replenishment.

Obviously Trek is a work of fiction, but the collectors are based on actual theoretical Bussard ramjets/ramscoops proposed in 1960.

And yet 52 years later, with Star Trek providing at least speculative options and real-life regenerative braking on electric and hybrid cars around us, the write-up didn't even think to speculate about somehow collecting and using that energy.