# NASA May Have Invented a Warp Drive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 24, 2016, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive/744061 "2016-01-24T04:22:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive/744061/1 "2016-01-24T04:22:04Z")
**NASA May Have Invented a Warp Drive.** > **[NASA May Have Invented a Warp Drive - IGN](https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/04/28/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive)** > > The EmDrive propulsion device shows signs of producing a warp field. But don’t get to happy star trek fans here!!:eek::eek::eek: warp drive or alcubierre drive would be very dangerous it would destroy plants and stars in it’s path!!! You need to be very careful about where you turn it off. According to the theory, a warp drive powered vessel would accumulate exotic energy and particles from the fabric of space-time. These particles and energy would be stored in the center point of the “warp field”, and build up continuously until the drive was powered down. When the drive is powered down, all of the stored energy and exotic particles would be release in the direction of travel, effectively creating a short lived pulsar. Any other ships, planets, space stations, in the path of the beam would be irradiated or incinerated. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive/744061/2 "2016-01-24T04:31:56Z")
**Moderator Action** Interesting, but I don’t see a question here. Moving thread from General Questions to Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS). ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive/744061/3 "2016-01-24T04:33:14Z")
There have been numerous threads on this. Here are a few, and some of them contain links to older ones: > **[Update on the EmDrive? Warp bubble speculated?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=755463)** > > We had a thread on the EmDrive and Cannae drive last year and the consensus on here at the time was that it would probably be down to experimenter error or otherwise fail to live up to its promise. There’s been a recent series of articles about... > **[EmDrive - why is it being tested?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=756039)** > > It is a bit technical to understand stuff about the EmDrive. But my question is how it came to be tested by the likes of NASA and others, and in layman’s terms. Yes I am all for setting aside laws, including physical laws when they gets in the way... > **[What's going to happen with this newfangled EM drive?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=763559)** > > New article today: http://www.sciencealert.com/independent-scientists-confirm-that-the-impossible-em-drive-produces-thrust Basically it’s saying another knowledgeable person has surprised himself by finding the thing actually works, for reasons he... That’s also a really bad article. If the Emdrive works at all, it isn’t a “warp drive”. At best, it may be an interesting way to produce ordinary thrust without a physical propellant. Maybe. ---
**Author:** ![HeXen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@HeXen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeXen)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive/744061/4 "2016-01-24T04:49:22Z")
Old news but I think this summed it all up. > [@](#): > > “While conceptual research into novel propulsion methods by a team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston has created headlines, this is a small effort that has not yet shown any tangible results. NASA is not working on ‘warp drive’ technology.” Even if it works, it just means more thrust with less power but traveling space isn’t going to be very fast. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive/744061/5 "2016-01-24T09:18:57Z")
What do you mean by NASA is working on better warp drive technologies. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive/744061/6 "2016-01-24T10:47:39Z")
The Alcubierre drive is different from the EM drive. So far, the Alcubierre is a far more experimental and crazy idea. They haven’t really proven they can create the effect beyond measurement error on either of them, as far as I know. They’re still interesting, but I haven’t seen any new news pertaining to them recently. ---
**Author:** ![HeXen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@HeXen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeXen)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive/744061/7 "2016-01-24T22:40:15Z")
With NASA’s pathetic budget, it’s going to be an extremely slow evolution in experimenting ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive/744061/8 "2016-01-24T23:01:46Z")
> [@HeXen](#): > > With NASA’s pathetic budget, it’s going to be an extremely slow evolution in experimenting I’m not sure what you mean here. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive/744061/9 "2016-01-24T23:18:16Z")
> [@](#): > > The Alcubierre drive is different from the EM drive. So far, the Alcubierre is a far more experimental and crazy idea. Actually, the Alcubierre drive doesn’t violate any known laws of physics, but the EM drive, as claimed, does, at a very fundamental level. The only problem with the Alcubierre drive is that it requires a sort of matter that almost certainly doesn’t exist. The EM drive, meanwhile, shows results so minuscule that they’re almost certainly just experimental error, and all that remains is determining the precise nature of the error. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive/744061/10 "2016-01-25T01:54:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Actually, the Alcubierre drive doesn’t violate any known laws of physics, but the EM drive, as claimed, does, at a very fundamental level. The only problem with the Alcubierre drive is that it requires a sort of matter that almost certainly doesn’t exist. The EM drive, meanwhile, shows results so minuscule that they’re almost certainly just experimental error, and all that remains is determining the precise nature of the error. Meh, improbable theory drive or drive that requires nonexistent matter? Which is less likely would probably depend on who you ask, and on what day. Either way they’ll be talking about stuff they don’t understand well, and you probably might as well have asked what proportion of angels can really play heavy metal guitar vs. the group who just play folk. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-may-have-invented-a-warp-drive/744061/11 "2016-01-25T16:43:08Z")
> [@HeXen](#): > > With NASA’s pathetic budget, it’s going to be an extremely slow evolution in experimenting > [@sweat209](#): > > I’m not sure what you mean here. It means that the Luddites in Congress have butchered NASA’s budget so badly that it’s doubtful it will ever recover. The reason the space station cost so much was that every time NASA got ready to build it, Congress would fuck them over and they would have to go back to the drawing board. If Congress had left them alone, we’d have a better space station and it would have been at about one third the cost.