VERGE EXPLORATION

Warp Drive

Another possibility on interstellar travel, are starships that utilize Alcubierre's warp drive. In this theory, a starship warps space, expanding space behind it and contracting space ahead of it, so as to propel it away from its start and pull it towards its destination by spacetime itself. This concept of manipulating space-time is based on Einstein's General Theory of Relativity which states gravitational fields cause time-space to be warped.

So just how would a warp drive work? Imagine you have just set off from one space station in a modest rocket ship, on your way to another space station several light-years away. Now imagine turning on a device that warps the space around you, stretching out the space behind you and compressing the space in front of you. Now the space station that was right behind you is now light years away, while the station that was an impossible distance away just moments ago is now close enough to reach using your conventional rockets. And, at no point would you have approached the speed of light thus preserving Einsteins theory.

Now you may be saying, sure maybe we can use natural warps in time-space, but actually manipulate, bah humbug, impossible. Yet the universe itself is expanding, and relative to the other end of the universe we are already moving at nearly the speed of light. so if we are already almost moving at the speed of light, with some tricky manipulation of gravity fields around the ship, we can manipulate space and time itself to work for us.