[Styxx]

If you want a realistic view on space travel, go read Flight of the Dragonfly.

[Stealth]

Originally posted by CP5670


I thought it was 26 or something?

you thought!?!?!?!?

[Stryke 9]

Subspace exists below our dimensions. Hyperspace exists about our dimensions

...There being either a "below" or "above" in dimensional terms, or even anywhere without a detectable gravity pulling towards a single point...

Anyway- Yes, it actually basically explains in the FS Bible that "subspace" was just a less tired phrasing of "hyperspace"- "hyperspace" is the sort of thing Flash Gordon would use to get around, "subspace" is a name fit for a Shivan.

FTL's kinda rough to theorize on, because it's ENTIRELY theoretical. We know nothing about it, and have no capacity to know anthing about it. The (very) little data we have on wormholes and black holes could just as well be equipment malfunctions, and isn't conclusive in the first place. The whole "parallel universes" thing is best treated as a myth until evidence suggests otherwise, just like anything that doesn't stem from a natural deduction from the known- if you need books and books of obscure theoretical mathematics to justify it, it probably ain't true.

BTW: THis is pretty related- why hasn't NASA tried an EM catapult to launch ships yet? Is there something wrong with the theory?

[Tiara]

Originally posted by Stryke 9

BTW: THis is pretty related- why hasn't NASA tried an EM catapult to launch ships yet? Is there something wrong with the theory?

For one the catapult has to be buil in space. If you try to catapult a ship from the surface, well... . And since we are still a long way from having multiple multifuctional space stations (at least decades away) I don't see that happening anytime soon.

[Sesquipedalian]

If anyone is interested in reading the input of someone who really does know what he's talking about on the issue of wormholes and such (unlike the rest of us in here), try this page from Berkeley.  Its primary subject is actually time travel, but the section on wormholes, and more specifically those which do not have an event horizon to cross (and are thus free of the matter-rending, time-stopping effects associated with them), are very pertinent.

Basically, all we need to do(!) is find a way to grab one of these things which are speculated to occur quite frequently over very infinitesimal distances for very infinitesimal times (rather like those described in the FS2 Tech Room) and then pour negative energy matter(!) into them to stabilise them against the forces that would otherwise collapse them.  Of course, both of these things are not exactly easy to do...

Coincidentally, I just read an article about this same subject today in Scientific American, and it said basically the same stuff.

So reading this, we see that the jump drives of FreeSpace are actually negative energy emitters!

[Sesquipedalian]

On further reflection, something else becomes clear regarding FS jump nodes (assuming they are traversable wormholes, which they appear to be).  That jumping through a node gets you to a new system before light does is obvious, and thus there is a sort of relativistic time travel involved.  However, jumping through a wormhole would not produce the differently-aged-twins phenomenon in and of itself.*  The time lag situation would only arise if 1) the positions of the jump nodes moved in relation to each other, or 2) one of the mouths was situated in a much stronger gravitational field than the other.

If the two mouths (i.e. FS "nodes") of the conduit moved relative to one another, a time lag would occur between the two points proportional to that movement.  However, this time lag would be no more significant than that between, say, Sol and Delta Serpentis now (and that isn't much, since they aren't moving all that quickly in relation to each other).  It is worth noting that jumps to systems nearer or farther from galactic centre would exhibit more time lag, since systems nearer are rotating around the centre faster than those further away.

Since FS jumpnodes are naturally occuring and can't be towed around like those in the paper linked above, the only other important question is where the mouths of the wormhole are in relation to their stars.  If there is a significant difference between the gravitational forces in operation at the points of space where the mouths open, a time lag will result in proportion to that difference.  So if one node opens at a point near the outer edges of its host system, and the other close up to the star of its host system, a significant time lag will result.

Given the way jump nodes lie in FS (i.e. non-humanly moveable and never very close to the host suns), the time lag effects in the FS universe would never be very considerable. (Indeed the effects across a single system might be greater than between systems!)

*Since space is collapsed to a minimum in the wormhole, the distance traversed is short, requiring no near-lightspeed travel, and thus producing little more time lag than a trip to the corner store.

[Stryke 9]

Tiara: Being ground-based is the whole point of a catapult. It's a much chaper way to launch things than we currently use.

[StratComm]

by EM catapult I assume you mean a maglev of some kind.  Nasa had plans to build one of those in the Rockies if I remember correctly, but couldn't come up with enough funding to even put it on the drawing board.

[Stryke 9]

Sort of a maglev, sort of a railgun. I don't know what kind of funding it'd need, after all, I'm building one in my garage, and it's not too expensive. Some parts are tough to find (1/100 second delay devices of some sort), but you'd think NASA could arrange it.

[StratComm]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Sort of a maglev, sort of a railgun. I don't know what kind of funding it'd need, after all, I'm building one in my garage, and it's not too expensive. Some parts are tough to find (1/100 second delay devices of some sort), but you'd think NASA could arrange it.

Not when it's 10 miles long, have to be bored through mountains to keep it straight, and require at least one nuclear power plant to operate.  There is a big difference between launching spark plug tips from a home-made railgun and hurling a craft into space, and with the budget crunch NASA is under, I doubt such devices would take high priority.  I hear the navy is working on a nice little rail gun though, capable of firing 1000 miles with an accuracy of within like 10 yards...

[Stryke 9]

Wouldn't suprise me, without much recoil at all you can get damn accurate.

Spark plugs? What's the fun in that? Juice cans, now...

[beatspete]

Originally posted by StratComm


Not when it's 10 miles long, have to be bored through mountains to keep it straight, and require at least one nuclear power plant to operate.

They build tunnels for railways and roads through mountains... what would the difficulty be, just find somewhere relatively flat.  I think the expense would be justified, even if nasa alone cant afford it, it would be a huge step for the human race - cheap and efficient transport to space would allow all sorts of things we can currently only dream of.

[NeoHunter]

What you all are discussing about reminds of an episode of Star Trek where the Enterprise follows a ship which rides on some energy that propels the ship to warp speed. Its like a surfer riding the waves at the beach.

Unfortunately, the ship was destroyed by the wave.