Shallow Water

...runs faster? I don't know. Fridays are like that. But speaking of faster, let's chat about faster for a bit. Faster than what? How about everything? People are certainly hung up over the speed of light, as I mentioned before.

Of course there is a good reason to be concerned about the speed of light. Even if we were able to engineer something to go that fast, it would still take 4 plus years to get someplace exciting. More than a long bus ride, hmm? Still, we need to get out there and the longer it takes us, the more we need to work on the problem. If you don't believe that the space program is the most important thing in our collective lives, then you really haven't given it any thought. It's a little less important than breathing, but not by much.

Now we get to the rough stuff - speed. I'm not sure what it's going to take for us to build a starship NOW. I am fairly sure that we won't turn out a dozen a week any time soon. And even at the speed of light, our ability to communicate with our people will be limited to the speed of a ship, just like it was in the days of sailing ships and pirates.

We need to find that one good answer that lets us do it. We have to get at least close to the speed of light, if not faster than. We've got to move a significant number of people somewhere else. Let's look at options...

Rockets, chemical or rubber-band: let's not get silly. They stopped being relevant around 50 years ago.

Nuclear: there's some room for consideration there, but the window is closing for a pure reaction engine.

Plasma jet: still has some legs and if coupled with a mass-ramjet, has its good points. And if we can get a fusion reactor running for power, it could the job for now.

Solar sail: I know that people love it, but I am yet to be convinced it's practical. Especially when you're ten lightyears away from home and something traveling like a b.o.o.h. in the wrong direction vaporizes a twenty acre hole in your sail.

All those have one very important thing going for them - they're all past the theory stage. We might not do them with off-the-shelf parts, but darn close to it. The next group makes things, as I said, 'rough'. They will take some theoretical advances.

Anti-gravity drive: or is it a gravity drive? We'll find out as soon as we figure out what gravity is. It is far and away a favorite- clean, quiet, and environmentally responsible.

Anti-matter: what can I say? It's the Rolls-Royce of drives. One thing they never mention is how you apply all that raw power to propulsion. Oh, well...

Warp drive: Hmmm... it solves so many issues that it's a shame it doesn't exist (yet?). It makes FTL travel possible, which is a huge plus. Probably needs anti-matter for a power source.

And that is as far as it goes. Is anyone even working on any of this? If not, there must be an awfully large number of people out there with faith in a benificent deity who will happily protect fools and faithful alike. If someone wants to kick a plasma drive around the chat room, let me know. I have a few uninformed ideas I'd throw into the fray.